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More "Prattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an old farm-house, below where I sat, calling the cattle home. The barking of dogs sounded clear in different parts of the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below me. From a wooded slope, ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full of interest; men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproached any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... me first something about herself: that she was a petted and somewhat spoiled only daughter; something of an heiress, too, if one might judge from her prattle about charming and costly costumes and a rather reckless expenditure of pin-money; and that she was betrothed to Gerald Trent, of the great Boston firm of Trent and Sons, with the full consent and approval of all concerned. What life could be more serene? Young, fair, rich; a lover and ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... immeasurable tables for the banquet; and they deserved to be under the thraldom of such a task. When they were yet in flesh and blood, and ate the fruits of the earth, they were of that equivocal kind, who seem the friends of all men and yet are the friends of none; whose tongues continually prattle of the noble precepts of virtue, which they feel not in their hearts; who only abstain from evil because it is accompanied by danger, and from doing good because it requires courage and self-denial; who traffic with religion, and, like avaricious Jews, lay out their ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good. So you ought to have come." She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle about her own affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... grace of God to save us; he adds, 'I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel,' he bringeth them to the moral precept, to prove the sincerity of his good conversation by (Acts 20:33). And when men have juggled what they can, and made never such a prattle about religion; yet if their greatest excellency, as to the visibility of their saintship, lieth in an outward conformity to an outward circumstance in religion, their profession is not worth two mites. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... One Tongue, that will prattle Love, if you put the Heart in time (for they are Commodities I resolve shall go together) I have Youth enough to please a Lover, and Wit enough to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... than she was accustomed to laugh at Lady Harriet Beaton's comic stories. This child's prattle was amusing to her. ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... of fashionable resort, where the fine folk of Europe now bathe, and flirt, and prattle politics or scandal so cheerfully during the summer solstice—cool and comfortable Ostend—was throughout the sixteenth century as obscure a fishing village as could be found in Christendom. Nothing, had ever happened there, nobody had ever lived there, and it was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and a nation Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed, And a gospel of war and damnation, Has not empire a right to be proud? Fools prattle and tattle Of freedom, reason, right, The beauty of duty, The loveliness ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to face with the idea of the Builder and Sustainer of it all showing Himself in a burning bush, exhibiting His hinder parts, or behaving in other familiar ways ascribed to Him in the Jewish Scriptures, the incongruity must appear. Did this credulous prattle of the ancients about miracles stand alone; were it not associated with words of imperishable wisdom, and with examples of moral grandeur unmatched elsewhere in the history of the human race, both the miracles and their 'evidences' would ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the hundred pounds, I couldn't fancy what the deuce and all he meant by such prattle. I was half afraid he might be having me on, as I have known him do now and again when he fancied he could get me. I fearfully wanted to ask questions. Again I saw the dark, absorbed face of the gipsy ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... his work was over, they would ramble o'er the lea, And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree, And ANNIE'S simple prattle entertained him on his walk, For public executions formed ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... wring from the little maiden one word of what she heard or saw, after she entered these mysterious and secluded apartments. The slightest question concerning Master Heriot's ghost, was sufficient, at her gayest moment, to check the current of her communicative prattle, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... it had been assumed that as soon as Dion went back to business in Austin Friars, No. 5 Little Market Street would receive its old tenants again, be scented again with the lavender, made musical with Rosamund's voice, made gay with the busy prattle ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... an oath, and never broken." Especially was Towandahoc attached to the Buckingham family, who ever treated him kindly, and to the little girl who played with his bow and arrows, and tried in her artless prattle to pronounce his name. Unbroken peace had hitherto prevailed between the red men and the pale faces, owing to the just and friendly treatment the natives had experienced; but symptoms of another spirit began now to appear. ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious. 1895 SHAKS.: Richard II., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture which always comes with nightfall on the equator was lapped up by the thirsty ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... only languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was served with toast ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, which he would draw after him as far as he could bend them, then letting them fly ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... husband of a fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Para. In a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... the result of notes taken during many years; for while he was thinking out the book he never neglected any amusing scraps of childish conversation or funny anecdotes about children which came to his notice. It is this fact which gives such verisimilitude to the prattle of Bruno; childish talk is a thing which a grown-up person cannot possibly invent. He can only listen to the actual things the children say, and then combine what he has heard into ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... are my bedside books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories. I don't heed them. It was ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the animal behaviour prattle of the learned head-master, it reveals, on the one hand, only the academic fondness for seizing upon high-sounding but empty phrases and using them to alarm the populace, and on the other hand, only the academic incapacity for observing facts correctly and reporting them honestly. The truth is, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... remained in jail, where brother William did all he could for their comfort. Betty went to see them sometimes, and brought me tidings. She was not permitted to enter the jail; but William would hold them up to the grated window while she chatted with them. When she repeated their prattle, and told me how they wanted to see their ma, my tears would flow. Old Betty would exclaim, "Lors, chile! what's you crying 'bout? Dem young uns vil kill you dead. Don't be so chick'n hearted! If you does, you vil nebber git ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... dumb? About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as we do not understand ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... laughed silently. She did not fear to confront these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends lounging in for an afternoon call. They spoke in a low, rapid tone, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... Joseph enjoyed every minute that he spent in Betsy Butterfly's company. And if at times she found his prattle a bit tiresome, she was too well-mannered ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... invariably met at the door with word that he was sleeping and did not wish to be disturbed. The first two times I believed Mrs. McGurk; after that—well, I know our doctor! So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle her unconscious good-bys to the man who had saved her life, I despatched her ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... posing, who have transformed Galatea into a woman of flesh and blood, animated by true womanly love for Pygmalion as the first man on whom her eyes alight. Sentiment of this kind, whether intended by the author or not, would scarcely harmonize with the satirical spirit of the play, and the innocent prattle which Miss Anderson gives us in place of it meets sufficiently well the requirements of the case dramatically, leaving the spectator free to derive pleasure from his sense of the beautiful, here so strikingly appealed to, from the occasionally audacious turns of the dialogue in relation to ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... from the very nature of the undertaking that it was practically limitless; that a bibliomaniac of so many years' experience could prattle on indefinitely concerning his "love affairs," and at the same time be in no danger of repetition. Indeed my brother's plans at the outset were not definitely formed. He would say, when questioned or joked about these amours, that he was in the easy position of Sam Weller ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... continued to prattle on. She had taken the girl's hand in hers, and was gently forcing her down on to a low stool beside her armchair. She was talking about Paul, and said something about Anne Mie, and then about the National Convention, and those beasts and ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... between his love to Christ and his love to Jenny Lavender. Stay—had he not? What was that faint something, without a name—a sort of vague uneasiness, which had seemed to creep over him whenever he had seen her during those months—a sense of incongruity between her light prattle and his own inmost thoughts and holiest feelings? It was so slight that as yet he had never faced it. He recognised now it was because his heart had refused to face it. And conscience told him, speaking loudly this time, that he must hold ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... knowingly whenever her city connections were alluded to; and therefore it was no wonder that in a short time the child forgot the friends she had loved, grew ashamed of the parents she had honoured, learnt to prattle on subjects of which she knew nothing, and to affect all the premature airs of a woman, with more than the usual ignorance of a child, as children are now ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... with a jerk and scanned the smoking peak, from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, and began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his faculties seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy laboring of the mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were a fractious child. When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made no protest, but followed me ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... It was too greedy. It rose up (as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery of mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class failed to ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... never to marry, his relations were ever clustering about him, paying the grossest adulation to a man, who, disgusted with mankind, received them with scorn, or bitter sarcasms. Something in my countenance pleased him, when I began to prattle. Since his return, he appeared dead to affection; but I soon, by showing him innocent fondness, became a favourite; and endeavouring to enlarge and strengthen my mind, I grew dear to him in proportion as I ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... joyously on, and the minister and child roamed about amid the green things of the earth. All the loveliest haunts of that pleasant spot had echoed the grave, but gentle tones of the man of God, and the answering prattle of the little one who went tripping on by his side, sometimes thoughtful and earnest, sometimes merry and glad; and now the time had come for Mrs. Dunmore to return to her city residence, and they must bid their kind friends at the Rectory good-by. Mrs. Colbert sat with ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... this sort of thing went on without any interruption or any solitary thing out of the ordinary, Ailsa strolling along leisurely, with the boy's hands in hers and his innocent prattle running on ceaselessly; then, of a sudden, whilst they were moving along close to the Park railings and in the shadow of the overhanging trees, the figure of an undersized man in semi-European costume, but ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... axles, and even the quiet of the night encampment had been always more or less broken by the movement of unquiet sleepers on the wagon beds, or the breathing of the cattle. But here there was neither sound nor motion. Susy's prattle, and even the sound of his own voice, would have broken the benumbing spell, but it was a part of his growing self-denial now that he refrained from waking her even by a whisper. She would awaken soon enough to thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do? If that ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... not the talk of those fat agitators. Who prattle of Gladstone, or Churchill, or worse; Expect not your rights from professional praters, But manfully trust in your courage ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who would woo you, is more ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... child, "do all the people praise and call on him; why do the birds sing of the king; and why do the brooks always prattle his name, as they dance from the hills ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... did not confess it to myself, for I did not read my heart clearly. She was so young, and I had gray hairs! I persuaded myself that my love for her was like that of a father, and it was as a father that she cherished me. Ah, I passed many a delicious hour listening to her gentle prattle and her innocent confidences; I was happy when I saw her skipping about in my garden, picking the roses I had reared for her, and laying waste my parterres; and I said to myself that existence is a precious gift from God. My ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... same time, when she was sitting near him one day, listening to his prattle, her attention was drawn to his repeated and formidable hammering. On investigating into its object, she found that it was the continuation of the labour of many days, during which he had undermined the ground about the corner of the house, had entirely removed the corner-stone, and was zealously ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... of his oldest friends. We are sorry to say that Miss Thorndyke remains quite faithful to Captain Egerton, and goes so far as to refuse for his sake the rector of the parish, a local baronet, and a real live lord. There are endless pages of five o'clock tea-prattle and a good many tedious characters. Such novels as Scamp are possibly more easy to write than they are ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... pietists, sceptics obtuse Who Progress impede with crude cackle, Predestinate duffers of prattle profuse, Who the biggest world-problems would tackle; State-quacks, shouting Emperors, queer School-Board cranks, We'll give you our best benediction, And speed you at parting with heartiest thanks, If you'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... needed, But we managed someha, to pool throo'; An what we wor short we ne'er heeded, For that child fun us plenty to do. But we'd health, an we loved one another, Soa things breetened up after a while; An nah, that young lad an his mother, Cheer mi on wi' ther prattle an smile. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... Anything more blissful, gladsome, confident than her manner at first could hardly be described, but when it presently began to give way to something half shy, half appealing, almost tender,—when long silences and down-drooping lashes replaced the ceaseless prattle and frankly uplifted eyes,—then there was little room for doubt in Aunt Lawrence's mind that Flo had ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... and found the trout of the Yellowstone too easy a prey. Hallett Phillips himself, who managed the party loved to play Indian hunter without hunting so much as a fieldmouse; Iddings the geologist was reduced to shooting only for the table, and the guileless prattle of Billy Hofer alone taught the simple life. Compared with the Rockies of 1871, the sense of wildness had vanished; one saw no possible adventures except to break one's neck as in chasing an aniseed fox. Only the more intelligent ponies scented ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... a most intolerable monopolizer of the sex; in short, I have very little relish for any conversation but theirs: I love their sweet prattle beyond all the sense and learning in ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... is Fairy, wondrous wise, Sunshine laughing in her eyes, Who will prattle on for hours To the brooks and trees and flowers, To the birds and butterflies, To all creatures 'neath the skies, Understanding all they say In a curious sort of way! This is Fairy, wondrous ...
— Fairy's Album - With Rhymes of Fairyland • Anonymous
... modesty, as if forsooth no woman were modest but she who talketh with her chamberwoman or her laundress or her bake-wench; the which had Nature willed, as they would have it believed, she had assuredly limited unto them their prattle on other wise. It is true that in this, as in other things, it behoveth to have regard to time and place and with whom one talketh; for that it chanceth bytimes that women or men, thinking with some pleasantry or other to put another to the blush and not ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Coffee-House daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... to his liking—broiled kids' flesh, the red wine, the mushrooms sought through the early dew—his hunger and thirst so daintily satisfied, as he sat at table, like the first-born of King Theseus, with two wax-lights and a fire at dawn or nightfall dancing to the prattle and laughter, a bright child, never stupidly weary. At times his very happiness would seem to her like a menace of misfortune to come. Was there not with herself the curse of that unsisterly action? and not far from him, the terrible danger of the father's, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... replies:—'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think it fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such remarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle) as 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... amused at his significant performances. He turned his knowing head one way, and then another, now sidewise toward the fruits, and then obliquely up at me, as I sat enjoying the repast, enlivening his gestures with gentle prattle, and yet never making a single demonstration in the direction of my food. He put me in such good humor that I was ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... gardens, thy flowers and thy fruit. But most of all, thy gay and happy inmates, their glad and joyous hearts beating with generous emotions, and their countenances brightened with the welcome smile. Ah! how I seem to hear, as in time past I have heard, their lively prattle, or their merry laugh echoing across the lawn, or through the flower garden, or along the winding paths down the steep ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... little fellow ran on with his pretty prattle, I was diligently pursuing the lady and child of the specimens through the sketches. On every leaf I encountered them, ever changing, yet always the same. Here was the child by my side,—unquestionably the same; though now I looked in vain for the anxious mouth and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... prattle," said the beggar, clutching her fast, and listening as one all ear; and by this time the two knights were close at hand, the taller holding the dog, straining in a leash, while the good Grand Prior spoke. "How fares it with thee, friend? And ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stayed her hour and then obediently went away, in spite of Jed's urgent invitation to stay longer. She had asked a good many questions and talked almost continuously, but Mr. Winslow, instead of being bored by her prattle, was surprised to find how empty and uninteresting the shop seemed after ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of learning to dance as of learning to climb chimneys. Up to the age of seventeen, as I have shown, I had a great contempt for the female race, and when age brought with it warmer and juster sentiments, where was I?—I could no more dance nor prattle to a young girl than a young bear could. I have seen the ugliest little low-bred wretches carrying off young and lovely creatures, twirling with them in waltzes, whispering between their glossy curls in quadrilles, simpering with perfect equanimity, and cutting pas in that abominable ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... down gracefully—we could not withstand such prattle. The blacksmith turned in some beans, the boys from Manchester divided their scanty store of flour and bacon, I brought some salt, some sugar, and some oatmeal, and as the small man put it away he chirped ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class against class! That is the very parrot prattle that we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following example:- A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great number of servants, who were good for nothing, who, when he asked ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And, as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Mother's knee, Mother's knee: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Where I used to stand and prattle With my teddy-bear and rattle: Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee, They sure look good to me! It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day! I'm going back, Believe me, oh! I'm going back (I want to go!) I'm going back—back—on the seven-three To the dear old ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... but that their tattling would last a whole night, for there's hardly one of them who hath not at the least a hundred in their Budgets; but because it is high time that either the Dry or Wet-Nurse must go to swathe the child, they begin to break off and shorten their prittle-prattle. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... husband, for Naradia was almost hysterical and was willing to prattle on. Kahn Meng smiled tenderly. "Naradia," he continued, lowering his voice gently, "now that Peter Moore and I are at last together, will you excuse us? You must be exhausted, my dear—after this unpleasant affair. Will ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... and holding her fan of ostrich feathers in one hand, and her riding-mask of black velvet in the other, seemed anxious, by all the little coquetry practised on such occasions, to secure the notice of her companion, who sometimes heard her prattle without seeming to attend to it, and at other times interrupted his train of graver ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... couple of children," smiled Francisco on the evening before their departure. He was writing a novel, in addition to the other work for Carmony and Pixley. Sometimes it was hard work amid this unusual prattle by his usually sedate and silent parents. He tried to imagine the house without them; his life, without their familiar and cherished companionship.... It would be lonely. Probably he would rent the place, when his novel was finished ... ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... of this town, and mention Mrs. Hawker's name, not one person in ten would know there is such a being in their vicinity; the pele mele of a migratory population keeping persons of her character and condition in life, quite out of view. The very persons who will prattle by the hour, of the establishments of Mrs. Peleg Pond, and Mrs. Jonah Twist, and Mrs. Abiram Wattles, people who first appeared on this island five or six years since, and, who having accumulated what to them are relatively large fortunes, have launched out into vulgar and uninstructed finery, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,—flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, each with a piece of baggage. Other candles ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. The old servant, Marguerite, was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us. Gay and daring, she always knew how to make the men laugh with her prattle, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably so; but I would not let her have ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the young gentleman continued to prattle on—and meantime Jurgis was trembling with excitement. He might grab that wad of bills and be out of sight in the darkness before the other could collect his wits. Should he do it? What better had he to hope for, if he waited longer? But Jurgis had never committed a crime in his life, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... voices. What should he do, where should he go? To return to the yard and face the workmen was not to be thought of; if he went to his lodgings he would be called to dinner, and have to listen to the inane prattle of the school-master. That would be even more intolerable than this garish daylight, and these careless squads of men and women who paused in the midst of their laugh to turn and stare. Was there no spot ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... not that abject kind of poverty which stints the supply of food and fire in a house. It did not still the prattle of the children, or banish childish mirth from the dwelling. It was not the wolf at the door, but the wolf in the dim possible distance when the poor father, bent with age, would perhaps be unable to keep his little flock together. But the boy had never thought of such a ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the douanier is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... offended, and with reason, at the freedom of his speech; yet, his manner, was so much beyond anything I had been accustomed to for ease and pleasantness, that I soon forgave him, and when he encouraged me, began to prattle about my affairs, being only, with all my conceit, the silly lassie my mistress ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... portended something; and on "one vivid daybreak," half through April, Pompilia learned what that something was. . . . Going to bed the previous night, the last sound in her ears had been Margherita's prattle. "Easter was over; everyone was on the wing for Rome—even Caponsacchi, out of heart and hope, was going there." Pompilia had heard it, as she might have heard rain drop, thinking only that another day ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... seems to-day, this vacant prattle, Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West, Voice of the great arbitrament of battle That puts our temper ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... mistaken, for I must confess that the briny rivulets descended fast on my furrowed cheeks, she was such a winning Child, and had such a regard for me and always came and told me all her little things, and as she was now speaking, some of her little prattle was very taking, and the lively images of these things intrude themselves more into my mind than they should do, but there is allowance for moderate grief on such occasions. But when I am telling you of my own grief and sorrow, I know not what to say of ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... guide, we must infallibly conclude that the devotional instinct implanted in the heart of the entire human race has its correlative that the longing for immortal life which burns in the breast of man was not a brutal mistake, else concede Nature a poor blunderer and all this prattle anent her ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty, The jewel in my dower, I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; 55 Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... voice would sing idly or prattle with an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some bird or butterfly and ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Amy's happy prattle became intolerable. Tom hinted at things he had to attend to; things that must be done; and time was fleeting. But in vain—the girl chirped on. Tom thought, "Oh, hang her, ain't I ever going to get rid of her?" At last he must be attending to those things—and she said artlessly that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the strength to brave the iron will of her mother. Kind words and affectionate glances were the only expressions of sympathy she could safely indulge in. The men employed on the farm were always glad to hear her prattle; she was a great favorite with them. Mrs. Bellmont al- lowed them the privilege of talking with her in the kitchen. She did not fear but she should have ample opportunity of subduing her when they ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... enough to make sufficient penitence impossible. 'Tis true that in a few weeks the delirium was at an end. Oh, what were my sensations when the mist dispersed before my eyes? I called for my husband, but in vain!—I listened for the prattle of my ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, "That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fourth was never more heard of. In a few days after, the husband and father returned from Winchester (where he had been for salt) and instead of the welcome greeting of an affectionate wife, and the pleasing prattle of his innocent children, was saluted with the melancholy intelligence of their fate. It was enough to make him curse the authors of the outrage, and swear eternal enmity to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... "You'll soon get accustomed to me," he said, brightening—"won't mind my merry prattle any more 'n the song ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... contentedly seated themselves on the bank to wait for a cloud, while old Robert proceeded to consult his fly-book. Neither of them seemed in a very talkative mood; indeed, when you are in front of a Highland river, with its swift-glancing lights, its changing glooms and gleams, its continual murmur and prattle, what need is there of any talk? Talk only distracts the attention. And this part of the stream was especially beautiful. They could hardly quarrel with the sunlight when, underneath the clear water, it sent interlacing lines of gold chasing one another across the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... sensitiveness. "One favour I would request of you, that is, that you should come to learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every little thing, and remember that eagles do not prey on flies. Enough! I know that you will laugh at my prattle; but I do not care; Nature has made me so, and I ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Sarah's prattle with only half an ear, adding a word now and then to keep her tongue going, till another dance was called. Nelse Baker asked Sarah to be his partner, and she rose. Finding himself alone, Westerfelt got up. As he did so, he caught another ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... you would when I got to this point. You people who prattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exact meaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is very vague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity ever dreamed up stated that things fell at such and such ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... excite our sympathy, we should remember that we likewise are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten. ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... Masnavi of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi (13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... you're rich; I always did enjoy the prattle of children, but I can't fool away any more time on you—so run ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... mother's mortuary prattle with a face from which no impatience of it could be inferred, and Mr. Ferris made no comment on what was oddly various in character and manner, for Mrs. Vervain touched upon the gloomiest facts of her history with a certain impersonal statistical interest. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... Widewood. Was it, she wondered, the noble fear that he might subject her to those social rumors that are so often all the more annoying because only premature? Ah, if he could but know how lightly she regarded such prattle! But she would not tell him, even in impersonal verse. On the contrary, she contributed to the Presbyterian Monthly—a non-sectarian publication—those lines—which caught one glance of so many of her friends and escaped ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... girl, in making her very marked advances, had been governed by the unwavering instinct which always guided her choice of companions, the old man, for his part, could not but find refreshment, after his long, solitary voyage, in the pretty Tuscan prattle of the child. Most Italians love children, and the Count Giovanni Battista Allamiraviglia appeared to be no ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... themselves on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children knew what the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... sound rose from it and seemed to float and hover over it like a weird, invisible, acoustic canopy. Three hundred voices, men's, women's and children's, rose and fell, rose and fell—at first in a medley of scoffings, laughter, sullen murmurs, earnest dispute and children's prattle—a strange composite sound indeed! But as the minutes passed and the mass moved on and stopped as the Flopper paused to rest, and moved on and stopped and moved on again, gradually this changed, very ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. As I heartily detest the whole race, I determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable Miss B—came in. As I never meet her without experiencing a heartfelt pleasure, I stayed and talked to her, leaning over the back of her chair, and did not perceive, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... and shores were firmer— The blue sea over the bright sand roll'd; Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur, Sheen of silver and glamour of gold— And the sunset bath'd in the gulf to lend her A garland of pinks and of purples tender, A tinge of the sun-god's rosy splendour, A tithe of his ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... to this prattle. His eyes were on the pigeons cleaving the air with short, graceful flights. Presently he felt the soft touch of baby curls against his hand, and little Bug had fallen asleep with his drooping head on ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... they in all the respects over which man has control! On the one hand the air is vocal with the mingled tumult of a vast and prosperous population. Every hillside smiles with an abundant harvest, every valley shelters a thriving village, the click of a busy mill drowns the prattle of every rivulet, and all the multitudinous sounds of business denote happy activity in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... more, but I have grown stingy. The minutes are my gold-pieces. (Takes her hand.) When I hold your hand in mine, I am happy. Before I cared for you, I did not see the sun shining, and now when it rains, all the drops prattle ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, and turned to me as the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... on whatever befall, the good do not prattle, longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... then that suffices amply for their enjoyment. Mrs. Wriothesley, triumphant in her schemes, chatted gaily with Mr. Cottrell, who was Sybarite enough to know that the discussion of the fish salad that he was then engaged upon, accompanied by the prattle of a pretty woman and irreproachable champagne, was about as near Elysium as a man of his years and prosaic temperament could expect to arrive at. He had had some conversation with his hostess on the way home. They had both arrived at the ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... that Meredith could do, and after his notorious effort to shift the subject he could do very little, the light prattle ran on about Helen Sherwood and Brainard Macauley. Tom abused himself for his wild notion of cheering his visitor with these people who had no talk, and who, if they drifted out of commonplace froth, had no medium to float them unless they sailed the currents, of local ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... fence with a child's prattle. She might have amused herself by encouraging this chatterbox to go through the list of their acquaintances, and pick out a goodly choice of suitors. She might have encouraged her to give expression to her profound ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... He lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had had a trying evening. What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed his feet from the mantelpiece, and wriggled himself sideways, so that he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his admiration ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... they, but they hear not," may be said of all the world. Tragedies and comedies go on continually before us which we neither see nor hear; cries of distress and prattle of infants, songs of love and screams of war, alike fall upon deaf ears, while we calmly discuss the last book or the news from Borriboo-lah-Gha, as completely oblivious as if all this stirring life did ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... lag heavily on her hands; but it appeared to her now that these interminable days of vacation would never come to an end. She passed one of them with Edith and Rufus Malcome, and this was by far the most insupportable of any. "She loved Edith dearly," she said; "but could not endure the childish prattle and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... empty church at the end of springtime, crowds passing outside, a desolate man behind a closed door, and a little child, with the face of an angel, sitting alone in a carven pew. He could hear her answer him in her childish prattle, could feel her cool little hand slip into his as she asked about the lonely man within. Then he remembered the kiss. The floods dried up. Mark's sorrow was beyond ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... the principal courts of Europe; knew what a handful of gentlefolks call "the World"; had experienced the honeyed words of courtiers, the misty nothings of diplomatists, and the innocent prattle of ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Donato in her arms, and laughed silently. She did not fear to confront these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends lounging in for an afternoon call. They spoke in a low, rapid ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... his head. "It isn't at all what I mean. Now cut out the artless prattle and let me find some sense in this history stuff—if ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... her sweet face. But he couldn't help his ears from hearin' the reasonable, eloquent words of earnest and womanly wimmen, so full of good sense and truth and justice that no reasonable person could dispute 'em, and when he contrasted all this with the sneerin' face, the sarcastic egotistic prattle of Maud, the veil dropped from his eyes, and he ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... tedious to set down accurately the charming prattle of the lovers, for tones and looks and gestures that cannot be rendered alone gave it significance. Valentin went back with Pauline to her own door, and returned with as much happiness in his heart as mortal man ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... seemed to him as if he could no longer remain idle listening to a strong man's childish prattle, the eastern heavens were lighted by a dull glow, which increased steadily until he could see the horse feeding on the dry bunch-grass an hundred yards away, and his long vigil was nearly ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... even in the dusk. It was evident that speech was difficult, as she added in a muffled tone: "It must be kept secret—Rhodian sailors—thank the gods, it is still very doubtful—it cannot, must not be true—and yet-the prattle of that zither-player, which has filled the multitude with joyous anticipation, is abominable—the great ones of the earth are often most sorely injured by those who owe them the most gratitude. I know ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... face; quitting the interchange of wit, the society of the Townshends, the Walpoles, the Williamses, the Edgecumbes; all the jovial, keen wisdom of Gilly, and Dick, and Horace, and Charles, as they called one another, for the meaningless prattle, the merry laughter of this half-English, half-Italian child, It redeems Selwyn in our eyes, and it may have done him real good: nay, he must have felt a keen refreshment in this change from vice to innocence; and we understand ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... sought to drown the consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... and modern din, another spirit breathed upon him,—a spirit of green woods and blue waters, the freshness of May mornings, the prattle of tender infancy, the gambols of young lambs on the hill-side. From his childhood, Poetry walked hand in hand with Painting, and beguiled his loneliness with wild, sweet harmonies. Bred up amid the stately, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... guessed her husband's disappointment, and, though she longed for a word of admiration, or at least of wondering attention, for her square-rigged petticoat, she thought best to be content with the excited prattle of her maid, a young bond-servant bought off the Nancy Jane the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Indian-like, listening with respectful attention whenever his companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, which he would draw ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children knew what the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... there are, though I believe them not, Who say you meddle in affairs of state: That you presume to prattle like a busy-body, Give your advice, and teach the lords o' the council What fits ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... hand the air is vocal with the mingled tumult of a vast and prosperous population. Every hillside smiles with an abundant harvest, every valley shelters a thriving village, the click of a busy mill drowns the prattle of every rivulet, and all the multitudinous sounds of business denote happy activity in every branch ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... voice floated up from the pastures of an old farm-house, below where I sat, calling the cattle home. The barking of dogs sounded clear in different parts of the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below me. From a wooded slope, on the opposite side of the valley, the crack of a gun came, waking the ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... have a joke whenever we meet, Clara and I; Prattle and laughter, and kisses sweet, Clara and I. Were I but twenty, and not two score, Clara and I would laugh still more, With plenty of hopeful years in store For Clara and I, Clara and I; With plenty of hopeful years in store For ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with confidence, and regard not the prattle of ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... enjoyed the scene; he gazed about him at their neighbours, at the villas and gardens on either hand; he took in the prospect of the far-stretching brown boskages and smooth alleys of the wood, of the hour they had yet to spend there, of the rest of Francie's pleasant prattle, of the place near the lake where they could alight and walk a little; even of the bench where they might sit down. "I see, I see," he repeated with appreciation. "You make me feel quite as if I were ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... He listened to Sarah's prattle with only half an ear, adding a word now and then to keep her tongue going, till another dance was called. Nelse Baker asked Sarah to be his partner, and she rose. Finding himself alone, Westerfelt got up. As he did so, he ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... lack! how prettily Love teaches his Scholars to prattle.— But hear ye, fair Mrs. Celinda, you have forgot to what end and purpose you came to Town; not to marry Mr. Bellmour, as I take it—but Sir Timothy ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... not relax. She had been sitting there for an hour, letting Mrs. Boyd's prattle pour over her like a rain, and thinking meanwhile her ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... deserved to be under the thraldom of such a task. When they were yet in flesh and blood, and ate the fruits of the earth, they were of that equivocal kind, who seem the friends of all men and yet are the friends of none; whose tongues continually prattle of the noble precepts of virtue, which they feel not in their hearts; who only abstain from evil because it is accompanied by danger, and from doing good because it requires courage and self-denial; who traffic with religion, and, like ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... least to know as much as you," answered the Moor-woman. "Stories and poetry—yes, they're like two yards of the same piece of stuff; they can go and lie down where they like, and one can brew all their prattle, and have it all the better and cheaper. You shall have it from me for nothing. I have a whole cupboard-full of poetry in bottles. It makes essences; and that's the best of it—bitter and sweet herbs. I have everything that people want of poetry, in bottles, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... small pale prattle about the people she had seen at Ouchy, as to whom she had the minute statistical information of a gazetteer, without any apparent sense of personal differences. She said to Darrow: "They tell me things are very much changed in America...Of course in my ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... was already reaching out tentacles to the wider world, where schoolgirl criticisms would be mere prattle; and it was far more serious to her to wonder what Brother Dudley would think of her having an actress for her ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... my mother-in-law's "budwar," the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus's perfections. I have now heard every incident of his childhood: what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous teeth ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... his little girl by the hand, but scarcely listened to her prattle; he was so surprised and puzzled by the information he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... Need one wonder that their eyes were tired and their faces lined? Their clothes were shabby, all ambition had been ruthlessly crushed out of them, but no matter. They still stood sunning themselves on the Rialto, listening good naturedly to the youngsters' prattle. Now and then grim tragedy could be detected stalking behind comedy's mask. Haggard faces and shabby clothes spoke eloquently of poverty's pinch. A long summer ahead and nothing saved. Well—what of it? That was nothing unusual. If times were hard and engagements ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... infant prodigy, Clarence, in our care for a little while that she might not be distracted by his innocent prattle while selecting the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... which finds its manifestation in language is to receive the name of reason, what shall we style the rest? We had thought that the love and intelligence, the soul, that looks out of a child's eyes upon us to reward our care long before it begins to prattle, were also ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... daughters of our hostess, who herself had a melodious voice, and peculiarly pleasing manners. These little fairies constituted themselves our attendants during our stay at Mauleon, and as they spoke, equally well, French and Basque, we enjoyed their innocent prattle and intelligent remarks extremely. They were very eloquent in praise of a certain English traveller named Francois, who had stayed some time at their inn, and wanted to take them away to England, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Letters" are my bedside books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them. I ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... alive, you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from Boston and found she was expected. I thought you were dying ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... who was fatally deficient, as so many of her countrymen and countrywomen are, in that lightness which distinguishes the French or the Italians, and would have enabled her, had she been so fortunately endowed with it, to sit by the fire and prattle innocently to her husband, whatever he might be doing. When she came to her new abode and was turning out the corners, she discovered upstairs in a cupboard a number of brown-looking old books, which had not been touched for many a long day. Amongst them were ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... accordingly acquainted her by what mouth of the Nile it had been conveyed into the sea—For this reason therefore the Egyptians look upon children as endued with a kind of faculty of divining, and in consequence of this notion are very curious in observing the accidental prattle which they have with one another whilst they are at play (especially if it be in a sacred place), forming omens and presages from it—Isis, during this interval, having been informed that Osiris, deceived by her sister Nepthys who was in love with him, had unwittingly ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... little wooden houses, toys which must be associated in the parents' minds with those who made their homes glad, but who have gone into the grave before them. One cannot but think of the bright eyes dim, the merry laugh and infantine prattle silent, the little hands, once so active in playful mischief, stiff and cold; all brought so to mind by the sight of those toys. There is a fearful amount of mortality among children at New York, and in several instances four or five buried in one grave told with mournful suggestiveness ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Divusne loquatur, an heros; Maturusne senex, an adhuc florente juventa Fervidus; an matrona potens, an sedula nutrix; Mercatorne vagus, cultorne virentis agelli; Colchus, an Assyrius; Thebis nutritus, an Argis. The playful prattle in a frolick vein, And the severe affect a serious strain: For Nature first, to every varying wind Of changeful fortune, shapes the pliant mind; Sooths it with pleasure, or to rage provokes, Or brings it to the ground by sorrow's heavy strokes; ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Mme. de Stael, a type of the time in which she lived, so far as concerns her worship of sensibility—of sensibility, and not of love; for love is too great to be so scattered and made a thing to prattle of, to cheapen, and thus destroy. So we find at the last that Germaine de Stael, though she was much read and much feted and much followed, came finally to that last halting-place where confessedly she was merely an old woman, eccentric, and unattractive. She sued her former lovers for the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Speech. — N. speech, faculty of speech; locution, talk, parlance, verbal intercourse, prolation[obs3], oral communication, word of mouth, parole, palaver, prattle; effusion. oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration; speechifying; soliloquy &c. 589; allocution &c. 586; conversation &c. 588; salutatory : screed: valedictory [U.S.][U.S.]. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... tell but that their tattling would last a whole night, for there's hardly one of them who hath not at the least a hundred in their Budgets; but because it is high time that either the Dry or Wet-Nurse must go to swathe the child, they begin to break off and shorten their prittle-prattle. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... to his Franciade, owns that their Alexandrine Lines have too much prattle (ils ont trop de caquet) and that it is a Fault in their Poetry that one Line does not run into another, and therefore he wrote his Franciade in Verses of ten Syllables, and broke the Measure. The Author of the History of ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... them—yes, many, many times. And so has 'Toinette, but the stories afloat about them are rather—unpleasant, and like a wise man I have kept myself free of investigation. I do hope you'll do the same, Sir Nigel. One never knows, and although one cannot always believe the silly things which the villagers prattle about, it is as well to be on the safe side. As you say, these things sometimes lack a rational explanation. I should be sorry to think you were likely to run into any unnecessary danger." He bent his head and Merriton could see that his ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... too, with a precision which Bob himself could not surpass; and in a very short time she could steer as well as either of us, which was an immense advantage when shortening or making sail. Add to all this the amusement we derived from her incessant lively prattle, and the additional cheerfulness thus infused into our daily life, and the reader will agree with me, I think, that it was a lucky day for us when we first fell in with ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... particular being as its cause. Whoever ascribes personality and consciousness to this particular being makes it finite; consciousness belongs only to the individual, limited ego. And it is allowable to state this frankly and to beat down the prattle of the schools, in order that the true religion of joyous well-doing may lift ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... sing idly or prattle with an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some bird or butterfly and ask ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... the briny rivulets descended fast on my furrowed cheeks, she was such a winning Child, and had such a regard for me and always came and told me all her little things, and as she was now speaking, some of her little prattle was very taking, and the lively images of these things intrude themselves more into my mind than they should do, but there is allowance for moderate grief on such occasions. But when I am telling you of my own grief and sorrow, I know not what to say of the bereaved Mother, ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... cannon or the stress of a watch which ceased neither day nor night, through the threatenings of death or the allurements of fame, one thought was paramount in Collingwood's mind. A yearning for a peaceful garden he had left behind—to him a veritable garden of Paradise—for the innocent prattle of his children, the sweet companionship of his wife. A dream of reunion tormented and sustained him. "Whenever I think how I am to be happy again my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth," he wrote. Incapable of a dramatic appeal to sympathy, his letters to Stanhope, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... sat at dinner with little Daniel, feasting his eyes on the fresh beauty of the boy, whose prattle had made the last two days delightful. Daniel had been greatly exercised to find that his great big uncle could not talk Dutch, and that he must talk Portuguese—which was still kept up in families—to be understood. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Para. In a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence of ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... of goodness, drop that piffle!" begged Hippy wearily. "We have enough serious matters on hand to think about without having to listen to prattle. Laundry, did you know that Miss Dean had been ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... she is so gay, and chattering, and arch—original even now; passionate when provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting yet generous; fearless . . . yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning ways, is ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... "The two girls from Dalton!" "A striking scene in the police court!" These and other "striking things" she outlined to serious Dorothy, who now in the early morning sat so close to the car window, and seemed to hear nothing of the foolish prattle, as the train ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... loveliest colors Blossom as brightly as wink, and bees come and suck 'em. Water-wagtails come tiltin',—and, look! there's the geese o' the village! All are a-comin' to see you, and all want to give you a welcome; Yes, and you're kind o' heart, and you prattle to all of 'em kindly; "Come, you well-behaved creeturs, eat and drink what I bring you,— I must be off and away: ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... wood, and their dark wall round about the clearing where they dwelt. Face-of-god gave the twain the sele of the day in merry fashion as he passed them by, and the sober dark-faced man nodded to him but spake no word, and the child stayed her prattle to watch him as ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... doing more useful things. But I welcome the opportunity to give the laity[6] some explanation of the nature of the Church,[7] and to contradict the words of these seductive masters. Therefore I intend to treat of the subject-matter directly, rather than to answer their senseless prattle. I will not mention their names, lest they achieve their true purpose and boastfully regard themselves capable of arguing with me ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... for two weeks, in order that it may take place on the first anniversary of the wedding. The child is a marvel of beauty, and is very healthy. I am the godfather, and he has been named after me. I am already dreaming of the time when Periquito shall begin to talk, and amuse us with his prattle. ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... is the derision of the woman that all Charles Keene's persistent sense of vulgarity is intent centrally upon her. Never for any grace gone astray is she bantered, never for the social extravagances, for prattle, or for beloved dress; but always for her jealousy, and for the repulsive person of the man upon whom she spies and in whom she vindicates her ignoble rights. If this is the shopkeeper the possession of whom is her boast, ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... agriculturists and workers in metals—not fighting men. Also she set herself to learn what she could of their tongue, which she did not find difficult, for Benita had a natural aptitude for languages, and had never forgotten the Dutch and Zulu she used to prattle as a child, which now came back to her very fast. Indeed, she could already talk fairly in either of those languages, especially as she spent her spare hours in studying their grammar, and ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... remember that we likewise are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten. ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... went with him to the office, and he presented me to Mr. Watson as the most wonderful genius and scholar ever known. His recommendation had little sway with Mr. Watson, who only smiled at Linton's extravagances, as one does at the prattle of an infant. I sauntered about the printing office for the space of two or three hours, during which time Watson bustled about with green spectacles on his nose, and took no heed of me. But, seeing that I still lingered, he addressed ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... slice of fresh air was nearly eaten—turned with eagerness to watch this new source of amusement. Innocent laughter and childish prattle were strange to them. Some smiled, and nodded with interest in the varying fortunes of the game. One young lad could hardly restrain himself from applauding. It was as though, out of the sultry heat which brooded over the ship, a cool ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... heels, pulling at his coat-tails, and, at last, exerting all the speed that its poor limbs were capable of, got directly before him and held forth its arms, mutely insisting on being taken up. It said not a word, being perhaps underwitted and incapable of prattle. But it smiled up in his face,—a sort of woful gleam was that smile, through the sickly blotches that covered its features,—and found means to express such a perfect confidence that it was going to be fondled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in on Judith after that with an iron hand. She missed sorely the children's demands upon her, their play and prattle and movement about the place. Huldah was gone. Wade was gone. She could get no news of Creed. The things to love and hate and be jealous of seemed to have dropped out of her existence, so that ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... and the creeks, imagining this to be some recompense for their toil, some comfort for the dangers they have passed. In short, whatever though unrequested, we are wont to discourse of, we are desirous to be asked; because then we seem to gratify those whom otherwise our prattle would disturb and force from our conversation. And this is the common disease of travellers. But more genteel and modest men love to be asked about those things which they have bravely and successfully performed, and which modesty will not permit to be spoken by themselves ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... of a size, though the nephew was a month or two older than his uncle, a relationship that was early impressed on their young minds, and caused those who heard their prattle many a ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... should be thankful, I suppose, that the peace soon to be so rudely shattered was prolonged for those few moments. I recalled afterward, but dimly, as though a gulf of ages yawned between, that I had been quite interested in six pages of prattle ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... and the child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, "That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day before, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... resembling a calm sea which "must appear dull in description; for who can describe the pleasures which the morning air gives to one in perfect health; the flow of spirits which springs up from exercise; the delights which parents feel from the prattle and innocent follies of their children; the joy with which the tender smile of a wife inspires a husband; or lastly the cheerful solid comfort which a fond couple enjoy in each others' conversation.—All these pleasures, and every other of which our situation was capable ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... listened to the prattle of the schoolroom without hearing at odd moments the tone of some note that is not girlish—the voice of the woman speaking gravely through the chatter ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... by productive fishing grounds and potentially large oil reserves. In 1932, French Indochina annexed the islands and set up a weather station on Prattle Island; maintenance was continued by its successor Vietnam. China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1974, when its troops captured a South Vietnamese garrison occupying the western islands. However, the islands are still claimed by Vietnam ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... great Arithmetician. * * * * * That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster; unless the bookish theorick, Wherein the toged Consul can propose As masterly as he; mere prattle, without practice, Is all his soldiership. But, Sir, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... see men, women and children—emphatically the children, too—of the abominable French nation massacred off the face of the earth? This illustration of the new war- temper is artlessly revealed in the prattle of the amiable Busch, the Chancellor's pet "reptile" of the Press. And this was supposed to be a war for an idea! Too much, however, should not be made of that good wife's and mother's sentiments any more than of the good First ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... latter, and spend the time doing what the authorities term "smartening up," after the gay and festive season through which you have just passed. This generally takes the form of parades every other hour, when the officers prattle amiably of matters to which you have long been a stranger, and the Sergeant-Major takes the opportunity of preventing his vocabulary from falling into disuse. Also, if you are in the artillery, you clean your harness and polish up the steel-work thereon till it twinkles like a heliograph ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... when was it meet for children to prattle in the presence of their grandsires?" demanded a grey-haired coolie contemptuously. "Know, boy, that Shri Krishn's skin was of the same colour when he moved among us ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... and Evelyn were left alone with Sophy. Maltravers had continued to lean over the child, and appeared listening to her prattle; while Evelyn, having risen to shake hands with Mrs. Hare, did not reseat herself, but went to the window, and busied herself with ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rattle of dishes, and the strains of several orchestras which toiled heroically in the midst of the uproar. Here they found a table, and while Oliver was ordering frozen poached eggs and quails in aspic, Montague sat and gazed about him at the revelry, and listened to the prattle of the little ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... monotonous creaking of wheels and axles, and even the quiet of the night encampment had been always more or less broken by the movement of unquiet sleepers on the wagon beds, or the breathing of the cattle. But here there was neither sound nor motion. Susy's prattle, and even the sound of his own voice, would have broken the benumbing spell, but it was a part of his growing self-denial now that he refrained from waking her even by a whisper. She would awaken soon enough to thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do? If that looked-for help would ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... language of Voltaire, "is the only one never confirmed by an oath, and never broken." Especially was Towandahoc attached to the Buckingham family, who ever treated him kindly, and to the little girl who played with his bow and arrows, and tried in her artless prattle to pronounce his name. Unbroken peace had hitherto prevailed between the red men and the pale faces, owing to the just and friendly treatment the natives had experienced; but symptoms of another spirit began now to appear. The war waged between ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... contention between your duty and your inclinations, you must conquer the latter, or become wicked and contemptible. If, therefore, you give way to this melancholy, how will you be able to perform your duty towards me, in cheerfully obeying my commands, and endeavouring, by your lively prattle and innocent gaiety of heart, to be my companion and delight? Nor will you be fit to converse with your brother, whom (as you lost your good papa when you were too young to know that loss) I have endeavoured to educate in such a manner, that I hope he will be a father to you, if you deserve his ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... Daddy's lap, a little later began to prattle about his "black snowman," and so the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... come," a prattler 'gan to prattle: * "Needs cease thy blame!" I was commoved to rattle: 'In time,' quoth he: quoth I ' 'Tis marvellous! * Who shall ensure my life, O ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... elder sisters, of the wonderful things done by their brothers at Oxford or Cambridge, and of the grand things which were to happen two or three year hence, when they themselves should be 'out.' Ida took no interest in their prattle. It was so apt to sting her with the reminder of her own poverty, the life of drudgery and dependence that was to be her portion till the end of her days. She did not, in the Mauleverer phraseology, 'take to' the new girls. She left them to be courted by Miss Pillby, and petted by Miss ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... she hung down her head, and putting on a serious countenance, remained silent during the remainder of the walk. William, by a hundred assiduities, endeavoured to recover Amelia's cheerfulness, again to spread a smile on her clouded countenance, and make her renew her usual pleasing prattle. ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... Oceans wide have parted: Some are broken-hearted, Some lie in the clay; Those I once heard prattle, For whom I shook the rattle, Engaged in life's vain battle, Push ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... preservation, commanding a grand view over the winding valley of the Wye and to the Forest of Dean in one direction and the Malvern Hills in another. The ruins are of a quadrangular fortress, and within the courtyard Wordsworth once met the child whose prattle suggested his familiar poem, "We are Seven." Little now remains of Goodrich Priory, but the parish church of the village can be seen afar off, and contains a chalice presented by Dean Swift, whose grandfather, Thomas Swift, was ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Cabinet Order is not the outcome of religious feeling? By describing the Cabinet Order everywhere as an outcome of religious feeling. Is an insight into social movements to be expected from such an illogical mind? Listen to his prattle about the relation of German society to the Labour movement ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... Flora's estimate of herself, but the irritation was strong; she felt as if her cherished views for Cocksmoor were insulted, as well as set aside, by the place being made the occasion of so much folly and vain prattle, the sanctity of her vision of self-devotion destroyed by such interference, and Flora's promises did not reassure her. She doubted Flora's power, and had still more repugnance to the means by which her sister tried to govern; they did not seem to her straightforward, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... you: By all means, do not drink! you must tell him: Just because you forbid it, I shall drink, and that, liberally. In this manner you must always do the contrary of what Satan forbids. When I drink my wine unmixed, prattle with the greatest unconcern, eat more frequently, do you think that I have any other reason for doing these things than to scorn and spite the devil who has attempted to spite and scorn me? Would God I could commit some real brave sin to ridicule the devil, that he might see ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... whose name I bear had the good fortune to defend the Union and the Constitution in the forum. That I cannot do, but I am ready to defend them in the field." Like other national men, he refused to listen to the "sixty-day" prattle by which others were deceived. He saw that by no "summer excursion to Moscow" could the Southern Confederacy be suppressed; that immense forces would be marshalled in aid of that Confederacy; and that the war for the Union, like the war for Independence, ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... thus flew swiftly by while I listened to her lively prattle, which, like the lark's singing, had scarcely a pause in it, her attempt at being still and moonlight having ended in a perfect fiasco. At length, pouting her pretty lips and complaining of her hard lot, she said it was time to ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... reminiscences, disappointments and chagrins,—had taken much to Wilhelmina, as she tells us; [ Memoires de Frederique Sophie Wilhelmine de Prusse, Margrave de Bareith, Soeur d Frederic-le-Grand (London, 1812), i. 5.] and would amuse himself whole days with the pranks and prattle of the little child. Good old man: he, we need not doubt, brightened up into unusual vitality at sight of this invaluable little Brother of hers; through whom he can look once more into the waste dim ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... water, it run deep. Dat shaller water prattle. Dat tongue, hung in a holler head, Jes roll ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... the night before Christmas Eve. Jim listened to his wife's prattle about the wonderful views ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... and caressed by a succession of the daughters of France, the fairest, the most ill-starred; I had fought and conquered shoulder to shoulder with her sons. A soldier, a noble, of the proudest and bravest race in Europe, it had been left to the prattle of a hobbledehoy lackey in an English chaise to recall me to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious. 1895 SHAKS.: Richard ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... author of the treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went to the piano and played Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on the different passages: "Now she speaks—that's the love prattle; now he speaks—that's the man's earnest voice; now both the lovers speak together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn't all that better far than anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite popular in society as ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... of the time when he ran about the sitting-room and the court in his little child's frock, until the time when he went to school, to the seminary, to Rodenstein.... The sun had set when with our prattle we had come to the place where we were, at Weissenhofen. 'That's the end,' I said, 'and there remains nothing else to tell.'—'Yes, yes,' said my brother reflectively, 'that's the end, and there remains nothing more to tell.'" Soon he noticed how truly Martin had spoken in every ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... in this part; I am not encouraging them to leave their shops and warehouses, to go to taverns and ale-houses, and spend their time there in unnecessary prattle, which, indeed, is nothing but sotting and drinking; this is not meeting to do business, but to neglect business. Of which I shall speak ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... took both the little girls in her lap, and seemed to enjoy hearing their childish prattle. Patty glanced at the gay rings on the lady's fingers, and at the pictures on the walls, and wondered why it wasn't a happy home, and what made Mrs. Chase's eyes so red. Then all at once she remembered what Siller Noonin had said: "O, yes, Mrs. Chase has ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... love their pretty prattle. It makes me think of 'eavens an' Gawd's angels," said Mrs Gowler. Then, as Mavis did not make any remark, she added: "Six was born 'ere ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... was dressing for dinner, Suzee standing by me or playing with my things and somewhat impeding me, as usual. She seemed to have recovered from her ill-temper and was all smiles and gay prattle. ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... of my efforts, I could not succeed in hiding my grave presentiments; but my son's prattle, which was even gayer than usual, quite justified the name of "Sunbeam" given him ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... his days with ills, And live as if his only care Were how to die, while full life thrills His bounding blood? To plan and dare, To use life is life's proper end: Let death come when it will, and where!"— "You prattle on, as babes that spend Their morning half within the brink Of the bright heaven from which they wend; But what I am you dare not think. Thick, brooding shadow round me lies; You stare till terror makes you wink; I go ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... long letter, pouring out his whole soul, hoping somehow that she, his guardian angel, though dead, might see it. A year later he wrote a friend: "There is a sensation of loss which nothing alleviates—a solitude which no society interrupts. Amid the smiles and prattle of children, and the kindness of sympathizing friends, I am alone; Roxana is not here. She partakes in none of my joys, and bears with me none of my sorrows. I do not murmur; I only feel daily, constantly, and with deepening impression, how much I have had for which to be thankful, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... for Mabel to keep her secrets. When her papa came home at night, she always climbed upon his knee to tell him every thing that had happened in her little world during the day; and her papa always listened to her prattle with a ...
— The Nursery, March 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... on fire! More sweetly wilt thou sing, if thou wilt sit down beneath the wild olive tree, and the groves in this place. Chill water falls there, drop by drop, here grows the grass, and here a leafy bed is strown, and here the locusts prattle. ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... foundation for their future improvement, and direct their inclinations to useful subjects, such as would make them above the imputations of some unkind gentlemen, who allot to their part common tea-table prattle, while they do all they can to make them fit for nothing else, and then upbraid them for it? And would not the men find us better and more suitable companions and assistants to them in every useful purpose of life?—O that your lordly ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... behold him play the host, With all the dignity which red men boast— With all the courtesy the whites have lost;— Assume the very hue of savage mind, Yet in rude accents show the thought refined:— Assume the naivete of infant age, And in such prattle seem still more a sage; The golden mean with tact unerring seized, A courtly critic shone, a simple savage pleased; The stoic of the woods his skill confessed, As all the Father answered in his breast, To the sure mark the silver arrow sped, The man without a tear a tear has shed; ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... should be in the furthermost parts of a wilderness. Perhaps you have snatched enough time from guarding the kiddies from a premature end in Como to read a headline or so in the home papers. If by some wonderful chance, between baby prattle, bumps and measles, they have given you a moment's respite, then you know that the Government has grown decidedly restless for fear the energetic and enterprising bubonic or pneumonic germ might take passage on some of the ships from the Orient. So it is fortifying against invasion. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... dearie, I give it, I give it, I give it!" she began to prattle, smiling; and quickly smacked him first on the lips ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... multepova. Powerless senpotenca. Practical praktika. Practice (custom) kutimo. Practice praktiko, kutimo, uzado. Practise praktiki. Prairie herbejo. Praise lauxdi. Prank petoleco—ajxo. Prate babili. Prattle babili. Pray (religious) pregxi. Pray (to request) peti. Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching predikado. Preamble antauxparolo. Prebendary kanoniko. Precarious duba, necerta. Precaution antauxzorgo, singardo. Precede antauxiri. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... does not take alarm at my name (as has indeed been the case in other places, owing to the foolish prattle of the critics), they might try the "Prometheus" choruses there by-and-by. They are to be given almost directly (at the end of October) at Zwickau, and probably later on in Leipzig, where I shall then ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... besides Franklin, have really succeeded in imitating it? We do not believe that Latin and Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Caesar and Cicero and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... is something like the charm of meadows and fields in your sweet prattle, and you should never desert it for the thickets of psychological speculations.—Come on, child. These people want ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... has been to her! Seven years of peace and overflowing happiness has that little one purchased for her burdened and distracted spirit. Can she return to Ramah without him, to solitude and loneliness, uncheered by his winning ways and childish prattle? Surely this is a sorrow which will wring her heart, as never before. Not so. There she stands again on the spot where she once knelt and wept and vowed, but no tears fall now from her eyes—no grief is in her tones. She has come ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... comfort. Betty went to see them sometimes, and brought me tidings. She was not permitted to enter the jail; but William would hold them up to the grated window while she chatted with them. When she repeated their prattle, and told me how they wanted to see their ma, my tears would flow. Old Betty would exclaim, "Lors, chile! what's you crying 'bout? Dem young uns vil kill you dead. Don't be so chick'n hearted! If you does, you vil nebber git ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... Master Fromm's, the delicate attention of little Miss Pugnose was indeed burdensome. She would prattle all kinds of nonsense. She asked of what the fine dinner consisted; whether it was true that the daughter of the "consiliarius" had a doll that danced, played the guitar, and nodded its head. Ridiculous! As if people of such an age as Melanie ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the latter, or become wicked and contemptible. If, therefore, you give way to this melancholy, how will you be able to perform your duty towards me, in cheerfully obeying my commands, and endeavouring, by your lively prattle and innocent gaiety of heart, to be my companion and delight? Nor will you be fit to converse with your brother, whom (as you lost your good papa when you were too young to know that loss) I have endeavoured to educate ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... endeavouring to establish a credit-account with the Recording Angel. Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the Church of England after he had made his fortune (cf. Shavings from the Workshops of our Merchant Princes, which appeared in the pages of "Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of the Imperishable Boot had taken to endowing churches; and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with an eye to backsheesh) had praised ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... always kept a little on this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he might be thought a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as a solvent of speech. Marry—as the friendly vapour ascended, how his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... a party of ladies, which somewhat relieved the monotony of the cabin, and I was amused by listening to their lively prattle, and the little gossip with which they strove to wile away the tedium of the voyage. The day was too stormy to go upon deck—thunder and lightening, accompanied with torrents of rain. Amid the confusion of the elements, I tried to get a peep at the Lake of the Thousand Isles; but ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... her infant prodigy, Clarence, in our care for a little while that she might not be distracted by his innocent prattle while selecting the material for a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... tradesman mistake me in this part; I am not encouraging them to leave their shops and warehouses, to go to taverns and ale-houses, and spend their time there in unnecessary prattle, which, indeed, is nothing but sotting and drinking; this is not meeting to do business, but to neglect business. Of which I shall speak ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these notes." Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but "a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD." In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth "just as ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... John Stevens had never been away from his family, save in the short campaign on the Severn, and he dreaded to leave home. He loved his children and, despite her faults, he loved his wife. As he held his baby in his arms and listened to her gentle crowing and heard the merry prattle of his boy at play, he asked himself if he should ever see those children again, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from Boston and found she was expected. I thought you were ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... abrupt end. Why, he was even restrained in conversation; he did not interrupt her often, instantly apologized and forebore when he did; he poured out none of his wonted sophomoric diatribes, sometimes sensible, more often inane, as the prattle of a great man in his hour of relaxation is apt to be. She had to do most of the talking—and you may be sure that she directed her conversation to conveying under an appearance of lightness many valuable lessons in the true wisdom of life as it is revealed only to the fashionable idle. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... of the varying year supplied him with a wealth of beauty which was sufficient for all his needs, and when—after some long day's work amid the cottages, reading to the sick at their lonely bedsides, listening to the prattle of the children in the infant schools, talking to the labourers as they rested at their work—he refreshed himself by a gallop across the free fresh downs, or a quiet stroll under the rosy apple-blossoms of his orchard or garden, ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... on a large scale published: but few low islets have been formed on these shoals, and this seems to be a general circumstance in the China Sea; the sea close outside the reefs is very deep; several of them have a lagoon-like structure; or separate islets (PRATTLE, ROBERT, DRUMMOND, etc.) are so arranged round a moderately shallow space, as to appear as if they had once formed one large atoll.— BOMBAY SHOAL (one of the Paracells) has the form of an annular reef, and is "apparently deep ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... do not mean that I am simply absent from Bodfish's place in the country. I mean that I am deliberately not spending the weekend there. When you interrupted me just now, I was not strolling down to Bodfish's garage, listening to his prattle about his ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... observations, and that, too, with a precision which Bob himself could not surpass; and in a very short time she could steer as well as either of us, which was an immense advantage when shortening or making sail. Add to all this the amusement we derived from her incessant lively prattle, and the additional cheerfulness thus infused into our daily life, and the reader will agree with me, I think, that it was a lucky day for us when we first fell in with ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... laughing. "You can be quick enough when you choose, Master Malapert. But you are more fit to speak of high and weary matters with my sister Mary. She will have none of the prattle and courtesy of Sir George, and yet I love them well. But tell me, Nigel, why do you come to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it is to an affectionate mind, even in a way of nature, to walk through the fields, and lead a little child by the hand, enjoying its infantine prattle, and striving to improve the time by some kind word of instruction! I wish that every Christian pilgrim in the way of grace, as he walks through the Lord's pastures, would try to lead at least one little child by the hand; and perhaps, whilst ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... my part, I never care For those lips that tongue-tied are: Tell-tales I would have them be Of my mistress and of me. Let them prattle how that I Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry: Let them tell how she doth move Fore or backward in her love: Let them speak by gentle tones, One and th' other's passions: How we watch, and seldom sleep; ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... the charm, that once gave him ecstatic delight and solid joy, is vanished from his sight; and all, that once was fair and lovely, wears the frown of darkness and indignation. He gazes upon little children, and hears their artless and innocent prattle, reflects what he once was, and every joy, that sparkles in their eyes, sends a dagger to his heart. The rustling of a leaf strikes him with terror and alarm, and every passing breeze bears to his tormented soul the groans of the dying man, and conscience ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... development. And young man—young woman, you who have left behind the days of knee trousers and short dresses, and with them have laid aside the doll and the pet, think it not weakness when you find yourself irresistibly drawn by the sweet smile of an innocent babe or by the childish prattle of one a little farther on. Be not ashamed when, under such influence, you picture yourself the center of a home, and in this connection think of him or her whom you would like to have share it with you. It is the sweetest influence that can ever come into your life. Rightly regarded and used, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... I love their pretty prattle. It makes me think of 'eavens an' Gawd's angels," said Mrs Gowler. Then, as Mavis did not make any remark, she added: "Six ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... call him "Codd Colonel." "Tell little F—— that Codd Colonel wants to see him"; and the little gown-boy was brought to him: and the colonel would listen to him for hours, and hear all about his lessons and his play; and prattle, almost as childishly, about Dr. Raine and his own early school-days. The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the noble old gentleman's touching history, and had all got to know and love him. They came every day to hear news of him; sent him in books and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... still new to her dignities, Eliza O'Neill was beginning to prattle in the most charming brogue ever heard across the Irish Channel, and to grow through beautiful childhood to witching girlhood. The daughter of a strolling actor who led his company of buskers through every county in Ireland from ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... for doing. After the first outburst of joy from the hounds on discovering that there were rabbits in the covert, and after the retirement of the rabbits to their burrows on the companion discovery that there were hounds in it, a silence, broken only by the far-away prattle of the lady bicyclists on the road, fell round Freddy Alexander. He bore it as long as he could, cheering with faltering whoops the invisible and unresponsive pack, and wondering what on earth huntsmen were expected to do on such occasions; then, filled with that horrid ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... other. If we of the great republics, if we, the free people who claim to have emancipated ourselves from the thraldom of wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon the wilfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, no delicacy of taste, no material progress, no sordid heaping up of riches, no sensuous development of art and literature, can in ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... initial likeness with internal unlikeness; not rhyming, but strongly alliterative, and in every case with a change of the interior vowel from a weak into a strong, generally from i into a or o; as 'shilly-shally', 'mingle-mangle', 'tittle-tattle', 'prittle-prattle', 'riff-raff', 'see-saw', 'slip-slop'. No one who is not quite out of love with the homelier yet more vigorous portions of the language, but will acknowledge the life and strength which there is often in these and in others still current ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... object. When his pretty stepmother first came to Aikenside, three months before, he had been half sorry, for he knew just how his quiet would be disturbed, but as the weeks went by, and he became accustomed to Jessie's childish prattle and frolicsome ways, while even Agnes herself was not a bad picture for his handsome home, he began to feel how he should miss them when they were gone, Jessie particularly, who made so much sunshine wherever ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... call it dear! Why, it isn't a horn you buy, but an ear; Only think, and you'll find on reflection You're bargaining, ma'am, for the Voice of Affection; For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth: Not to mention the striking of clocks - Cackle of hens—crowing of cocks - Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox - Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks - Murmur of waterfall over the rocks - Every sound that Echo mocks - Vocals, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... whatever befall, the good do not prattle, longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... seene More that I may call men, then you good friend, And my deere Father: how features are abroad I am skillesse of; but by my modestie (The iewell in my dower) I would not wish Any Companion in the world but you: Nor can imagination forme a shape Besides your selfe, to like of: but I prattle Something too wildely, and my Fathers precepts I therein ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of high birth, money, and literary arrogance? Well; there is nothing to be said about them. They are all alike. They grew up to be all very respectable, comfortable, and commonplace. They were well-meaning people. What they had formerly said and thought was only—CHILDREN'S PRATTLE. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... it, you but spare my ignorance, The gentleman to shame me stoops thus low. A traveller from complaisance, Still makes the best of things; I know Too well, my humble prattle never can Have power to entertain so wise ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... was enough to make the squire forget prudence, in the spleen it aroused. "Have done with your whispered prittle-prattle, Jan, and let me have sight of ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. The old servant, Marguerite, was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us. Gay and daring, she always knew how to make the men laugh with her prattle, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... them. On my asking the angels concerning their lot, they said, "Their lot is, that they are cast down into the deep, into a wilderness, where they are forced to carry burdens; and in this case, as they are no longer capable of rational conversation, they give themselves up to idle prattle and talk, and appear at a distance like ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... "we delight to see them roll on the grass over which we hobble. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged, care-worn son, to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn, and feel most delight in the returning spring." "Winter," says Richter, "which strips the leaves from ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... began to prattle, as she took the water bobbingly. Overhead the sky was blue, with wisps of snow. Kit hugged the ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... oranges on the table if you have nothing else." Despite a certain stiffness of manner and speech, he was a man of kindly heart and simple, unworldly nature. After the first ice was broken, the most unintellectual person might prattle away to him at ease, for his sympathies were of the broadest. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson had a deep affection for him, and "no matter who else was there, the evenings seemed empty ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... saw the light; where a mother, many years in her grave, had caressed him; where a father had guided his toddling steps; the home to which he had brought his bride in the bloom of a beautiful maidenhood; where Ruth had come to them as the blessing of God to make the house resound with prattle and laughter, and fill it with the sunlight of her presence; make it attractive by her grace and beauty,—the soul beauty that looked out from loving eyes and became, as it were, a benediction. He was to go, she to stay. God above would be ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the intimate stars Carelessly prattle of cosmic affairs. Flat on your back, with your nose pointing Mars, Search for the star who fled South from the Bears. Gaze for an hour at that little blue star, Giving him, cheerfully, wink for his wink; Shrink to the ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... is one who makes a great stir with printed prattle, falsehood and fury. Madness is the characteristic of the true poet. All those who express themselves, with clearness, precision and simplicity are deemed unworthy of ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... while I could hear the childish prattle of the children and the crooning of Naudin as she hushed, with swaying body, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... and with reason, at the freedom of his speech; yet, his manner, was so much beyond anything I had been accustomed to for ease and pleasantness, that I soon forgave him, and when he encouraged me, began to prattle about my affairs, being only, with all my conceit, the silly lassie my mistress ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... couch did I then Turn and tumble, in haste to see the day-light, Hear your prattle again, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... Titus. This is the pride and the stronghold of my hope, but I never think of it except in my best moods. The work to which I dedicate the ensuing years of my life, is one which highly pleased Leslie, in prospective, and my paper will not let me prattle to you about it. I have written what you more wished me to write, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... him back to his mother, who had better facilities for taking care of him. But the fact was he was too fond of the boy to be able to dispense with him, and he would rather bear the loss resulting from his mischief than miss his prattle and his ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... will fill my glass while I am tranquilly smoking my pipe before a blazing fire, may have as many charms as the best brig in which one may sometimes perish with hunger and thirst. Right or wrong, I imagine to myself again that the prattle of two or three little monkeys around me, may be as agreeable as the sound of the wind howling through the masts, or of Spanish balls whistling about one's ears. All this, Kate, signifies that I mean to ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... and mention Mrs. Hawker's name, not one person in ten would know there is such a being in their vicinity; the pele mele of a migratory population keeping persons of her character and condition in life, quite out of view. The very persons who will prattle by the hour, of the establishments of Mrs. Peleg Pond, and Mrs. Jonah Twist, and Mrs. Abiram Wattles, people who first appeared on this island five or six years since, and, who having accumulated what to them are relatively large fortunes, have launched out into vulgar and uninstructed ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... their days at the Schifanoia. Meantime a coiled ladder watched out the sun from a myrtle thicket, of which and its works came their happy nights. Then, as she lay in his arms, the Maid of Honour vanished in the child who was so lovely because she so loved; she could prattle, in the soft Venetian brogue, of boundless faith in her little lord, of her simple admiration of him and all he did, of her wonder and delight to be loved. She could tell him of what she could do, and of how much she could never do, to please him and pay him honour. And Angioletto ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... neighbours, at the villas and gardens on either hand; he took in the prospect of the far-stretching brown boskages and smooth alleys of the wood, of the hour they had yet to spend there, of the rest of Francie's pleasant prattle, of the place near the lake where they could alight and walk a little; even of the bench where they might sit down. "I see, I see," he repeated with appreciation. "You make me feel quite as if I were in the grand ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... corn fritters and her desserts. How Virginia chafed at those suppers, and how she despised the guests whom her aunt was in the habit of inviting to some of them! And when none was present, she was forced to listen to Mrs. Colfax's prattle about the fashions, her tirades ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... country. The Spirit-ball had disappeared, but it had first placed them beyond the reach of danger. A few suns, and our fathers once more stood upon the banks of their own pleasant river, the Nansemond, and listened to the joyous prattle of their children, and looked into the bright eyes of their ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... friend had no sooner taken their seats to drive home from the studio the day the sketch was made than Marguerite began a perfect prattle. Her eyes still shone exaltedly, and leaped and fell and darkened and brightened with more than the swift variety of a fountain in the moonlight, while she kept trying in vain to meet her companion's looks with ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... all over the broad lands of the United States until now, at the hour when most men turned for the placid joys of the fireside, the love of devoted and faithful wife, the homage and affection of children, the prattle and playful sports of children's children—homeless, wifeless, childless he stood at the border of the boundless sea, soldier duty pointing the way to far distant, unknown and undesired regions, content to follow that flag to ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... been conveyed into the sea—For this reason therefore the Egyptians look upon children as endued with a kind of faculty of divining, and in consequence of this notion are very curious in observing the accidental prattle which they have with one another whilst they are at play (especially if it be in a sacred place), forming omens and presages from it—Isis, during this interval, having been informed that Osiris, deceived by her sister Nepthys who was in love with him, had unwittingly united ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... would when I got to this point. You people who prattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exact meaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is very vague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity ever dreamed up stated that things fell at such ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... not the Watling Street! Yet we have not turned—Where are we?" Rothgar gnawed at his heavy moustache as though the answer were difficult to frame; and before he had time to evolve it, Elfgiva, who had caught the exclamation, had broken off her prattle. ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... said Pons, "what would have become of me if it had not been for you and Schmucke?" He felt touched by this horrible prattle; the feeling in it seemed to be ingenuous, as it usually is in the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... leave the murmuring boy alone just then, for her little prattle was not without its effect upon her cousin, who began to think that perhaps there were others in the world as miserably off ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... of children," smiled Francisco on the evening before their departure. He was writing a novel, in addition to the other work for Carmony and Pixley. Sometimes it was hard work amid this unusual prattle by his usually sedate and silent parents. He tried to imagine the house without them; his life, without their familiar and cherished companionship.... It would be lonely. Probably he would rent the place, when his novel was finished ... ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... their best clothes, contrary to the habit of other nations. The English language is broken Dutch, mixed with French and British terms and words, but with a lighter pronunciation. They do not speak from the chest, like the Germans, but prattle only with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... we are not, Ernest." And the dove-like eyes filled brimful; and all her innocent prattle ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... have seen, heard, felt, tasted. We want a reality above the traffic and deception of the senses. Vaguely, but insistently we feel the call to the life of the spirit, and when its definition eludes us, we prefer silence and faith. It is then that the familiar prattle of the seance-room offends us. We sought freedom, light, absolution from the trammels of personality, and we are told that the dead appear in bodies and clothes, that they toil and fret, that they inhabit houses and cities. Our plains ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... Tods happened one evening to be sitting on the knee of the Legal Member, and to hear him mention The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment. Tods had heard the bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... weeks, in order that it may take place on the first anniversary of the wedding. The child is a marvel of beauty, and is very healthy. I am the godfather, and he has been named after me. I am already dreaming of the time when Periquito shall begin to talk, and amuse us with his prattle. ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... fancied there was an expression which seemed to say, "Why were not all taken?" The little one, unconscious of its loss, would talk in intervals about "papa;" and when the mother, pained by the innocent prattle, grew sad of countenance, the child would creep into her lap, and putting its slender fingers upon her eyes, her lips, and over her face, would say, "Am I not good, mamma? I am not naughty; I am ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Her fun and prattle with Bess, her little quarrels and tart replies, her generous, happy, winning, self-willed ways, were as if they had never been, and in their place came resignation, reserve, pride and a little—only ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... grave; a way of asserting the contrary opinion that tells of rueful experience. "We'll see," said the colonel. They chatted like a couple unexpectedly discovering in one another a common dialect among strangers. Can there be an end to it when those two meet? They prattle, they fill the minutes, as though they were violently to be torn asunder at a coming signal, and must have it out while they can; it is a meeting of mountain brooks; not a colloquy, but a chasing, impossible to say which flies, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mother used to say to you. I believe that the younger one is, the better one understands the young. I am very much afraid that a woman of thirty, who doesn't know what it is to be a mother, will find it hard to learn to prattle and reason ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... talk of those fat agitators. Who prattle of Gladstone, or Churchill, or worse; Expect not your rights from professional praters, But manfully trust in your courage ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... our hostess, who herself had a melodious voice, and peculiarly pleasing manners. These little fairies constituted themselves our attendants during our stay at Mauleon, and as they spoke, equally well, French and Basque, we enjoyed their innocent prattle and intelligent remarks extremely. They were very eloquent in praise of a certain English traveller named Francois, who had stayed some time at their inn, and wanted to take them away to England, and they tried hard to persuade us that he must be a ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... neighborhood, with whom she was a favorite, though the gayer ones sometimes quizzed her for her religious tendencies, and her lamentable indifference to flirtation. But then she was so good and so good-humored. and so tolerant of other people's tastes. The prattle of these young ladies became now intolerable to Susan, and when she saw them coming to call on her she used to snatch up her bonnet and fly and lock herself up in a closet at the top of the house, and read some good book as quiet as a mouse, till the servants had hunted for her and told them she ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... me in many ways. I needed his precautions about spreading myself too thin, about being less flamboyantly loquacious, and subduing my excessive enthusiasm and emotional prodigality. Once after giving me a drive, he kindly said, as he helped me out, "I have quite enjoyed your cheerful prattle." Fact was, he had monologued it in his most sesquipedalian phraseology. I had no chance to say one word. He had his own way of gaining magnetism; believed in associating with butchers. Did you ever ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... thraldom of such a task. When they were yet in flesh and blood, and ate the fruits of the earth, they were of that equivocal kind, who seem the friends of all men and yet are the friends of none; whose tongues continually prattle of the noble precepts of virtue, which they feel not in their hearts; who only abstain from evil because it is accompanied by danger, and from doing good because it requires courage and self-denial; who traffic with religion, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... had been tended and caressed by a succession of the daughters of France, the fairest, the most ill-starred; I had fought and conquered shoulder to shoulder with her sons. A soldier, a noble, of the proudest and bravest race in Europe, it had been left to the prattle of a hobbledehoy lackey in an English chaise to recall me to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were a few days after put into a fine coach, and with them the two inhuman butchers, who were soon to end their joyful prattle, and turn their smiles to tears. One of them served as coachman, and the other sat between little William and ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... hard work) for a genteel place; but she masters that so fast, that now as my daughter is married and gone from me, I am desirous to qualify her to divert and entertain me in my thoughtful hours: and were you, sister, to know what she is capable of, and how diverting her innocent prattle is to me, and her natural simplicity, which I encourage her to preserve amidst all she learns, you would not, nor my son neither, wonder at the pleasure I take in her. Shall ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... grass. They are here to meet us. Ay, even here in this darksome gorge, "frightened and tormented" with raging torrents and choking avalanches of snow. Can it be? As if rubus and the grass leaf were not enough of God's tender prattle words of love, which we so much need in these mighty temples of power, yonder in the "benmost bore" are two blessed adiantums. Listen to them! How wholly infused with God is this one big word of love that we call the world! Good-night. Do you see the fire-glow on my ice-smoothed ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... were gritty to the touch, and left a smutch upon the fingers. His clothes were sifted over with dust and fine particles of manure. The seat grated beneath his legs. The great headlines in the newspaper announced that the troops were arriving. Columns of childish, reportorial prattle followed, describing the martial bearing of the officers, the fierceness of the "bronzed Indian fighters." The city was under martial law. He read also the bickering telegrams exchanged between the state authorities and the federal government, and interviews with leading citizens, praising ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... sitting one afternoon before the fatal bust which had smiled and whispered away his peace, when the post-man brought him a letter. It was from the simple girl to whom he had given his promise. We know how she used to prattle in her harmless way about her innocent feelings, and the trifling matters that were going on in her little village world. But now she wrote in sadness. Something, she did not too clearly explain what, had grieved her, and she gave free expression to her feelings. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... expression, roguish nose and soft radiance swept all his misgivings and prejudices before her. One might as well hold grudges against a flower, he thought. He liked the confiding way she had of suddenly slipping her little hand into his great one. Her prattle amused him, and he was both flattered and worried by the fearlessness with which she followed him everywhere. She seemed to bring a veritable shower of song into this home of long silences. The very chaos made Mrs. Wade's heart beat tumultuously, and ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... much of his time here; thus, this was really His Majesty's audience chamber. Here he would have his little daughter of whom he was passionately fond—taking a great delight in listening to her merry prattle, and her amusing remarks on whatever attracted her attention. The windows of the room look out on to the Dam, a large square, which is quite the busiest part of the city. The view from these windows ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... over, they would ramble o'er the lea, And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree, And ANNIE'S simple prattle entertained him on his walk, For public executions formed the subject ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... saw, I felt, I apprehended; there was no possibility of doubt. And thus I learned two most important truths: first that all talk about the chiefest part of our being is mere talk, that is to say, prattle and chatter, worth no more, no less, and just as misleading and inadequate for mutual communication and conviction, as all speech; secondly, that even the best men in their most profound and sacred ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... though she never saw me. I knew her favorite path across the mountains,—it led past a rocky chasm. On the edge of that chasm there was a broad, flat stone, and there she would sit often, reading, or watching the fishing-boats on the Fjord, and listening to the prattle of her child. I used to dream of that stone, and wonder if I could loosen it! It was strongly imbedded in the earth—but each day I went to it—each day I moved it! Little by little I worked—till a mere touch would have set it hurling downwards,—yet it looked as firm as ever." Gueldmar uttered ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... had told me first something about herself: that she was a petted and somewhat spoiled only daughter; something of an heiress, too, if one might judge from her prattle about charming and costly costumes and a rather reckless expenditure of pin-money; and that she was betrothed to Gerald Trent, of the great Boston firm of Trent and Sons, with the full consent and approval of all concerned. What life could be more serene? ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "the twankies" by their brothers—went off after tea in the schoolroom to see the young pheasants with their father. They were lively and talkative, and the Squire laughed at them several times, as good-humoured men do laugh at the prattle of innocent childhood. Arrived at the pens he entered into a long and earnest conversation with his head keeper, and the twins knew better than to interrupt him with artless prattle at such a time as that. But going home again through the dewy park, he unbent ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... publicly left the hamlet, whither he had been carried after the affray, and withdrew with his people to another at several miles distance. From thence, on a night agreed upon by Barnardine, who had discovered from the thoughtless prattle of Annette, the most probable means of decoying Emily, the Count sent back his servants to the castle, while he awaited her arrival at the hamlet, with an intention of carrying her immediately ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... as Swift's. The truth is, though Swift was among the staunchest of friends, he is not among the most sociable of authors. His writings are seldom in the vein either of tenderness or of merriment. We know of the tenderness of Swift only from a rare anecdote or from the prattle of the Journal to Stella. As for his laughter, as Mr. Whibley rightly points out, Pope was talking nonsense when he wrote of Swift as laughing and shaking in Rabelais's easy chair. Swift's humour is essentially of the ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... unlike him. She was born in a house-boat on the Pearl River near Canton, and, with hair plaited down her forehead and cheeks, slanting eyes and wooden shoes and a silk robe, had landed at San Francisco when it was still a heterogeneous trading-post, and had come up with the miners to prattle "pigeon English," and cook, as it turned out, for Squire Perkins. When other women came—Americans from the States—the old man married her. Long since she had adopted American ways and had joined ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... mock grimace? Go, silly thing, and hide that simp'ring face. Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait, All thy false mimic fooleries I hate; For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she Who is right foolish hath the better plea; Nature's true idiot I prefer ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... "Oh, the sweet prattle of childhood," said Mrs. Francis, clasping her shapely white hands. "How very interesting it must be to watch their young minds unfolding as the flower! Is it nine little ones you ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... dropp'd, he springs upon the shore, His wife and children press to meet his kiss; Half-told, a thousand things they prattle o'er, And, safe at home, ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... gunpowder evolutions, I was close by—in my palace of Charenton, three hundred and thirty-three thousand miles off, in the ring of Saturn—I witnessed your misery. My heart was affected by it, and I said, "Is the multiplication-table a fiction? are the signs of the Zodiac mere astronomers' prattle?" ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... juvenile visitor stayed her hour and then obediently went away, in spite of Jed's urgent invitation to stay longer. She had asked a good many questions and talked almost continuously, but Mr. Winslow, instead of being bored by her prattle, was surprised to find how empty and uninteresting the shop seemed ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... wives; and some sixteen or seventeen centuries earlier all the varieties of the species,—Caucasian and Negro, Mongolian and Malay,—lay close packed up in the world's single family. In short, Buchubai's amusing prattle proved to me this evening no bad commentary on St. Paul's sublime enunciation to the Athenians, that God has "made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." I was amused to find that the little girl, who listened intently as I described to the young ladies ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... Lavender. Stay—had he not? What was that faint something, without a name—a sort of vague uneasiness, which had seemed to creep over him whenever he had seen her during those months—a sense of incongruity between her light prattle and his own inmost thoughts and holiest feelings? It was so slight that as yet he had never faced it. He recognised now it was because his heart had refused to face it. And conscience told him, speaking loudly this time, that he must hold ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... N. speech, faculty of speech; locution, talk, parlance, verbal intercourse, prolation^, oral communication, word of mouth, parole, palaver, prattle; effusion. oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration; speechifying; soliloquy &c 589; allocution &c 586; conversation &c 588; salutatory : screed: valedictory [U.S.]. oratory; elocution, eloquence; rhetoric, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... spirits of any ordinarily intelligent household. Think of the debilitated jests and stories which a time-honoured custom inserts at the back of some of our magazines. It seems to be the custom of happy American parents to report to editors the infantile prattle of their engaging little children, and the editors print it for the benefit of those who escape the infliction firsthand. There is a story, pleasant but piteous, of Voltaire's listening with what patience he could muster to a comedy which was being interpreted by its author. At a certain point ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... silently. She did not fear to confront these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends lounging in for an afternoon call. They ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... listening with respectful attention whenever his companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... then, your wonted prattle, The oaten reed forbear; For I hear a sound of battle, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... face all glowing, And eyes as bright as the day With the thoughts of his pleasant errand, He trudged along the way; And soon his joyous prattle Made glad a lonesome place— Alas! if only the blind old man Could have seen that happy face! Yet he somehow caught the brightness Which his voice and presence lent; And he felt the sunshine come and go ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... about him. He owes it to his family to conserve for it the time to think of its needs, time to listen to the wife's story of its problems, time to sit and sympathize with children, time to hear their seemingly idle prattle, time to play with them. Have you ever noticed this great difference between the father and the mother, that while the latter always has time to bind up cut fingers and to hear to its end the story of what the little neighbor, Johnny Smith, did and said, somehow father's ear seems deaf to ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... she in the manger lay, Beside the stalled cattle, A throng of shepherds entered in To hear the childish prattle. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... pantry whenever "the master" or the surgeons went their regular rounds, which was always at stated hours. When the wind raged without, and the rain, hail, or snow sought entrance through the casement, while sitting near a comfortable fire, listening to female prattle and gossip, narratives of incidents of real life, discussions on disputed points in politics, philosophy, or religion between my friend with the crutches and the tall corporal of dragoons, who were both as fond of controversy as Mr. Shandy himself; or drinking in with my ears ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... of an hour this sort of thing went on without any interruption or any solitary thing out of the ordinary, Ailsa strolling along leisurely, with the boy's hands in hers and his innocent prattle running on ceaselessly; then, of a sudden, whilst they were moving along close to the Park railings and in the shadow of the overhanging trees, the figure of an undersized man in semi-European costume, but wearing on his head the twisted turban of a Cingalese, issued from one ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly, when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that time more than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I can well understand ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... say is that if I had died before this chance, I had lived a blessed time. I perceive more and more that I'm obsolete. I'm in my dotage; I prattle of the good old times, and the new spirit of the age flouts me. Miss Effie, do you prefer ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... rose that blooms in the shadow underneath Melisande's casement, Melisande's hair that falls farther than her arms can reach, the black tarn that broods beneath the castle-vaults and breathes death, Golaud's anguished search for truth in the prattle of the child, that could not but call a profound response from Debussy's imagination. But, above all, it was the figure of Melisande herself that made him pour himself completely into the setting of the play. For that figure permitted Debussy to give himself completely ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... his sympathetic professor, the learned Thibaut, author of the treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went to the piano and played Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on the different passages: "Now she speaks—that's the love prattle; now he speaks—that's the man's earnest voice; now both the lovers speak together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn't all that better far than anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite popular in society ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... the little company fell into groups—some out of doors beneath the apple-trees, others near the piano at which Virginia was playing Mendelssohn. Monica ran about among them with her five-year-old prattle, ever watched by her father, who lounged in a canvas chair against the sunny ivied wall, pipe in mouth. Dr. Madden was thinking how happy they made him, these kind, gentle girls; how his love for them seemed to ripen with every summer; what a delightful old age his would ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... affection. You say the time has not yet come when you have no pleasure. I think, my friend, that it will never come. To an evergreen heart, like yours, so full of kindly sympathies, the little children will always prattle, the birds will always sing, and the flowers will always offer incense. This reward of the honest and kindly heart is one of those, which 'the world can neither ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... blue polonaise, quite a lady of fashion en miniature, stopped in front of him and stared at him in shy wonder. He had always been fond of children, and often rejoiced in their affectionate ways and confidential prattle, and now it suddenly touched him with a warm sense of human fellowship to have this little daintily befrilled and crisply starched beauty single him out for notice among the hundreds who reclined in the arbors, or sauntered to and ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... confession had drifted awakened new terrors in John and sensations of sacrilege. He listened devoutly to the prattle of the priest, and to crush the rebellious spirit in him he promised to submit his poems; and he did not allow himself to think the old man incapable of understanding them. But he knew he would not submit those poems, and turning from the degradation he faced a command which had suddenly ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... and prattle pleasantly As they rode on the waye, To those that should their butchers be, And work their ...
— R. Caldecott's First Collection of Pictures and Songs • Various
... would last a whole night, for there's hardly one of them who hath not at the least a hundred in their Budgets; but because it is high time that either the Dry or Wet-Nurse must go to swathe the child, they begin to break off and shorten their prittle-prattle. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... was next to theirs, and as she sat sewing she could hear the children's talk, for they soon forgot to whisper. At first she smiled, then she looked sober, and when the prattle ceased she said to herself, as she glanced about ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... that he was unmarried then. "And he is so now," said the captain; "or was so very lately, for, but a month ago, I went from here, and then it was the general talk (as you know what great ones do, the people will prattle of) that Orsino sought the love of fair Olivia, a virtuous maid, the daughter of a count who died twelve months ago, leaving Olivia to the protection of her brother, who shortly after died also; and for the love of this dear brother, they say, she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... thrown upon the question this very day by the forward prattle of the boy Philip. In after years the full illumination came, and I understood it all. It is as well, perhaps, to outline the story here, although at the time I was in ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... influence to seem to be thrown in favor of so objectionable a book as "Faithful Forever," a continuation of the former poems by the same author. Coventry Patmore's books generally are made up of poetry and prattle, but the poetry makes you forgive the prattle. The tender, strong, wholesome truths they contain steady the frail bark through dangerous waters; but "Faithful Forever" is wrong, false, and pernicious, root and branch, and a ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... twain are silent. Silence sits Lord of the revel, incubus of wits Arch palsier of prattle Yet many a girl here mute's a chatterer sweet, And many a youth in circles less discrete ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... comprehend it, though such a thing is more within the comprehension of women. And when Gino pointed first to himself and then to his baby and said "father-son," she still took it as a piece of nursery prattle, and smiled mechanically. ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... chief amusement was the feeding of "flour-scones" and oat-cakes to an old goat, who lived in the neighborhood, and in daily walks with his grandfather, who seemed to find some little comfort and entertainment in the lad's childish prattle. He was then almost the only grandchild; and the old man was very proud of his manner and appearance, and particularly amused at certain gigantic efforts on The Boy's part to adapt his own short legs to the strides of ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... and general chilliness, seemed to portend they were getting into a more open sea, and, as the motion increased, the saloon began to thin a little. The bride's prattle deepened into moanings and complaints; she was laid on the sofa, covered with shawls, and supplied with sal-volatile and smelling-bottles by her devoted spouse, who began ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... behavior of children, babes, and even brutes....Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself....The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner and would disdain, as much as a lord, to do ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... her try her pretty wiles on me when I'm poverty stricken and penniless, when it won't do any more good to coax than if you were to prattle to a dead man at his tomb.[18] The money goes to my ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... supper had been eaten with little conversation, the Professor being the only one who showed conversational powers of any note. With the notebook already partly filled he felt certain of a niche in the Pantheon of Fame, and he could not resist a desire to prattle childishly about the sensation which his discoveries would cause. It's a terrible thing for a man to get the applause craving in its worst form. It is liable to make him do things which no craving for treasure would allow him to do, no matter how ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... agreeably to a limited perception; and, being ignorant of the comprehensive schemes which may be in contemplation, might mistake egregiously in judging of things from appearances, or by the lump. Yet every f—l will have his notions—will prattle and talk away; and why may not I? We seem then, in my opinion, to act under the guidance of an evil genius. The conduct of our leaders, if not actuated by superior orders, is tempered with something—I do not care to give a name to. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... all," she said, returning to the boy's prattle. "Most people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up your mother will ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... focused too long on the wrongs of the rural regions to be able to transfer themselves to the sufferings and injustices of the town. He saw the city collectively as the oppressor of the country, and Leverett Whyland, by reason of Clytie's innocent prattle, became the city incarnate in ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... arch—original even now; passionate when provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting yet generous; fearless . . . yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning ways, is made to ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... hundred numbered streets. But the road wound around to get out of a low marshy place, a pond in the rainy season, and some rocks that seemed tumbled up on end. They struck a bit of the old Boston Post Road, and that caused the little girl to stop her prattle and think of the old ladies they had never visited. She must "jog" her father's memory. That was what her mother always said when ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... incident gave them considerable food for exchanging opinions. They even tried to picture what the cabin on the Point may have looked like many years ago, when a woman's hands took care of the home, and the prattle of a child sounded among ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... Hogboom only grinned. "Prattle away all you please," he said, "but I mean it. I've got magnificent facilities for dying just now. I'll consider a proposition to die for the benefit of the cause if you fellows will agree to keep me in cigarettes and pie while ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... the poet's home-life would be incomplete did I not touch on his passionate fondness for his grand-children, the two little beings whose prattle and caresses lend a charm of peculiar sweetness to the waning hours of that illustrious career. For them the world-renowned genius is but the most loving and tender of grandfathers. Their games, their studies, their baby caprices, sway the actions of that grand personality as the zephyrs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the speed that its poor limbs were capable of, got directly before him and held forth its arms, mutely insisting on being taken up. It said not a word, being perhaps under-witted and incapable of prattle. But it smiled up in his face,—a sort of woful gleam was that smile, through the sickly blotches that covered its features,—and found means to express such a perfect confidence that it was going to be fondled ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to tell you these things? The Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the douanier is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... his heart, and he prayed God to take him, too, until it seemed that Cynthia frowned upon him for his weakness. One mild Sunday afternoon, he took little Cynthia by the hand and led her, toddling, out into the sunny Common, where he used to walk with her mother, and the infant prattle seemed to bring—at last a strange peace to his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... passed from the dwelling away, And quiet serenity brightens the day: With innocent prattle, her toils to beguile, In the midst of her children, the mother must smile. With matronly cares,—those relentless demands On the strength of her heart and the skill of her hands,— The hours come tenderly, ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... We hate your empty prattle; And vow and swear 'tis true, There's more in one child's rattle, Than twenty fops ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... than either to get away from Aunt Deborah, the storm of whose vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he continued within sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the mill and the prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned it, but it did not. Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles behind, and setting the great city between him and her, could efface ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... out of the face of William Douglas as he listened to his sister's prattle, like the vapours from the surface of a hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength. He even thought with some self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle the Abbot. But a glance at the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your philosopher is a complete novice in the life comme il faut.... I like very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals. The Aleibiades, of the "Symposium," is the ideal representative of the young aristocracy ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Launcelot. Allen humored her, finding a real relief in this childish game which his little friend took so seriously. The one drawback was the amount of intimate information which she conveyed through the medium of her innocent prattle. Allen could not know what was coming next, and so was powerless to head off conversation upon subjects into which he knew he had no right to enter, for Patricia possessed the faculty of keeping herself well informed as to family matters. It was through this ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... me—simply trifling. The friends of that other woman, a great brown-eyed beauty with the subtle charm and fatal fascination of a devil most lovely, made it appear that of course Gerome Meadows had never loved me—why should he? He cowardly held his peace and let them prattle; he was kneeling low before the shrine of his own selection; he was in open rebellion against his irate mother, who did not approve ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... not the outcome of religious feeling? By describing the Cabinet Order everywhere as an outcome of religious feeling. Is an insight into social movements to be expected from such an illogical mind? Listen to his prattle about the relation of German society to the Labour movement ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... he was unmarried then. "And he is so now," said the captain; "or was so very lately, for but a month ago I went from here, and then it was the general talk (as you know what great ones do the people will prattle of) that Orsino sought the love of fair Olivia, a virtuous maid, the daughter of a count who died twelve months ago, leaving Olivia to the protection of her brother, who shortly after died also; and for the love of this dear brother, they say, she has abjured the sight and ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... exquisitely touching, than some of these notes." Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but "a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD." In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth "just as if he were ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... with your left hand the wounds that you inflict with your right; you will make a shroud of your virtue in which to bury your crimes; you will strike, and like Brutus you will engrave on your sword the prattle of Plato! Into the heart of the being who opens her arms to you, you will plunge that blood-stained but repentant arm; you will follow to the cemetery the victim of your passion, and you will plant on her grave the sterile flower of your pity. You will ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... we shall presently have to affirm or deny. Under any other circumstances we should deeply enjoy a half hour spent in a comfortable chair, with nothing to do but do nothing. Our barber is a delightful fellow; he looks benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of some intimation of immortality. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... thing—in the Masnavi of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi (13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, upsetting several jars and spilling ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... silly, scheming daughter, with her small waist and flat neck; and, with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. As I heartily detest the whole race, I determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable Miss B—came in. As I never meet her without experiencing a heartfelt pleasure, I stayed and talked to her, leaning over the back of her chair, and did not perceive, till after some time, that she seemed ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly, when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that time more than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I can ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of unscrewing the nickel-cap of the little phial, and tell himself that he was getting stronger. Sometimes he really was so, and then the child sat on his wide hollow chest, and played with the beard that was now all grey and unkempt and matted, until some word in her baby prattle, some look of wondering inquiry in the innocent eyes, golden-hazel and black-lashed, like his own, that were almost too beautiful to be a man's, people used to say, like the weak, passionate, gentle mouth under the heavy ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... without some-indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.(26) We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... great deal of prattle about Italian skies: the skies and clouds of Italy, so far as I have had an opportunity of judging, do not present so great a variety of beautiful appearances as our own; but the Italian atmosphere is far more uniformly fine than ours. Not ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... of heart, and the hope of seeing again, in a year's time or so, two people who have supplied so many tables here with materials for conversation, when the fountain of talk was stopt by deficiencies, and the little stream of prattle ceased to murmur for want of a few pebbles to break ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... been ways of pleasantness, Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress And grief she has lived past; your giddy round Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound In deep brahminical philosophy. She chews the cud of sweetest revery Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry, Oblivious of all ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... William did all he could for their comfort. Betty went to see them sometimes, and brought me tidings. She was not permitted to enter the jail; but William would hold them up to the grated window while she chatted with them. When she repeated their prattle, and told me how they wanted to see their ma, my tears would flow. Old Betty would exclaim, "Lors, chile! what's you crying 'bout? Dem young uns vil kill you dead. Don't be so chick'n hearted! If you does, you vil nebber git ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... archetype of protean protein clay All the human's space has room for, for whom time makes a day, From the sage whose words of wisdom prince or parliament obey, To the parrots who but prattle, and the asses who but bray— So full was this Atom-Molecule, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... irresistible is the derision of the woman that all Charles Keene's persistent sense of vulgarity is intent centrally upon her. Never for any grace gone astray is she bantered, never for the social extravagances, for prattle, or for beloved dress; but always for her jealousy, and for the repulsive person of the man upon whom she spies and in whom she vindicates her ignoble rights. If this is the shopkeeper the possession of whom is her boast, what then ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... her pretty wiles on me when I'm poverty stricken and penniless, when it won't do any more good to coax than if you were to prattle to a dead man at his tomb.[18] The money goes to my father, that's ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... tears, and laughter and careless prattle with my mother, and roundabout questions from her to know if I had never lost my heart in the Bush; and evasive answers from me, to punish her for not letting out that Blanche was so charming. "I fancied Blanche had grown the image of her father, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery bloom's and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor, and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. Greater objects have taken possession ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... his temper and his breath To keep a brute alive that's bent on death? Yet one thing more: your fate may be to teach In some suburban school the parts of speech, And, maundering over grammar day by day, Lisp, prattle, drawl, grow ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... cannot be so well told by this way, as by presence and conversation; sure Philander understands what I mean by this, which possibly is nonsense to all but a lover, who apprehends all the little fond prattle of the thing belov'd, and finds an eloquence in it, that to a sense unconcern'd would appear even approaching to folly: but Philander, who has the true notions of love in him, apprehends all that ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... between Ayrshire Ruga and Fellenberg for the pillar that requires a red rose, to fix the right proportion of sand and leaf-mould to suit his carnations—when 'his only plot' is to plant the bergamot—he resents being fobbed off with prattle:— ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... makes truth more palatable. Trust me to work things to a highly artistic and flawless finish. I can procure any number of witnesses—at so much per head—who have time and again distinctly heard your childish prattle regarding dear ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... vs to the Castle. Newes (Friends) our Warres are done: The Turkes are drown'd. How do's my old Acquaintance of this Isle? (Hony) you shall be well desir'd in Cyprus, I haue found great loue among'st them. Oh my Sweet, I prattle out of fashion, and I doate In mine owne comforts. I prythee, good Iago, Go to the Bay, and disimbarke my Coffers: Bring thou the Master to the Cittadell, He is a good one, and his worthynesse Do's challenge much respect. Come Desdemona, Once more ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... when we meet She does not prattle of her posies, Dull facts of what begonias eat, The dietetic fads of roses, And how she strove with spade and spud. Or nipped the green ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... he has gone a little out of his way to tell you these things? The Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the douanier is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to the ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... partly in his own servants, and partly in the attendants of the king. He entered Scotland, and, when quite close to the abode of the queen, he went into a meadow by the wayside to rest his horses. Pleased by the look of the spot, he thought of resting—the pleasant prattle of the stream exciting a desire to sleep—and posted men to keep watch some way off. The queen on hearing of this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past the sentries, pertinaciously made his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Greek theos, logos, renders distinct the meaning of the subject it attempts to treat.—Theos, God, or Gods, unseen beings and unknown causes. Logos, word, talk—or, if we like to employ yet more familiar and expressive terms, prattle or chatter. Talk, or prattle, about unseen beings or unknown causes, The idleness of the subject, and inutility—nay, absolute insanity of the occupation, sufficiently appears in the strict etymological meaning of the word employed to typify them. The danger, the mischief, the cruelly ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... with their ranges and ranches? Do they ring with rough rider refrains? Do the cowboys scrap there with Comanches And other Red Men of the plains? Are the hills covered over with cattle In those mystic worlds far, far away? Do the ranch-houses ring with the prattle Of ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... alone when at home, at a small table in his cabinet. The two sons of Hortense were frequently admitted, that they might interest him with their infant prattle. The Emperor would tell them a story, and have them repeat it after him, that he might ascertain the accuracy of their memory. Any indication of intellectual superiority excited in his mind the most lively satisfaction. Mademoiselle ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... company fell into groups—some out of doors beneath the apple-trees, others near the piano at which Virginia was playing Mendelssohn. Monica ran about among them with her five-year-old prattle, ever watched by her father, who lounged in a canvas chair against the sunny ivied wall, pipe in mouth. Dr. Madden was thinking how happy they made him, these kind, gentle girls; how his love for them seemed to ripen with every summer; what a delightful ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... pretence of being great, 'T is not so to be good; and, be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state: And tell them—But you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but, by and by, I'll prattle Like ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the fire, and my aunt made a great blaze, for it was very cold. They sat one in each corner, and I sat between them, and told them many things concerning the school. They asked me questions and encouraged my prattle, seeming well pleased that the old silence should be broken. I fancy I brought them a little nearer to each other that night. It was after a funeral, and yet they both looked happier than I had ever ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... filled with this intolerable pain, as he passed through the streets he yielded to the temptation to kill out this torturing consciousness: he accosted one of the women of the streets and walked away with her. She was full of light prattle, and chattered on and on. Harvey answered her not a word; he was set on his stony purpose. Child of the Stars! what had he to do with these things? He sought only his soul's annihilation. Something in this terrible silence ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... left her infant prodigy, Clarence, in our care for a little while that she might not be distracted by his innocent prattle while selecting the material for a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... dare not look up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough to me! I would give my promised garter if she would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in God's name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, blushing silence,—it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt such pains since the last nightmare I had after dining with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mediaeval gloom and modern din, another spirit breathed upon him,—a spirit of green woods and blue waters, the freshness of May mornings, the prattle of tender infancy, the gambols of young lambs on the hill-side. From his childhood, Poetry walked hand in hand with Painting, and beguiled his loneliness with wild, sweet harmonies. Bred up amid the stately, measured, melodious platitudes of the eighteenth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... well, remember that Posture; don't be a Prittle prattle, nor Prate apace, nor be a minding any Thing but what is said to you. If you are to make an Answer, do it in few Words, and to the Purpose, every now and then prefacing with some Title of Respect, and sometimes use a Title of ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as we do not understand the language," said ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... ladies who had to stand there on duty, watching her as the mourners watched the King, though her lying-in-state was not always as silent; for though, there was much time spent in slumber, Catherine sometimes would indulge in a good deal of subdued prattle with her mother, or her more confidential attendants. But at other times, chiefly when first awaking, or else when anything had crossed her will, she would fall into agonies of passionate grief—weeping, shrieking, and rending her hair with almost a frenzy of misery, as she called ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the confederacy with her mother, she afterwards kept her secret. For this her motive was commendable, although I will not determine whether she did it well or ill. Two women, who have secrets between them, love to prattle together; this attracted them towards each other, and Theresa, by dividing herself, sometimes let me feel I was alone; for I could no longer consider as a society that which we all ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... but presently thou shalt become illicit to me and legitimate to thy husband; so from this time forth thou art dearer and more honorable to me than my eyes and my mother and my sister. But for the moment thy return to Damascus is not possible for fear of foolish tongues lest they prattle and say, 'Attaf went forth to farewell Ja'afar, and his wife lay the night with the former, and thus have the back-bones had a single lappet.'[FN366] However I will bear thee to Baghdad where I will stablish ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... same principle it is that I never suffer my children to join in the conversation of grown people, or foolishly imagine themselves on an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would have them give a short and modest answer when they are spoken to, but never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... wonders why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material), but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas "pedantial" (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian's "prattle" (p. 11). And, though at times it seems that his curiosity and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger, Donatus, Vossius, Servius, Minturno, Heinsius, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... of a small pale prattle about the people she had seen at Ouchy, as to whom she had the minute statistical information of a gazetteer, without any apparent sense of personal differences. She said to Darrow: "They tell me things are very much changed ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... all, though, Indian-like, listening with respectful attention whenever his companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, which he would draw after him as far as ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... was frequently impeded by the questions and observations of his young auditors, we deem it advisable to omit all such prattle as is not essential to the story. We have taken some pains to find out exactly what Grandfather said, and here offer to our readers, as nearly as possible in his own ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... yourselves nothing ever conflicks with your pecooler idees, except when Human Nater busts out among you, as I understan she sumtimes do. [I giv Uriah a sly wink here, which made the old feller squirm like a speared Eel.] You wear long weskits and long faces, and lead a gloomy life indeed. No children's prattle is ever hearn around your harthstuns—you air in a dreary fog all the time, and you treat the jolly sunshine of life as tho' it was a thief, drivin it from your doors by them weskits, and meal bags, and pecooler noshuns of yourn. The gals among you, sum of which air as slick pieces of caliker ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... how characterised I forget. I did not think, however, that the proposed antidote, in which the mysteries of religion and the specialties of a zealous class in the English Church were mixed up with childish prattle, was much more decorous or appropriate than what it was ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... footstool was serving as a table for the various flowers that two children were constantly gathering in the grass and presenting to her, to Rachel, or to each other, with a constant stream of not very comprehensible prattle, full of pretty gesticulation that seemed to make up for the want of distinctness. The yellow-haired, slenderly-made, delicately-featured boy, whose personal pronouns were just developing, and his consonants very scanty, though the elder of the two, dutifully ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, and turned to me as the lesser of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... no more! I must not wed One who is poor, so hold your prattle; My lips on love have ne'er been fed, With poverty I cannot battle. My choice is made—I know I'm right— Who wed for love starvation suffer; So I will study day and night To please and win ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... few moments we retired to our rooms while the pretty Hosanna arranged the forty-nine presents on the tree. Then she clapped her hands, and we rushed in. What a wondrous sight! What a shout of infantine laughter and charming prattle! for in that happy moment were we not all ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... Middleton looked simply grave; a way of asserting the contrary opinion that tells of rueful experience. "We'll see," said the colonel. They chatted like a couple unexpectedly discovering in one another a common dialect among strangers. Can there be an end to it when those two meet? They prattle, they fill the minutes, as though they were violently to be torn asunder at a coming signal, and must have it out while they can; it is a meeting of mountain brooks; not a colloquy, but a chasing, impossible to say which flies, which follows, or what the topic, so interlinguistic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... after the parade service at the garrison church; a staff officer collected the reports and reported to another staff officer, who reported to a bigger staff officer, and so on; there was any amount of saluting and of reassuring prattle before the general was at last made aware that everything was all right. One Sunday it was my turn to collect the reports and to report to the D.A.A.G. In those days cocked hats had (and they probably still have) a ridiculous scrap of ribbed gold-wire lace of prehensile tendencies at ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... dear, to call it dear! Why it isn't a horn you buy, but an ear; Only think, you'll find on reflection You're bargaining, Ma'am, for the Voice of Affection; For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth: Not to mention the striking of clocks—, Cackle of hens—crowing of cocks— Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox— Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks— Murmur of waterfall over the rocks— Every sound that Echo ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... had the maiden, and she thought, Within herself: 'I would I were like them; For then I might go forth alone, to trace The mighty rivers downward to the sea, And upward to the brooks that, through the year, Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know What races drink their waters; how their chiefs Bear rule, and how men worship there, and how They build, and to what quaint device they frame, Where sea and river meet, their stately ships; What flowers are in their gardens, and what ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Giovanni," when the final rehearsal already had been held, the overture still remained unwritten. It had to be written overnight, and it was she who sat by him and relieved the rush and strain of work with her cheerful prattle. It is said that, among other things, she read to him the story of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp." Be that as it may;—she rubbed the lamp, and the overture ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... fluttering feed you with the Sirup, And if thence you put them by They to your white necke will flye, And if you expulse them there They'll hang vpon your braded Hayre; You so long shall see them prattle Till at length they'll fall to battle, 160 And when they haue fought their fill, You will smile to see them bill These birds my Lirope's shall be So thou'lt leaue ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... of fresh air was nearly eaten—turned with eagerness to watch this new source of amusement. Innocent laughter and childish prattle were strange to them. Some smiled, and nodded with interest in the varying fortunes of the game. One young lad could hardly restrain himself from applauding. It was as though, out of the sultry heat which brooded over the ship, a cool breeze ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... Beaumont-Greene's father was endeavouring to establish a credit-account with the Recording Angel. Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the Church of England after he had made his fortune (cf. Shavings from the Workshops of our Merchant Princes, which appeared in the pages of "Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of the Imperishable Boot had taken to endowing churches; and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with an eye to backsheesh) had praised his ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... her whole existence, while a man's love is only part of his—which is true, and only natural and reasonable, all things considered. But women never consider as a rule. A man can't go on talking lovey-dovey talk for ever, and listening to his young wife's prattle when he's got to think about making a living, and nursing her and answering her childish questions and telling her he loves his little ownest every minute in the day, while the bills are running up, and rent mornings begin to fly round and hustle ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... of the poet's home-life would be incomplete did I not touch on his passionate fondness for his grand-children, the two little beings whose prattle and caresses lend a charm of peculiar sweetness to the waning hours of that illustrious career. For them the world-renowned genius is but the most loving and tender of grandfathers. Their games, their studies, their baby ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious. 1895 SHAKS.: Richard II., Act v., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... what he is reading, Hamlet replies:—'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think it fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such remarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle) as 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... wife who accompanied him, and who is herself, as she proves on many pages, one of the most enthusiastic of those admirers. You may say there is nothing very much in it all, but just some pleasant sea-prattle about interesting ports and persons, and a number of photographs rather more intimate than those that generally illustrate the published travel-book. But the general impression is jolly. Stevensonians will be especially curious over the visit to Samoa, concerning her first impressions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... child in his arms had opened her eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his dusty leg, he ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... that betrothal night) Winifred prattled on, while I listened to the prattle, craftily throwing in a word or two, now and then, to direct the course of the sweet music into such channels as best pleased my lordly whim,—when suddenly, against my will and reason, there came into my mind that idea of the sea's prophecy which was so ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... believe that Latin and Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Caesar and Cicero and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their marvellous power of discovering historical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... why this mock grimace? Go, silly thing, and hide that simp'ring face. Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait, All thy false mimic fooleries I hate; For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she Who is right foolish hath the better plea; Nature's true ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... himself. "In the name of what we have been to each other in days past, I hope you are not their—that you don't realize they are making you a——But I can't say it! I want proof from you now by word o' mouth! I don't want any more prattle of business! I want you to show me that you are talking for yourself. Lana Corson, say to me some word from your own heart—something for me alone—something from old times—to prove that you are what I want you to be! I love you. You are mine! I don't believe their gossip. I have ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the charms ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Greek, wherein's his pleasure.) That (jovially) so Greek he takes the guard of, That he's the merriest Greek that ere was heard of; For he as 'twere his Mothers twittle twattle, (That's Mother-tongue) the Greek can prittle prattle. Nay, of that Tongue he so hath got the Body, That he sports with it at Ruffe, Gleek ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... though I believe them not, Who say you meddle in affairs of state: That you presume to prattle like a busy-body, Give your advice, and teach the lords o' the council What fits the order ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... seated themselves on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... he has indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full, ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all these were utterly extinct in the world: ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... bring them to heaven against their hearts and wills, and the love that they had to their sins, yet that God was far from infusing any thing into their souls, that should in the least hinder, weaken, obstruct, or let them in seeking the welfare of their souls. Now, men will tattle and prattle at a mad rate about election and reprobation, and conclude that because all are not elected, therefore God is to blame that any are damned. But then they will see that they are not damned because they were not elected, but because they sinned; ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... winds and aromatic odors,—where under fluttering forest-leaves her little face caught its first gleams of thought and tender meanings, like their glinting lights and flying shades, and her little voice seemed intoned by their silvery murmurs, the love-notes of birds and prattle of streams. In remembrance of the sweet spring in the glen, and the shady resting-places on the hill,—of the grand old oaks, and of the violets at ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... man alive, you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from Boston and found she was expected. I thought you were ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... marble-mosaic landing by an active boy, and, almost before we could ask for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,—flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in being appointed to sit in judgment on Billy Prattle, how much more so must I now be when I am bound to inquire with impartiality into every particular which may tend to convict Sally Delia of the charge laid against her. I would, however, recommend you to go through this business with the utmost candour, to advance ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs. Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic if utterly ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... twins were both persistent and clever, and Fairy found herself no match for them when it came right down to business. She had no idea of their purpose,—she only knew that she and Gene were always on opposite sides of the room, the young man grinning savagely at the twins' merry prattle, and she and the professor trying to keep quiet enough to hear every word from the other corner. And if they walked, Gene was dragged off by the firm slender fingers of the friendly twins, and Fairy and the professor walked drearily along in the rear, talking inanely about the weather,—and ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... her prattle:—"I went into Isabella's bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus [the Venus de' Medicis] or the statute in an ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that I ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... sits apart gazing at a mysterious picture on the wall, the portrait of a pale man clad in black, the hero of the mysterious legend of the Flying Dutchman. The girls rally Senta upon her abstraction, and as a reply to their idle prattle she sings them the ballad of the doomed mariner. Throughout the song her enthusiasm has been waxing, and at its close, like one inspired, she cries aloud that she will be the woman to save him, that through her the accursed wretch shall find eternal peace. Erik, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Beatrice," she said, "come talk to me, for I know not what to do with my lone self today. Time hangs heavily in this gloomy house. I do verily think this Red Room has an evil influence over me. See if your childish prattle can drive away the ghosts that riot in these dark old corners—ghosts of a ruined and shamed life! Nay, shrink not—do I talk wildly? I mean not all I say—my brain seems on fire, little Beatrice. Come; it may be you know ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... away from Widewood. Was it, she wondered, the noble fear that he might subject her to those social rumors that are so often all the more annoying because only premature? Ah, if he could but know how lightly she regarded such prattle! But she would not tell him, even in impersonal verse. On the contrary, she contributed to the Presbyterian Monthly—a non-sectarian publication—those lines—which caught one glance of so many of her friends and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... unaccountable affection for this wayward child. How blessed the virtuous parents whose attire Is soiled with dust, by raising from the ground The child that asks a refuge in their arms! And happy are they while with lisping prattle, In accents sweetly inarticulate, He charms their ears; and with his artless smiles Gladdens their hearts[119], revealing to their gaze His pearly teeth ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... after and as yet unborn. But know, O White Man, that I was very sick; and when neither the hunting nor the fishing delighted me, and by meat my belly was not made warm, how should I look with favor upon women? or prepare for the feast of marriage? or look forward to the prattle and troubles of ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... not mere mechanical memorizing, of the Catechism is of paramount import, Luther insisted that the instruction must be popular throughout. Preachers and fathers are urged to come down to the level of the children and to prattle with them, in order to bring the Christian fundamentals home even to the weakest and simplest. In his German Mass Luther concludes the chapter on instruction as follows: "And let no one consider himself too wise and despise such ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... born under an evil star. At once feeble and violent, he unites with very ardent passions a deplorable puerility of mind; incapable of serious thought, the merest trivialities move him to fever heat, and he talks childish prattle with all the gestures of great passion. And what is worse, interesting himself greatly in himself, he thinks it very natural that this interest should be shared by all the world. Do not imagine that his is a loving heart that feels a necessity of spending itself on others. He likes to make his emotions ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... She continued to prattle of the momentous marriage impending, until her complacent chatter was interrupted by the entrance of her half-sister, Mrs. Wynyard, and ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... Why, he was even restrained in conversation; he did not interrupt her often, instantly apologized and forebore when he did; he poured out none of his wonted sophomoric diatribes, sometimes sensible, more often inane, as the prattle of a great man in his hour of relaxation is apt to be. She had to do most of the talking—and you may be sure that she directed her conversation to conveying under an appearance of lightness many valuable lessons ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... not take alarm at my name (as has indeed been the case in other places, owing to the foolish prattle of the critics), they might try the "Prometheus" choruses there by-and-by. They are to be given almost directly (at the end of October) at Zwickau, and probably later on in Leipzig, where I shall then also ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... scornful critics, bunched with glistening ribbons, shaking back their cascades of blonde hair, lolling contemptuously on the foremost benches, and "looking big through their curls." There from "Fop's Corner" rises the tipsy laugh, the prattle, and the chatter, as the dukes and lords, the wits and courtiers, practise what Dryden calls "the diving bow," or "the toss and the new French wallow"—the diving bow ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the city, about at the end of our first hundred numbered streets. But the road wound around to get out of a low marshy place, a pond in the rainy season, and some rocks that seemed tumbled up on end. They struck a bit of the old Boston Post Road, and that caused the little girl to stop her prattle and think of the old ladies they had never visited. She must "jog" her father's memory. That was what her mother always said when she recalled ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... interchange of wit, the society of the Townshends, the Walpoles, the Williamses, the Edgecumbes; all the jovial, keen wisdom of Gilly, and Dick, and Horace, and Charles, as they called one another, for the meaningless prattle, the merry laughter of this half-English, half-Italian child, It redeems Selwyn in our eyes, and it may have done him real good: nay, he must have felt a keen refreshment in this change from vice to innocence; and we understand the misery he expressed, when the old ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... Mornin's and evenin's came an' went, an' not a "howdy-do" in his pleasant voice. I wasn't surprised; I expected as much for a time. Finally, one of the hired men said he'd gone away. Then I put my lips together in a dogged way an' settled down to a lonesome life, cheered a little by the prattle of little Hannah, an' kept from rustin' by the farm work. I was lonesome, very lonesome, when the evenin' shadows crept over the ground, an' the crickets began to sing, the katydids to scold, an' the hoot owl to give his mournful cry over in the ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... done before she came, they thought so much of her now. Kitchen and drawing-room, it was all the same. The hard, sad Miss Furnivall, and the cold Mrs. Stark, looked pleased when she came fluttering in like a bird, playing and pranking hither and thither, with a continual murmur, and pretty prattle of gladness. I am sure, they were sorry many a time when she flitted away into the kitchen, though they were too proud to ask her to stay with them, and were a little surprised at her taste; though to be sure, as Mrs. Stark said, it was not to be wondered at, remembering ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... complaining of Michelangelo's sensitiveness. "One favour I would request of you, that is, that you should come to learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every little thing, and remember that eagles do not prey on flies. Enough! I know that you will laugh at my prattle; but I do not care; Nature has made me so, and I ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... 194, 195.—Pericles and Sophocles also prattle about Queen Caroline! vol. 2, p. 106, 107.—In another place the judgment and style of Johnson being under sentence, the Doctor's judgment is "alike in all things," that is, "unsound and incorrect;" and as to style, "a sentence of Johnson is like a pair of breeches, an article of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... day nor night, through the threatenings of death or the allurements of fame, one thought was paramount in Collingwood's mind. A yearning for a peaceful garden he had left behind—to him a veritable garden of Paradise—for the innocent prattle of his children, the sweet companionship of his wife. A dream of reunion tormented and sustained him. "Whenever I think how I am to be happy again my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth," he wrote. Incapable of a dramatic appeal to sympathy, his letters to Stanhope, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... bull-necked Lakamba, listening with pouted lips without the sign of a smile, without a gleam in his dull, bloodshot eyes, shuffled slowly across the courtyard between his two guests. But suddenly Bahassoen broke in upon the old man's prattle with the generous enthusiasm of his youth. . . . Trading was very good. But was the change that would make them happy effected yet? The white man should be despoiled with a strong hand! . . . He grew excited, spoke very loud, and his further discourse, delivered with his ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... with another man, which so irritated John Clare that he, in his turn, paid his attentions to a young damsel of the neighbourhood, known as Betty Sell, the daughter of a labourer at Southorp. Betty was a lass of sixteen, pretty and unaffected, with dark hair and hazel eyes; and her prattle about green fields, flowers, and sunshine, of which she seemed passionately fond, so intoxicated John that he got enamoured of her on the spot. It was a mere passing fancy; but to revenge himself upon Patty for coquetting, as he thought, with others, he did not go near her, and, at the end of the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... one of the deep, quaintly barred windows of the hacienda that Miss Keene gazed thoughtfully on the night, unable to compose herself to sleep. An antique guest-chamber had been assigned to her in deference to her wish to be alone, for which she had declined the couch and vivacious prattle of her new friend, Dona Isabel. The events of the day had impressed her more deeply than they had her companions, partly from her peculiar inexperience of the world, and partly from her singular sensitiveness to external causes. The whole quaint story of the forgotten and isolated ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... Martin Parker at hawthorn-tide Prattle in Devonshire lanes, Let all his pedlar poets beside Rattle their gallows-chains, A tale like mine they never shall tell Or a merrier ballad sing, Till the Man in the Moon pipe up the tune ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... unconscious and to beauty blind. 60 Say, does her language your ambition raise, Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase, Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds, And maims the cadence of poetic sounds? Say, does your humble admiration choose The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse, While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear, Charged to say nought but what the king may hear? Or rather melt your sympathising hearts Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts, 70 Where old and young declaim on soft desire, And heroes ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... clerks have miss'd the mark Why human buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. —Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss: Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells, and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... that was a cracker!" remarked Quin, who had been listening to the boy's prattle with an amused expression, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... talk about things they have seen from the outside with the same magisterial authority the talking dynasty pretended to. The sturdy old moralist felt grand enough, no doubt, when he said, "He that is growing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war or peace." Benjamin Franklin was one of these idlers who were electrifying bottles, but he also found time to engage in the trifling prattle about war and peace going on in those times. The talking ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will be, that you wither. No constitution can stand it. All the ladies here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs. They can talk to men upon men's themes. It is impossible to explain to you how wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes. The idea that men ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the ladies' bustles with their very undisguised expression of something very abominable, the faces of the idle rich, longing for cheap adventures, the smell of perfumery instead of the scent of the cedars and the sea, the miserable dirty pier, the melancholy lights far out at sea, the prattle of young ladies and gentlemen who have crowded here in order to admire nature of which they have no idea—all this taken together produces such a depressing effect and is so overwhelming that one begins to blame oneself for being biassed and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... surrounded by productive fishing grounds and potentially large oil reserves. In 1932, French Indochina annexed the islands and set up a weather station on Prattle Island; maintenance was continued by its successor Vietnam. China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1974, when its troops captured a South Vietnamese garrison occupying the western islands. However, the islands are still claimed by ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... more pathetic figure. Every circumstance that could contribute to this effect is skilfully seized and emphasised: Charles's incredibly selfish weakness, the implacable sternness of Pym, the triste prattle of Strafford's children and their interrupted joyous song in the final scene, all serve to heighten our feeling of affectionate pity and regret. The imaginary former friendship between Pym and Strafford adds still ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... oration! Good heavens, what wasn't there in it! I am positive that it would have reduced to rigidity even a Petersburg audience, let alone ours. Imagine an article that would have filled some thirty pages of print of the most affected, aimless prattle; and to make matters worse, the gentleman read it with a sort of melancholy condescension as though it were a favour, so that it was almost insulting to the audience. The subject.... Who could make it out? It was a sort of description of certain impressions and reminiscences. But ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the staunchest of friends, he is not among the most sociable of authors. His writings are seldom in the vein either of tenderness or of merriment. We know of the tenderness of Swift only from a rare anecdote or from the prattle of the Journal to Stella. As for his laughter, as Mr. Whibley rightly points out, Pope was talking nonsense when he wrote of Swift as laughing and shaking in Rabelais's easy chair. Swift's humour is essentially of the intellect. He laughs out of his own bitterness rather than to ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... would sit there together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. The old servant, Marguerite, was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us. Gay and daring, she always knew how to make the men laugh with her prattle, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably so; but I would not let her ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... him. He could think of her now in but one setting—a great empty church at the end of springtime, crowds passing outside, a desolate man behind a closed door, and a little child, with the face of an angel, sitting alone in a carven pew. He could hear her answer him in her childish prattle, could feel her cool little hand slip into his as she asked about the lonely man within. Then he remembered the kiss. The floods dried up. Mark's sorrow was beyond ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... absorbing this prattle, the visitor gazed about him. The bed had been unslept in, and here and there were evidences of a hasty and unpremeditated leave-taking. Upon an open desk lay a half-finished poem, obviously intended for no eyes save the writer's. Several dainty ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... father, she could not suppress her tears. Francois, the eldest, then nine years of age, tried to console her. He told her that he was almost a man, able to earn his food and to take care of her and his little brother. She listened to his prattle with a sad smile, kissed ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... and literary arrogance? Well; there is nothing to be said about them. They are all alike. They grew up to be all very respectable, comfortable, and commonplace. They were well-meaning people. What they had formerly said and thought was only—CHILDREN'S PRATTLE. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... children. 'Twould better become thee to prattle of frocks and fixings for my Lady Penwick. Your Lordship will see to it at once?" It was a happy ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... disappointment of finding that he did not bestow on her so much attention as she thought she deserved. The family were a good deal surprised at the silence into which she had retired. Emilie generally displayed all her arts for the benefit of newcomers, her witty prattle, and the inexhaustible eloquence of her eyes and attitudes. Whether it was that the young man's pleasing voice and attractive manners had charmed her, that she was seriously in love, and that this feeling had worked a change ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... selfe some hurts, and say I got them in exploit: yet slight ones will not carrie it. They will say, came you off with so little? And great ones I dare not giue, wherefore what's the instance. Tongue, I must put you into a Butter-womans mouth, and buy my selfe another of Baiazeths Mule, if you prattle ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... nothing to be said about them. They are all alike. They grew up to be all very respectable, comfortable, and commonplace. They were well-meaning people. What they had formerly said and thought was only—CHILDREN'S PRATTLE. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... said, "all your servants love you, but it beseems them not to flaunt it before your face, so high are you placed above them. You order their fortunes and their lives, and surely 'tis nobler work than meddling with this idle love-prattle." ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... presses, holes, stains, and oldness in their Stuffs, and make them shop-rid: May they keep Whores and Horses, and break; and live mued up with necks of Beef and Turnips: May they have many children, and none like the Father: May they know no language but that gibberish they prattle to their Parcels, unless it be the goarish Latine they write in their bonds, and may they write that false, and lose ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... paid such a tribute to the lively Peace on the previous day, her teacher would merely have raised her eyebrows doubtfully; but with the memory of that flushed, joyous face still so vividly before her, and with the sound of the eager, childish prattle still ringing in her ears, she nodded her head in assent, and turned back to the day's duties with a heaviness of heart that was overwhelming. With that restless, active figure gone from its accustomed ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... stranger's turn to blush. And this little childish prattle seemed to have removed the barrier of strangership from between the two young people, who exchanged glances of a sort of merry vexation, and seemed to understand each other as if ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... shores leafy woodlands and prairies alternate; On the vine-tangled islands the flowers peep timidly out at the white men; In the dark-winding eddy the loon sits warily, watching and voiceless, And the wild goose, in reedy lagoon, stills the prattle and play of her children. The does and their sleek, dappled fawns prick their ears and peer out from the thickets, And the bison-calves play on the lawns, and gambol like colts in the clover. Up the still flowing Wkpa Wakn's winding path through the groves ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... for Naradia was almost hysterical and was willing to prattle on. Kahn Meng smiled tenderly. "Naradia," he continued, lowering his voice gently, "now that Peter Moore and I are at last together, will you excuse us? You must be exhausted, my dear—after this unpleasant affair. Will you retire? Remember, little Chaya, in another week ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... he, "please have a large dish of California oranges on the table if you have nothing else." Despite a certain stiffness of manner and speech, he was a man of kindly heart and simple, unworldly nature. After the first ice was broken, the most unintellectual person might prattle away to him at ease, for his sympathies were of the broadest. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson had a deep affection for him, and "no matter who else was there, the ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark Why human buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. —Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss: Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells, and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... who allow screaming,—"the more the better,"—in order to produce power and expression in the voice, and to make it serviceable for public performances. They may, indeed, require the singing of solfeggio, and prattle about the requisite equality of the tones; and they consequently make the pupil practise diligently and strongly on the two-lined a, b flat, b, where kind Nature does not at first place the voice, because she has ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... The Hall of Knights is turned into a chemical laboratory, and the daylight is allowed to pour unobscured into all its murky recesses. Through the dim and lofty passage-ways resounds the laughter of children; on the scenes of so many hoary crimes the prattle of innocent girls is heard; a multitude of scientific instruments labor to demonstrate the laws of nature, and to simplify the problem of existence which the crimes of the Kurts had tended to complicate. Thomas Rendalen, profoundly impressed as he is with his responsibility as the ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... all I can say is that if I had died before this chance, I had lived a blessed time. I perceive more and more that I'm obsolete. I'm in my dotage; I prattle of the good old times, and the new spirit of the age flouts me. Miss Effie, do you ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... this intimate journal of his travellings in remote waters, written by the wife who accompanied him, and who is herself, as she proves on many pages, one of the most enthusiastic of those admirers. You may say there is nothing very much in it all, but just some pleasant sea-prattle about interesting ports and persons, and a number of photographs rather more intimate than those that generally illustrate the published travel-book. But the general impression is jolly. Stevensonians will be especially ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... acidity of the lemon will very aptly figure pungency of raillery, and acrimony of censure; sugar is the natural representative of luscious adulation and gentle complaisance; and water is the proper hieroglyphick of easy prattle, innocent and tasteless. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... you good friend, And my deere Father: how features are abroad I am skillesse of; but by my modestie (The iewell in my dower) I would not wish Any Companion in the world but you: Nor can imagination forme a shape Besides your selfe, to like of: but I prattle Something too wildely, and my Fathers precepts ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... generally treated with more kindness and affection than they are in China. "Children, even amongst seemingly stolid Chinese, have the faculty of calling forth the better feelings so often found latent. Their prattle delights the fond father, whose pride beams through every line of his countenance, and their quaint and winning ways and touches of nature are visible even under the disadvantages of almond eyes and ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture which always comes with nightfall on the equator ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... inquire what all this ingenious prattle about Inequality and the Science of Human Character amounts to. What does Mr. Mallock expect? His book has been out six months, and still Democracy exists. But does any such Democracy as he combats exist, or could ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Club in lieu of the Battery. The Battery wouldn't sound good form. Romanticism always makes truth more palatable. Trust me to work things to a highly artistic and flawless finish. I can procure any number of witnesses—at so much per head—who have time and again distinctly heard your childish prattle regarding dear Uncle ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... she insisted he should have at least three more to make him at all bearable, and he said there would be no living with him he would be so charming and agreeable, and so the talk ran on, the battledoor and shuttlecock kind of talk—the same prattle that we have all listened to dozens of times, or should have listened to, to have kept our hearts young. And yet not a talk at all; a play, rather, in which words count for little and the action is everything: Listening to the toss of a curl or the lowering of an eyelid; answering ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... did not realize how much sweetness and sunshine she was bringing into the garden with her, but in her ignorance supposed that the many visits were all for her own happiness. How could she know that her lively prattle was making the weary days bearable for the frail sufferer? And had anyone tried to tell her what an important part she was playing in that life drama, she would not have believed it. Perhaps it was the very unconsciousness ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... I list your prattle, baby boy, And hear your pattering feet With feelings more of pain than joy And thoughts ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... attorney) konfidatesto. Powerful multepova. Powerless senpotenca. Practical praktika. Practice (custom) kutimo. Practice praktiko, kutimo, uzado. Practise praktiki. Prairie herbejo. Praise lauxdi. Prank petoleco—ajxo. Prate babili. Prattle babili. Pray (religious) pregxi. Pray (to request) peti. Prayer pregxo. Prayer-book pregxlibro. Preach prediki. Preacher predikisto. Preaching predikado. Preamble antauxparolo. Prebendary ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... one wonders why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material), but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas "pedantial" (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian's "prattle" (p. 11). And, though at times it seems that his curiosity and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger, Donatus, Vossius, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... who prattle of despair Some friend, methinks, might wisely say: Each day, no question, has its care, But ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... hideous pannier petticoat under her new frock. She guessed her husband's disappointment, and, though she longed for a word of admiration, or at least of wondering attention, for her square-rigged petticoat, she thought best to be content with the excited prattle of her maid, a young bond-servant bought off the Nancy Jane the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Dean, but how characterised I forget. I did not think, however, that the proposed antidote, in which the mysteries of religion and the specialties of a zealous class in the English Church were mixed up with childish prattle, was much more decorous or appropriate than what ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... long to give her the shelter of my home. But in the midst of these anxieties, how much I have to make me happy! Little Ernest is the life and soul of the house; the sound of his feet pattering about, and all his prattle, are the sweetest music to my ear; and his heart is brimful of love and joy, so that he shines on us all like a sunbeam. Baby is improving every day, and is one of those tender, clinging little things that appeal to everybody's love and sympathy. I never ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... ventured to suggest. "The two girls from Dalton!" "A striking scene in the police court!" These and other "striking things" she outlined to serious Dorothy, who now in the early morning sat so close to the car window, and seemed to hear nothing of the foolish prattle, ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... Her resting-place how sweet! But thou wilt sadly miss The busy hands, the dancing feet, The prattle and ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... never care For those lips that tongue-tied are: Tell-tales I would have them be Of my mistress and of me. Let them prattle how that I Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry: Let them tell how she doth move Fore or backward in her love: Let them speak by gentle tones, One and th' other's passions: How we watch, and seldom sleep; How by willows we do weep; How by stealth we meet, and then Kiss, and sigh, so ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... it was a dizzying experience to sit at the head of her own table, and, with assumed calmness, invite the minister not to spare the loaf-bread. Babbie's prattle, and even Gavin's answers, were but an indistinct noise to her, to be as little regarded, in the excitement of watching whether Mr. Dishart noticed that there was a knife for the butter, as the music of the river by a man who is ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... faculty of speech; locution, talk, parlance, verbal intercourse, prolation^, oral communication, word of mouth, parole, palaver, prattle; effusion. oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration; speechifying; soliloquy &c 589; allocution &c 586; conversation &c 588; salutatory : screed: valedictory [U.S.]. oratory; elocution, eloquence; rhetoric, declamation; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with reason, at the freedom of his speech; yet, his manner, was so much beyond anything I had been accustomed to for ease and pleasantness, that I soon forgave him, and when he encouraged me, began to prattle about my affairs, being only, with all my conceit, the silly lassie my ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... passed out of the face of William Douglas as he listened to his sister's prattle, like the vapours from the surface of a hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength. He even thought with some self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle the Abbot. But a glance at the ring on his finger, and the thought of what might have been his good ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... I imagine that a good little wife, who will fill my glass while I am tranquilly smoking my pipe before a blazing fire, may have as many charms as the best brig in which one may sometimes perish with hunger and thirst. Right or wrong, I imagine to myself again that the prattle of two or three little monkeys around me, may be as agreeable as the sound of the wind howling through the masts, or of Spanish balls whistling about one's ears. All this, Kate, signifies that I mean to marry; and who do you suppose has put ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... to say that Miss Thorndyke remains quite faithful to Captain Egerton, and goes so far as to refuse for his sake the rector of the parish, a local baronet, and a real live lord. There are endless pages of five o'clock tea-prattle and a good many tedious characters. Such novels as Scamp are possibly more easy to write ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... comprehending its cause, however, seconded his efforts in a way that soon rendered their timely return no longer a matter of doubt. Then, and then only, did the young man suffer his exertions to flag, and Hetty began, again, to prattle in her simple confiding manner, though nothing farther was uttered that it may be thought ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... lay that great gulf. 'Ich habe gelebt und geliebet.' That the little blackbird, as they used to call her, should have been on the verge of running away with her own husband was a half understood, amusing mystery discussed in exaggerating prattle. This was hushed, indeed, in the presence of that crushed, prostrate, silent sorrow; but there was still an utter incapacity of true sympathy, that made the very presence of so many oppressive, even when they were not in ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... longed more than either to get away from Aunt Deborah, the storm of whose vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he continued within sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the mill and the prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned it, but it did not. Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles behind, and setting the great city between him and ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... and to hear him mention The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment. Tods had heard the bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which so clearly ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... and dull, Vile mothers hard, and boys and girls profane, His soul drew back from. He had worked for them,— Work without joy: but, in his heart of hearts, He loved the little children; and whene'er He heard their prattle innocent, and heard Their tender voices lisping sacred words That he had taught them,—in the cleanly calm Of decent school, by decent matron held,— Then would he say, "I shall have ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... astute person there to manage the affair, would settle the fate of Mr. Ralph Haverley. At this thought her eyes sparkled, and she began to feel hungry. At this important moment she did not wish to occupy her mind with prattle and chat, and therefore departed from her usual custom of lunching with a friend or acquaintance. Hitching her roan mare in front of a confectionery ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... is not warlike sells except Macaulay? Don't suppose I bandy compliments; but, with moderate care, any such Translation of such a writer as Hafiz by you into pure, sweet, and partially measured Prose must be better than what I am doing for Jami; {304} whose ingenuous prattle I am stilting into too Miltonic verse. This I am very sure of. But ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... sand on the beach; and by his side—invisible to Ali—stalked that particular fiend whose mission it is to jog the memories of men, lest they should forget the meaning of life. He whispered into Almayer's ear a childish prattle of many years ago. Almayer, his head bent on one side, seemed to listen to his invisible companion, but his face was like the face of a man that has died struck from behind—a face from which all feelings and all expression are suddenly ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... for a month or two, but more than a year had now elapsed without her even hearing of him. Proportionably great was her surprise and joy at his sudden re-appearance, and his happiness was not less real at seeing once more those he so dearly loved. What with Bibi's eager questions, and the prattle of the little ones, an hour or two had glided away swiftly enough, when Boulanger suddenly asked what had become ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... shall presently have to affirm or deny. Under any other circumstances we should deeply enjoy a half hour spent in a comfortable chair, with nothing to do but do nothing. Our barber is a delightful fellow; he looks benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of some intimation of immortality. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... lost amid sunless forests, the rose that blooms in the shadow underneath Melisande's casement, Melisande's hair that falls farther than her arms can reach, the black tarn that broods beneath the castle-vaults and breathes death, Golaud's anguished search for truth in the prattle of the child, that could not but call a profound response from Debussy's imagination. But, above all, it was the figure of Melisande herself that made him pour himself completely into the setting of the play. For that figure permitted Debussy to give himself completely in the creation of ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... the time Ermine's footstool was serving as a table for the various flowers that two children were constantly gathering in the grass and presenting to her, to Rachel, or to each other, with a constant stream of not very comprehensible prattle, full of pretty gesticulation that seemed to make up for the want of distinctness. The yellow-haired, slenderly-made, delicately-featured boy, whose personal pronouns were just developing, and his consonants very scanty, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unegotistical, non-robustious, and he felt gratified at having won a man's friendship. It was an addition to his few anchorages in life. Then, in a couple of hours he would sun himself in the smiles of his adored mistress, and listen to the prattle of his other friend, Emmy. Mrs. Oldrieve would be knitting by the lamp, and probably he would hold her wool, drop it, and be scolded as if he were a member of the family; all of which was a very gracious thing to the sensitive, lonely man, warming his heart ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... foreshadowings of insanity, or the mere dislike of the lower moralities for the higher, or the uneasiness felt by the ordinary in the presence of the rare, or the revolt felt by the conventional against holier bonds, or the prattle of curiosity, or the roughness of mere vitality, or the fusion of minds ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... Shining Ones came and stood over the little lady, and looked down on her with faces of pity, which seemed blent with a serene and half-amused indulgence. It was a heavenly amusement, such as that with which mothers listen to the foolish-wise prattle of children just ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 'We will go farther.' For some of them were for setting their pikes against the mud wall and casting their swords and heavy bottle-belts on to the table before the door. The old man in the armchair began suddenly to prattle to them all—of a horse-thief that had been dismembered and then hanged in pieces thirty years before. The cornet looked at him for ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... every scrap of it for supper, though it was much fitter for a rabbit, and all the evening he held on his knee the tired child, and responded to his prattle about Nana and dogs and rabbits; nay, ministered to his delight and admiration of the sheriff's coach, javelin men, and even the judge, with a strange mixture of wonder, delight, and with melancholy only ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... light-hearted prattle of a pretty woman, agreed with her, gave her half-joking counsel, and altogether dropped at once into the tone habitual to him in talking to such women. In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... dignity. Viola said, she had heard her father speak of Orsino, and that he was unmarried then. "And he is so now," said the captain; "or was so very lately, for, but a month ago, I went from here, and then it was the general talk (as you know what great ones do, the people will prattle of) that Orsino sought the love of fair Olivia, a virtuous maid, the daughter of a count who died twelve months ago, leaving Olivia to the protection of her brother, who shortly after died also; and for the love of this dear brother, they say, she has abjured the sight ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... by indications too unequivocal to be easily mistaken through every change and inflection of his visage. Anthony, though not of the most unsullied reputation, and probably habituated to crimes at which humanity might shudder, pressed the little victim closer to his breast. The prattle of the babe had won his heart: and the morning scene with Alice had softened his spirit so that he could have wept when he thought of the remorseless nature of his comrade, to whose care the children ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... rarely drawn a more pathetic figure. Every circumstance that could contribute to this effect is skilfully seized and emphasised: Charles's incredibly selfish weakness, the implacable sternness of Pym, the triste prattle of Strafford's children and their interrupted joyous song in the final scene, all serve to heighten our feeling of affectionate pity and regret. The imaginary former friendship between Pym and Strafford adds still more ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... Old Mother Prittle-Prattle jumped out of bed, And out of the window she popped her head, "John! John! John! the grey goose is gone, And the fox is ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... 'Ow I love their pretty prattle. It makes me think of 'eavens an' Gawd's angels," said Mrs Gowler. Then, as Mavis did not make any remark, she added: "Six ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... claw-hands in my hair. He looked through my heart to the mud that was there. Like a black-mailer hating his victim he spoke: "When I see all your squirming I laugh till I choke Singing of peace. Railing at battle. Soothing a handful with saccharine prattle. All the millions of earth have voted for fight. You are voting for talk, with hands lily white." He leaped to the floor, then grew seven feet high, Beautiful, terrible, scorn in his eye: The Devil Eternal, Apollo grown old, ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay
... great examples), who was so righteously anxious to see men, women and children—emphatically the children, too—of the abominable French nation massacred off the face of the earth? This illustration of the new war- temper is artlessly revealed in the prattle of the amiable Busch, the Chancellor's pet "reptile" of the Press. And this was supposed to be a war for an idea! Too much, however, should not be made of that good wife's and mother's sentiments any more than of the good First Emperor William's tears, shed so abundantly after every battle, by ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... indeed, more amiable and accessible than Undine's conception of a Duchess, and displayed a curiosity as great as her daughter's, and much more puerile, concerning her new friend's history and habits. But through her mild prattle, and in spite of her limited perceptions. Undine felt in her the same clear impenetrable barrier that she ran against occasionally in the Princess; and she was beginning to understand that this barrier represented a number of things about which she herself had yet to learn. She would ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... to prattle on. She had taken the girl's hand in hers, and was gently forcing her down on to a low stool beside her armchair. She was talking about Paul, and said something about Anne Mie, and then about the National Convention, and those beasts and ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... on Octavia, in her sweetest society prattle, after subduing an intense desire to yank a handful of sunburnt, sandy hair from the head lying back contentedly against the canvas of the steamer chair, "had too much money. Mines, wasn't it? It was something that paid something ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... mother-in-law's "budwar," the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus's perfections. I have now heard every incident of his childhood: what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous teeth ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... as they grew up. Fred, the eldest son, who had shared some of his father's later campaigns, was being prepared for admission to West Point. The General's pet was his only daughter, Nellie, who was bright and beautiful, and whose girlish prattle was far more attractive to him than the compliments of Congressmen or ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... say, deceased—correspondence had too much of the town-life leaven in it, we will now, 'paulo majora,' prattle a little of literature in all its branches; and first of the first—criticism. The Prince is at Brighton, and Jackson, the boxer, gone to Margate, having, I believe, decoyed Yarmouth to see a milling in that polite neighbourhood. Made. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... published in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1858, just at the time that the first Atlantic Cable, whose first prattle had been welcomed by the acclamations of a continent, gasped its last under the manipulations of De Sauty. It has since been copied by Mr. Prescott in his valuable hand-book of the ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... there must be a cupboard in this house.' 'Alack, my pretty one,' said I, 'of cupboards we already have enow. There is King Charles's cupboard in which we hid his Majesty after Worcester fight, and the green and blue closet, as well as many others. Sure, you prattle of that of which you do not know.' She shook her fair, bright head, and answered, 'Nay, madam, there is no strangers' cupboard for forlorn wayfarers, and there must be one, full of food, and wine, and physic, and sweet, health-restoring cordials. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... language is to receive the name of reason, what shall we style the rest? We had thought that the love and intelligence, the soul, that looks out of a child's eyes upon us to reward our care long before it begins to prattle, were also ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the touch, and left a smutch upon the fingers. His clothes were sifted over with dust and fine particles of manure. The seat grated beneath his legs. The great headlines in the newspaper announced that the troops were arriving. Columns of childish, reportorial prattle followed, describing the martial bearing of the officers, the fierceness of the "bronzed Indian fighters." The city was under martial law. He read also the bickering telegrams exchanged between the state ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... his patients, and called in a new physician. Still his general practice continued large; and although he found a little more time for his wife,—for a father to sit in, in darkness and silence, and recall the sunny faces and sweet prattle of his children. But he felt that unseen eyes might be watching him even there, and that a sigh, though breathed never so softly, might reach the ears of some who would rejoice in it and come all the more confidently to the work they had resolved to do upon him. So, setting ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fritters and her desserts. How Virginia chafed at those suppers, and how she despised the guests whom her aunt was in the habit of inviting to some of them! And when none was present, she was forced to listen to Mrs. Colfax's prattle about the fashions, her tirades ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... said the Bishop, "music pleases me right well, and if you can play up to your prattle, 'twill indeed grace your ceremony. Let us have a ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... proud hearts prattle, And lightly the dawn draws nigh, The dawn of the doom of the battle When these shall falter and fly; No day more great in the roll of fate filled ever ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Italian lady, in addition to French and German, can also speak a few words of English, though she persistently refers to herself as the " school -master." She boards at the same gasthaus, and all the evening long I am favored by the liveliest prattle and most charming gesticulations imaginable, while the room is half filled with her class of young lady aspirants to linguistic accomplishments, listening to our amusing, if not instructive, efforts to carry on a conversation. ' It is ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... continued this afternoon, I proposed to Mrs. Anderson she should show me the house. The excellent creature, busy with the dairy, offered me Annie as her substitute. We went from cellar to garret, and the child's companionship and her ingenuous prattle successfully beguiled a couple of hours. The house in reality consists of two houses placed at right angles to each other. The older part, built between two and three hundred years ago, is inhabited by the Andersons ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... this prattle, asked himself, for the third or fourth time, what he ought to think of the virtue of Miss Dimpleton. Sometimes the frankness of the grisette, and the remembrance of the large bolt, made him almost believe that she loved her neighbors merely as brothers or companions, and that Mrs. Pipelet ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... than in those of men; children think of nothing but the forbidden thing, which then becomes irresistibly attractive to them. I was often whipped for my star. Unable to confide in my kind, I told it all my troubles in that delicious inward prattle with which we stammer our first ideas, just as once we stammered our first words. At twelve years of age, long after I was at school, I still watched that star with indescribable delight,—so deep and lasting are the impressions we receive ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... stopped before them, and the girl complained to her that the perverse little foreigner would not answer. Two or three words in his native tongue soon brought his face to view. Emilia sat down between them, and listened to the prattle of two languages. The girl said that she never had supper, which was also the case with the boy; so Emilia felt for her purse, and sent the girl with sixpence in search of a shop that sold cafes. The girl came back with her apron ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... before the fatal bust which had smiled and whispered away his peace, when the post-man brought him a letter. It was from the simple girl to whom he had given his promise. We know how she used to prattle in her harmless way about her innocent feelings, and the trifling matters that were going on in her little village world. But now she wrote in sadness. Something, she did not too clearly explain what, had grieved her, and she gave free expression to her ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a childlike ingenuousness and simplicity which is exceedingly refreshing to me after intense study. I would call your conversation at times prattle, but for the fear ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... ensued. Diana had to fortify her fictitious objection by alluding to her maid's prattle of the household below; and she excused the hapless, overfed, idle people of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... hero at head, and a nation Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed, And a gospel of war and damnation, Has not empire a right to be proud? Fools prattle and tattle Of freedom, reason, right, The beauty of duty, ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Say, does her language your ambition raise, Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase, Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds, And maims the cadence of poetic sounds? Say, does your humble admiration choose The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse, While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear, Charged to say nought but what the king may hear? Or rather melt your sympathising hearts Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts, 70 Where old and young declaim on soft ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... stems of prickly rubus, and a tiny grass. They are here to meet us. Ay, even here in this darksome gorge, "frightened and tormented" with raging torrents and choking avalanches of snow. Can it be? As if rubus and the grass leaf were not enough of God's tender prattle words of love, which we so much need in these mighty temples of power, yonder in the "benmost bore" are two blessed adiantums. Listen to them! How wholly infused with God is this one big word of ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... his Franciade, owns that their Alexandrine Lines have too much prattle (ils ont trop de caquet) and that it is a Fault in their Poetry that one Line does not run into another, and therefore he wrote his Franciade in Verses of ten Syllables, and broke the Measure. The Author of the ...
— Letters Concerning Poetical Translations - And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. • William Benson
... notice a sailor creep stealthily up the field behind them on the other side of the hedge, and crouch down near enough to hear all that they said. Certainly that sailor was never more at sea in his life than he was while he listened to their innocent prattle. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Polonius as to what he is reading, Hamlet replies:—'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think it fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such remarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle) as 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... and dumb? About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as we do not understand the language," said ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... married life, while I existed in single misery in my empty house in 38th street. Oh, the desolateness of those summer experiences. Oh, the unutterable loneliness of a house without the smile of the dear wife, and the laugh and prattle of the baby boy. I even missed ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... joy from the hounds on discovering that there were rabbits in the covert, and after the retirement of the rabbits to their burrows on the companion discovery that there were hounds in it, a silence, broken only by the far-away prattle of the lady bicyclists on the road, fell round Freddy Alexander. He bore it as long as he could, cheering with faltering whoops the invisible and unresponsive pack, and wondering what on earth huntsmen were expected to do on such occasions; then, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... child, and of an affectionate nature, "That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day before, waited ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and well versed in the history of his people. His soul, as we learn from his song, was full of noble pride in the great and glorious past. He could believe that when Abraham and Sarah were past age, a child was born to them, who filled their tent with his merry prattle and laughter; but he could not believe that such a blessing could fall to his lot. And is not that the point where our faith staggers still? We can believe in the wonder-working power of God on the distant horizon of the past, or on the equally distant horizon of ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... Fleur-de-Marie, herself affected. "And such tears are as sweet as songs. And then, when night has closed in, what happiness to remain under the arbor, to enjoy the serenity of a fine evening; to breathe the perfume of the forest; to hear the children prattle; to look at the stars! Then the heart is so full that it must be relieved by prayer. How not thank Him to whom one owes the freshness of the night, the perfume of the woods, the sweet light of the starry heavens? After these thanks ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... as usual, plain and simple, yet, in the ears of men generally, it is unusual and unintelligible. The world estimates it as similar to the prattle of children or fools. What, according to the world's construction, is implied by the statement, "Whatsoever is begotten [born] of God overcometh the world?" Overcoming the world, the unconverted would ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... listening to the eager prattle. He remembered afterward that Bobby's hands and face were hot with fever. Just now he was staring at the narrow staircase. Vos Engo and Loraine were descending slowly. The former was white and evidently very weak. He leaned on the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... You see that war will soon obsess rich and poor, alien and neutral and belligerent, pacifist and militarist. Since I wrote you last I've tried to read the newspapers sent to us. It's hard to tell you which makes me the sicker—the prattle of the pacifist or the mathematics of the military experts. Both miss the spirit of men. Neither has any soul. I think the German ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... type of some joy lost, and miss'd, in himself. Ever welcome he suffer'd her glad face to glide In on hours when to others his door was denied: And many a time with a mute moody look He would watch her at prattle and play, like a brook Whose babble disturbs not the quietest spot, But soothes us because ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... sitting in Daddy's lap, a little later began to prattle about his "black snowman," and so the ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... love to Jenny Lavender. Stay—had he not? What was that faint something, without a name—a sort of vague uneasiness, which had seemed to creep over him whenever he had seen her during those months—a sense of incongruity between her light prattle and his own inmost thoughts and holiest feelings? It was so slight that as yet he had never faced it. He recognised now it was because his heart had refused to face it. And conscience told him, speaking loudly this time, that he must hold back ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... professed Platonne, the most unaccountable creature of her sex. To hear her talk seraphics, and run over Norris,[327] and More,[328] and Milton,[329] and the whole set of intellectual triflers, torments me heartily; for to a lover who understands metaphors, all this pretty prattle of ideas gives very fine views of pleasure, which only the dear declaimer prevents, by understanding them literally. Why should she wish to be a cherubim, when it is flesh and blood that makes her adorable? If I speak to her, that is a high breach of the idea ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... Youth is still carest By a train of attendants which laugh at my young Lord's jest; In a wretched workhouse the contrary prevails: Does Age begin to prattle?—no man ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... it seems to-day, this vacant prattle, Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West, Voice of the great arbitrament of battle That puts our ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... to her, conversed with her in French, bowed and scraped before her, and called her "chere Maman"—a term to which she always responded in a tone of similar lightness and with her beautiful, unchanging smile. Only the lachrymose Lubotshka, with her goose feet and artless prattle, really liked our stepmother, or tried, in her naive and frequently awkward way, to bring her and ourselves together: wherefore the only person in the world for whom, besides Papa, Avdotia had a spark of affection was Lubotshka. Indeed, Avdotia always treated her with a kind of grave ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... it no more! I must not wed One who is poor, so hold your prattle; My lips on love have ne'er been fed, With poverty I cannot battle. My choice is made—I know I'm right— Who wed for love starvation suffer; So I will study day and night To please and win ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... birds, a joy to the ear, Flowers and grass and green plants and summer meads That were a delight to eye and heart. One found there whatever one would, whatever May should bring— Shade from the sun, limes by the brook, A gentle breeze which brought the prattle Of Mark's court people. May's friend, the green turf, Had made herself a charming costume of flowers, In which she shone back at the guests with a festival of her own; The blossoming trees smiled so sweetly at every one, That heart and mind smiled back again. The pure notes of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... from this time forth thou art dearer and more honorable to me than my eyes and my mother and my sister. But for the moment thy return to Damascus is not possible for fear of foolish tongues lest they prattle and say, 'Attaf went forth to farewell Ja'afar, and his wife lay the night with the former, and thus have the back-bones had a single lappet.'[FN366] However I will bear thee to Baghdad where I will stablish thee in a spacious and well furnished ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... he would probably be a very poor business man, that is, if business depended on caution and a lack of confidence in his fellow-beings. But, bent on cheering himself, even if Horace should break faith with him and prattle to the limit—and Horace's limit was a long one, the blue canopy of heaven, when it came to gossip—what possible harm could it do? In fact, it might serve Hayden immeasurably, for the talk might reach the ears of those who held some interest in the property and thus get him into immediate ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... "flippant" back through "flip" and the old Northumbrian present participle ending "an" to the Icelandic "fleipa," which means to prattle—I found this out in a dictionary and copied it down for Lalage. Miss Pettigrew was not, I think, justified in applying the word, supposing that she used it in its strict etymological sense, to Lalage's composition. There was more in the essay than mere prattle. But Miss Pettigrew may have had ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... an arbor with seats for resting surrounded by majestic trees, and where lovely vistas of the distant hills and nearer valley could be enjoyed, On the gray rocks yonder were nature's moss-clad seats, where one listened to the endless whispering of the leaves, the prattle of the happy brook below, and the ever-changing songs ...
— Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain • Harriet Manning Whitcomb
... wheels and axles, and even the quiet of the night encampment had been always more or less broken by the movement of unquiet sleepers on the wagon beds, or the breathing of the cattle. But here there was neither sound nor motion. Susy's prattle, and even the sound of his own voice, would have broken the benumbing spell, but it was a part of his growing self-denial now that he refrained from waking her even by a whisper. She would awaken soon enough to thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do? If that looked-for ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... that he did not bestow on her so much attention as she thought she deserved. The family were a good deal surprised at the silence into which she had retired. Emilie generally displayed all her arts for the benefit of newcomers, her witty prattle, and the inexhaustible eloquence of her eyes and attitudes. Whether it was that the young man's pleasing voice and attractive manners had charmed her, that she was seriously in love, and that this feeling had worked a change ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... on a week's visit to her uncle's at the settlement, the agreement all round being that she should stay there for a fortnight at least; but her parents and her big brother rebelled at the end of the week. They missed the prattle and sunshine which only Dot could bring into their home, and Melville's heart was delighted when his father told him to mount Saladin ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... a drive in years. The little form snuggled against him closer and closer and the warm half sentences of childish prattle, as the little girl's imagination wove its fancies, came to him from amid the furs and made him feel as though he had left the earth and were driving in a new world. It was like a dream. Had youth come back? Was ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... exclaimed Tai-y; "they're purely and simply the prattle of a mean mouth and vile tongue! They're enough to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... "these men have got the cant of the day, a superficial readiness of slight and cursory conversation, a kind of frothy collection of fashionable prattle, which yet carried them through the most select and approved judgment. This airy facility of talk ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... children," smiled Francisco on the evening before their departure. He was writing a novel, in addition to the other work for Carmony and Pixley. Sometimes it was hard work amid this unusual prattle by his usually sedate and silent parents. He tried to imagine the house without them; his life, without their familiar and cherished companionship.... It would be lonely. Probably he would rent the place, when his novel was finished ... take ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... waning is the disrespect we feel for great subjects. We only mention them, or hint at them; and this cannot lead to very brilliant talk. Tho prattle and persiflage have their place in conversation, talkers of the highest order tire of continually encouraging chit-chat. "What a piece of business; monstrous! I have not read it; impossible to get a box at the opera for another fortnight; how do you like my dress? It was immensely ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... watch which ceased neither day nor night, through the threatenings of death or the allurements of fame, one thought was paramount in Collingwood's mind. A yearning for a peaceful garden he had left behind—to him a veritable garden of Paradise—for the innocent prattle of his children, the sweet companionship of his wife. A dream of reunion tormented and sustained him. "Whenever I think how I am to be happy again my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth," he wrote. Incapable of a dramatic appeal to sympathy, his letters to Stanhope, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Countess. The girl's idle prattle about the spurs has pained you: always too sensitive; always soon hurt, though never ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... son and sent him back to his mother, who had better facilities for taking care of him. But the fact was he was too fond of the boy to be able to dispense with him, and he would rather bear the loss resulting from his mischief than miss his prattle and ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... want of practice, we might forget; you will permit me to have the honor of assuring you of my respects in that language: and be so good to answer me in the same. Not that I am apprehensive of your forgetting to speak French: since it is probable that two-thirds of our daily prattle is in that language; and because, if you leave off writing French, you may perhaps neglect that grammatical purity, and accurate orthography, which, in other languages, you excel in; and really, even in French, it is better to write well than ill. However, as this is a language very proper for ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Southern Lights and Shadows. "The young ladies of Australia," he says, "are in many respects remarkable. At thirteen they have more ribbons, jewels, and lovers than any other young ladies of the same age. They prattle insipidly from morning to night. The first time I visited a theatre I sat next one of them who had at least half a dozen rings worn over her gloves.... The affectation of ton among them is astonishing. They are special patrons ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... of getting a divorce. In youth we shared our crust together; children soon blessed and brightened our humble home, and to-day, surrounded by every comfort that riches can bestow, no achievement in life has given me such great pleasure, I know no music so sweet, as the prattle of my own grandchildren. Therefore that feature of my life is sacred, and will not be disclosed in ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... look,—and she all blushes, though she dare not look up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough to me! I would give my promised garter if she would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in God's name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, blushing silence,—it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt such pains since the last nightmare I had after dining with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spirit. I prattle with the good monks by the way, and they tell me all the notable ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... seamstress had seen her little neighbour watching her, and once or twice had nodded to her, and so a sort of acquaintance had sprung up between them; indeed, on several occasions they had met, and the child's prattle ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... are they in all the respects over which man has control! On the one hand the air is vocal with the mingled tumult of a vast and prosperous population. Every hillside smiles with an abundant harvest, every valley shelters a thriving village, the click of a busy mill drowns the prattle of every rivulet, and all the multitudinous sounds of business denote happy activity in every ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... wills, and the love that they had to their sins, yet that God was far from infusing any thing into their souls, that should in the least hinder, weaken, obstruct, or let them in seeking the welfare of their souls. Now, men will tattle and prattle at a mad rate about election and reprobation, and conclude that because all are not elected, therefore God is to blame that any are damned. But then they will see that they are not damned because they were not elected, but because they ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... One after another, Truman and Todd, Wren and Mullins, told their stories, bringing forth little that was new beyond the fact that Todd was sure it was Elise he heard that night "jabbering with Downs" on Blakely's porch. Todd felt sure that it was she who brought him whisky, and Byrne let him prattle on. It was not evidence, yet it might lead the way to light. In like manner was Mullins sure now "'Twas two ladies" stabbed him when he would have striven to stop the foremost. Byrne asked did he think they were ladies when first ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... hardly one of them who hath not at the least a hundred in their Budgets; but because it is high time that either the Dry or Wet-Nurse must go to swathe the child, they begin to break off and shorten their prittle-prattle. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... listening with half an ear to the lieutenant's prattle and the loud explanations of the deputy-commandant, when I pitchforked into what might have been the end of my business. We were going through a sort of convalescent room, where people were sitting who had been in hospital. It was a big place, a little warmer than the rest of the building, ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... reading, which they might otherwise have gone down to the grave without acquiring. I could tell them of many a father and mother, and grand-father and grand-mother, grown grey in vice—hardened even by intemperance as well as other vices—who have been reformed by the prattle, or the reproof, or the prayers of a good daughter. Is not such a ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, which he would draw after him as far as he could bend ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... have an eye, But never cry, And lips, but never prattle; You've fingers ten, Like brother Ben, But never ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... lilies, to decide between Ayrshire Ruga and Fellenberg for the pillar that requires a red rose, to fix the right proportion of sand and leaf-mould to suit his carnations—when 'his only plot' is to plant the bergamot—he resents being fobbed off with prattle:— ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... see her sweet face. But he couldn't help his ears from hearin' the reasonable, eloquent words of earnest and womanly wimmen, so full of good sense and truth and justice that no reasonable person could dispute 'em, and when he contrasted all this with the sneerin' face, the sarcastic egotistic prattle of Maud, the veil dropped from his eyes, and he see with ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... bending over the well, straining both eyes and ears to the utmost, little Cora's voice came again. It seemed close to them; they could not distinguish any words, but the tones were those of her usual pretty baby prattle. Was that voice from the spirit land? They could see nothing but the gray stone walls of the dungeon, the dark, open well and some large, loose stones, which had heavy iron chains with rings attached to them, and which had in ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
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