"Lisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nation's vows confess, And, never satisfied with seeing, bless. Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim, And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name." ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... tedious ride for the young man. The woodsmen sat jammed so closely about him that he could see only the frosty stars glimmering wanly in the moonlight. When the songs and the roaring conversations were stilled for a moment, he could hear the lisp of the runners on the smooth surface and the slashing grind ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... violet blossoms, and it was under their arching boughs that the girls stopped when they had entered the garden. Ever since Virginia could remember, she had heard threats of cutting down the paulownias because of the litter the falling petals made in the spring, and ever since she could lisp at all she had begged her father to spare them for the sake of the enormous roots, into which she had loved to cuddle ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... What a meeting! What a greeting takes place at the hour of dissolution! How pleasing the contemplation. How inspiring to think of our noble ancestors; our holy ministers and teachers; our fathers and mothers who led us by the hand to the house of God on the Sabbath, who early taught us to lisp the ever precious name of Jesus; who are to-day singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Let us thank God at this solemn hour, even amid blinding tears, for pious, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... mild Davids, and ferocious Davids,—Davids with oblique eyes, red noses, and cavernous mouths,—and Davids as blind as bats, or with great goggle-orbs, aquiline nasal organs, blue at the tips, and lips made for a lisp. One David had a brown Welsh wig on his head, and was anachronistically attired in a snuff-colored coat, black small-clothes, gray, coarse, worsted stockings, high-low boots, with buckles, and he wore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... thou, my muse! guid auld Scotch drink! Whether thro' wimplin worms thou jink, Or, richly brown, ream owre the brink, In glorious faem, Inspire me, till I lisp an' ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to her mother, went on without heeding. She affected her enunciation at times with a slight lisp; spoke preciously and over-exquisitely, purposely mincing the letter R, at the same time assuming a manner of artificial distinction and conscious elegance which never failed to produce in her brother ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... to calm her agonized mind. At first I was but a poor comforter. I had never thought at all of these weighty matters, and therefore I felt myself very incompetent to reason upon them in such a way as was likely to convince and console her. I had been taught, by my excellent mother, to lisp the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and the Catechism, before I at all knew the meaning of it, and almost before I could speak plainly; I had been bred up in the Christian faith, a strict church-goer, and, such was the force of custom, that ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... hour I lingered near The hallowed seat with listening ear; And gentle words that mother would give, To fit me to die and teach me to live. She told me that shame would never betide, With truth for my creed and God for my guide She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer, As I knelt beside ...
— The Old Arm-Chair • Eliza Cook
... want of Charms that I stand so long unasked; and if you do not take measures for the immediate Redress of us Rigids, as the Fellows call us, I can move with a speaking Mien, can look significantly, can lisp, can trip, can loll, can start, can blush, can rage, can weep, if I must do it, and can be frighted as agreeably as any She in England. All which is humbly submitted to your Spectatorial Consideration with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... understandings, but they understand not,"—and go about asking our blind guides, whether Pope was a poet or not? It will never do. Such persons, when you point out to them a fine passage in Pope, turn it off to something of the same sort in some other writer. Thus they say that the line, "I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came," is pretty, but taken from that of Ovid—Et quum conabar scribere, versus erat. They are safe in this mode of criticism: there is no danger of any one's tracing their ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... elacos (halfpence) worth of pulque from a jarrito (little earthen jar); the portly and well-looking padre prior del Carden (the Carmelite friar), sauntering up the lane at a leisurely pace, all the little ragged boys, down to the merest urchin that can hardly lisp, dragging off their large, well-holed hats, with a "Buenos das, padrecito!" (Good-morning, little father!)—the father replying with a benevolent smile, and a slight sound in his throat intended for a Benedicite; and all that might be dull in any other ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the language that taught us to blend The dear names of father, of husband, and friend; That taught us to lisp on our mother's fond breast, The ballads she sang as she rock'd us to rest! May the blessing of God Ever hallow the sod, And its valleys and hills by ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... why is thy countenance sad? am I not better to thee than ten friends? Then has he turned my heart to him, made me feel myself close to him; he has suffered me to lean on his bosom, hang on his arm, and lisp out, Abba. At such blest moments I have thought the whole earth but one point, and from that to heaven but one step, and the time between but as one moment; and my company here sufficient to satisfy me by the way. At such blest moments ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... her heart is high, For the Bassarids and the Fauns are nigh, And prosperous leaves lisp busily Over flattered brakes, whence the breezes bring Vext twittering To swell the burden ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... all came back, and with it a strangely tender dream which had all night long haunted his slumbers. The captain rose hurriedly, dressed himself and inquired for the child, who had been resigned to the care of the cook. She was brought to him, a bright, cheerful little thing, just beginning to lisp unintelligible words. For a few days she missed her mother and wore a look of expectation on her infantile face, occasionally crying out; but anon this passed away, and she became cheerful and happy. The captain spent as much of his time with her as he could spare from his duties, and ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... "Please don't lisp a word of this suspicion at present," she warned her friends. "If I am right—and I have no doubt of that—we are about to uncover a far-reaching conspiracy to defraud the Government. But the slightest hint of danger ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... fortune on the cotton he had in store at any rate, and, if he really had in his grasp all the news of the rise, he might make by it a plump ten thousand dollars out of Captain Grant's "Orion." But to this end he must be sure that not a lisp of the rise would be published in the morning papers, and he must see Captain Grant and close his bargain for the "Orion's" cargo before the wires should begin to furnish additional news by the "Africa" to the evening papers. They would not, after obtaining such news, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... answers imperfectly the end of beauty and art. As a "livelier iris changes on the burnished dove," and the fancy of the young man turns lightly to thoughts of his pretty cousin, so the same renewing spirit touches the "silent singers," and they are no longer dumb; faintly they lisp the first syllables of the marvelous tale. Witness the clear sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse,—the soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch,—the amorous, vivacious warble of the bluebird,—the long, rich note ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... century may yet witness the time when it will be considered the highest mixture of philosophic courtesy and Christian urbanity to make the most graceful semi-lateral bow, as you pass your friend in the street, and, kissing the tip of your finger, to lisp, with bending head and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... and of such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain bent, without our knowledge or consent. It was an affectation conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly happen in us. There are other artificial ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... trying to pronounce foreign languages," said Dick. "I just wrestle with the words the best I can in plain American. But now—I always thought it rude to mention it before—I understand why you Spaniards seem to lisp, and hiss out your last syllables like secrets. As for the place we're ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... look of swift surprise From the depths of childish eyes, Yet my soul to judgment came, Cowering, as before a flame. Not a word, a lisp of blame: Just a look of swift surprise In ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... Derwent's side my father dwelt—a man Of virtuous life, by pious parents bred; [7] 200 And I believe that, soon as I began To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed, And in his hearing there my prayers I said: And afterwards, by my good father taught, I read, and loved the books in which I read; 205 For books in every neighbouring house I sought, And nothing to my mind ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... karacter in his way, he seemed to have a bit ov a smatterin' o' iverything, but what he professed to know th' mooast abaat wor dogs an rats. Noa daat he had a bit o' knowledge, but what wor far more sarviceable to him nor owt else wor a simple luk 'at he could put on, an' a bit ov a lisp 'at he had, made him seem soa harmless an simple 'at yo wodn't believe it possible for him to do owt wrang. He worn't varry big, but he wor varry wiry, an as full o' pluck as ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... man, a great diplomatist, a great tactician and an illustrious citizen and patriot. His name and his deeds will be cherished and admired as long as the English language is read or spoken, and as long as human lips lisp the name ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen; Practised to lisp, and hang the head aside, Faints into airs, and languishes with pride; On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, Wrapp'd in a gown, for sickness, and for show. The fair ones feel such maladies as these, When each new night-dress gives ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... modes, and have generally pretty faces, but they are the most determined minaudieres in the whole world. They would think it a mortal sin against good-breeding, if they either spoke or moved in a natural manner. They all affect a little soft lisp, and a pretty pitty-pat step; which female frailties ought, however, to be forgiven them, in favour of their civility and good nature to strangers, which I have a great deal of reason ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... the best known of them must needs either speak thickly, or lisp, or stammer," added ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... crumbled into dust; The sacred symbol, and the epic song, 110 (Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,) With each unconquer'd chief, or fainted maid, Sunk undistinguish'd in Oblivion's shade. Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd, And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp and died. 115 Till to astonish'd realms PAPYRA taught To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought. With Wisdom's voice to print the page sublime, And mark in adamant the steps of Time. —Three favour'd youths her ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... manner scared at the thrill her newly discovered beauty gives me, and keeping up my dignity and coherence with an effort. My attention is constantly being distracted to note how prettily she moves, to wonder why it is I never noticed the sweet fall, the faint delightful whisper of a lisp in ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... beautiful as her poets insist and her painters prove. It turns everybody who goes there into a poet, at least temporarily. Babes lisp in numbers and those of the native population who don't actually write poetry, talk it—no matter what the subject is. Take the case of Sam Berger. Sam Berger—I will explain for the benefit of my women readers—was first a distinguished amateur heavyweight boxer who later became sparring partner ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... azure-eyed goddess Minerva has excited this man. Infatuate! nor does the son of Tydeus know this in his mind, that he is by no means long-lived who fights with the immortals, nor ever at his knees will sons lisp a father's name, as he returns from war and dreadful battle. Therefore, let the son of Tydeus now, though he be very brave, have a care, lest a better than thou fight with him: lest at a future time AEgialea, the very prudent daughter of Adrastus, the noble spouse of horse-taming Diomede, grieving, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... in the Great House of Shanitha, thcarred man." He spoke the Shainsa dialect with an affected lisp. "Will it pleathe ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... two valuable fountain pens and one stylographic in no time. The exigencies of war necessitate some little irregularity now and then; but how, I asked him, did he justify this excess of zeal? J. B. is distinguished by a lisp among other things. "It'th betht to be on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... cricket, and Jo wandered through the airs at her own sweet will, always coming out at the wrong place with a croak or a quaver that spoiled the most pensive tune. They had always done this from the time they could lisp... ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... their curtains, the shadows and broad squares of light, the little whispers and rattles that doors and cupboards gave, the swirl of the wind as it sprang released from corners and crevices, the lisp of some whisper, "I'm coming! I'm coming! I'm coming!" that, nevertheless, again and again defeated expectation. How could he but enjoy the fine field of affection that ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... or did I? Upon my word, I can hardly tell. I am being hypnotised by Bayly. I lisp in numbers, and the numbers come like mad. I can hardly ask for a light without abounding in his artless vein. Easy, easy it seems; and yet it was Bayly after all, not you nor I, ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... cause; after remaining silent for a time, she almost always ended by turning to some one of her elders, with a question which showed that her brain was working over a new impression. She very early ceased to lisp, and already in her fourth year she spoke with perfect distinctness. She was afraid of her father; her feeling toward her mother was undefined,—she did not fear her, neither did she fondle her; but she did not fondle ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... in my heart that you may have been visited by the new spirit of infidelity that is abroad to-day; If it is so, I pray for you. Remember, dear boy, how in your childhood, when your father was living, you used to lisp your prayers at my knee, and how happy we all were in those days. Good-bye, till we meet then—I embrace you warmly, warmly, with ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... prest, A snow-white kitten found a nest. That tender boy, with tresses fair, Was Edric, Egbert's cherished heir; The plaything of the homestead he, Now fondled on his grandame's knee; Or as beside the hearth he sat, Oft sporting with his snow-white cat; Now by the chaplain taught to read, And lisp his Pater and his Creed; Well nurtured at his mother's side, And by his father trained to ride, To speak the truth, to draw the bow, And all an English Thane should know, His days had been as one bright dream— As smooth as his own river's stream! Until, at ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his thought just as it comes to him, accounts, too, for his way of cataloguing objects without selection. His single expressions arc often unsurpassed for descriptive beauty and truth. He speaks of "the vitreous pour of the full moon, just tinged with blue," of the "lisp" of the plane, of the prairies, "where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles." But if there is any eternal distinction between poetry and prose, the most liberal canons of the poetic art will never agree to ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... beyond us like a dream-city, before us the Mediterranean shimmered and shone like a sultana's satin tunic. We could drop a stone from our windows into the sea; we ran dripping from our sea-baths up long stairs, across tiled balconies, into our vast rooms; all day and all night the swish and lisp of the soft tides mingled with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... forward to present him to me. She called him Monsieur de la Tourelle, and he began to speak to me in French; but though I understood him perfectly, I dared not trust myself to reply to him in that language. Then he tried German, speaking it with a kind of soft lisp that I thought charming. But, before the end of the evening, I became a little tired of the affected softness and effeminacy of his manners, and the exaggerated compliments he paid me, which had the effect of making all the company turn round and look at me. Madame Rupprecht was, however, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... made the host angry, and he gave Parr such a severe rebuke as sent him from the room in ill-humor. The rest walked on the lawn, amusing the Americans with sketches of the Doctor. There was a dark cloud overhead, and from that cloud presently came a voice which called Tham (Parr-lisp for Sam). The company were astonished for a moment, but thought the Doctor was calling his servant in the house, and that the apparent direction was an illusion arising out of inattention. But presently the sound was repeated, certainly ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... got to curtsy, whisp- er, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp, And then you're sure to take: I've known the day when brats, not quite Thirteen, got fifty pounds a night; Then why not ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... had neglected to lisp, but Uncle Bobby was too taken up with the story to be conscious of any lapse. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... after my promotion to the office of general superintendent, and the little fellow that is learning to lisp 'papa,' you know, has been named after you, my old, true, and invaluable friend, to whose counsel and kindness I feel I am so ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, "God bless Papa and Mamma!" and repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt to lisp-the love of God and of her blending strangely in ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... coming in, doctor,' said he to me, speaking English with a slight lisp. 'This is my father, and his health is a matter of the most ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... be no mistake about it," replied Jenkins, from whose speech, strange to say, the lisp and ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Once begun in a family, it rears itself, like a hooded snake, all along the line in generation after generation and appears to be an ineradicable evil. It spreads, too, as specks in a garnered fruit. We are startled by seeing it in children by the time they can lisp a lie, and we note in them, with a sickening at heart, the father's or grandfather's tendency to secretiveness or deceit, or the mother's penchant for false excuses. We can scarcely bequeath a greater sorrow to our offspring than ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Speech.] Stammering — N. inarticulateness; stammering &c v.; hesitation &c v.; impediment in one's speech; titubancy^, traulism^; whisper &c (faint sound) 405; lisp, drawl, tardiloquence^; nasal tone, nasal accent; twang; falsetto &c (want of voice) 581; broken voice, broken accents, broken sentences. brogue &c 563; slip of the tongue, lapsus linouae [Lat.]. V. stammer, stutter, hesitate, falter, hammer; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... exact statements of truth? Not always. The primitive human mind could only lisp its wonderful glimpses of truth in legend and myth. And so in fable and allegory the early Israelites sought to show the power of good over evil, and thereby stimulate a desire for right conduct, based, of course, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... these noisy fellows served me an excellent turn. It was the last day of my visit, and I had just taken my farewell look at the enchanting prospect from the summit, when I heard the lisp of a brown creeper. This was the first of his kind that I had seen here, and I stopped immediately to watch him, in hopes he would sing. Creeper-like he tried one tree after another in quick succession, till at last, while he was exploring a dead spruce which had toppled half-way ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... better. But she was a barren woman, and thence resulted her misery. For seven weary seasons had she lived in the lodge of her husband; and while his seven other wives had each children at her knee, crying, "My mother!" there was none to address her by that tender name, and to lisp in childish tones its delight, when she returned from the labours of the field of maize—and to bestow its innocent caresses upon her after the separations which unavoidably take place in forest life. Thence arose the extreme harshness of her husband, and the continued sneers and gibes of the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... vacated chair and strapped down the receivers. A long, faint whisper, as indistinguishable as the lisp of leaves on a distant hill, trickled into his ears. Ordinarily he would have given up such a station in disgust, and waited for the air to clear. Now he wanted to establish his ability, to demonstrate the acuteness of hearing for which ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... "Tom!" or "Steward!" according to the terms of friendship and familiarity on which you may stand with this dignitary, who, by the way, has a vote on board worth canvassing for;—I say bawl out, because, firstly, your mincing and Clarendon-like lisp of "Waiter!" would not be heard by one used to listen to the rush of the tempest and the shriek of the scourged Atlantic; also, for that your stirring call may remind some wretched skulker of a circumstance which he is miserably dozing out of remembrance, viz. that breakfast ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... Traveller. Look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... was a small stout man, with a black cap of dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic measures. Let them put their trust in Cultur! To talk Hebrew—therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once again lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea—that ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... roared. "Come with me, and," as he dragged McNeil to the door and paused there, "if you dare lisp a word of what you've overheard, I'll fire you ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... with the same bright bloom on their complexion, and very precious necklaces on very withered necks. Among these, a young lady of sixty-five, remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and shoulders, who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn't keep up well, without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners had that indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the giddiness of youth. As the greater part of Mr Dombey's list were disposed to be taciturn, and the greater part of Mrs ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of melting colours and floating softness, which suggested more than it revealed of her person, like a nymph's drapery. She was the centre of attraction and talked and laughed a great deal, the latter in little tinkles like a child of five, the former from the top of her throat with the faintest lisp and in the strange jargon that was the slang of the moment. She knew no more of Florentine art or Wagner or Egyptology than Julia did, and cared even less. She set out to be intelligently ignorant—to be anything else was called "middle-class" in her set—and she ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... dropping Silk denies Her pretty feet to my intruding eyes: Again I look'd,—th' according flounce updrew, And gave the well-turn'd ankle to my view. Now stiff,—now slouching in her gait she walk'd; Now lisp'd, now mouth'd each sentence as she talk'd. A form so changeful I had never seen;— The red, the blue, the yellow, and the green, In quick succession, o'er her figure past, A moment loiter'd, but refus'd to last. And as, in various pride, she mov'd along, Now charm'd,—now angry ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... a wall; Answer ye rather to my call, Strong poets of a more unconscious day, When Nature spake nor sought nice reasons why, Too much for softer arts forgotten since That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, 70 And drown in music the heart's bitter cry! Lead me some steps in your directer way, Teach me those words that strike a solid root Within the ears of men; Ye chiefly, virile both to think ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... its scabbard, joying hugely in the lisp of the steel, at its gleam in the candle-light, and he felt anew the wonder of one who had drunk the wine of life and venture to ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... and pushed it down the precipice; For who would lose 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, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... efforts, but in the general education of her brothers or sisters, she may prove a powerful ally with their natural teacher. Having composed the infant to rest, let its childhood continue to be her care. She can aid it to lisp the first accents of its native tongue. In the rudiments of knowledge she may be an efficient instructor. For this work her age peculiarly qualifies her. As the breath of spring quickens the tender bud, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... said he, "to get picked up by a ship with a medical man aboard." He spoke with a slobbering articulation, with the ghost of a lisp. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... "Well-Spring" had fallen prey to my insatiable appetite for literature. With the story of the small boy who stole a pin, repented of and confessed that crime, and then became a good and great man, I was as familiar as if I myself had invented that ingenious and instructive tale; I could lisp the moral numbers of Watts and the didactic hymns of Wesley, and the annual reports of the American Tract Society had already revealed to me the sphere of usefulness in which my grandmother hoped I would ultimately figure with ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... may not be perfect, the London work-girl takes the palm by winsomeness and grace. At seven o'clock every evening you may meet her in thousands in Oxford Street, Villiers Street, Tottenham Court Road, or London Bridge, where the pavements lisp in reply to the chatter of her little light feet. The factory girl of twenty years ago has, I am glad to say, entirely disappeared. She was not a success. She screwed her hair into sausages and rolled them around her ears. She wore a straw hat tilted ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath been—a most familiar bird— Taught me my alphabet to say— To lisp my very earliest word While in the wild wood I did lie, A child—with a most ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... earth his parents got the name, I cannot tell—was four or five years older than Rita. He was a manly boy, and when my little friend could hardly lisp his name she would run to him with the unerring instinct of childhood and nestle in his arms or cling to his helpful finger. The little fellow was so sturdy, strong, and brave, and his dark gray eyes were so steadfast and ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... whisper or lisp from the waters: the skies were not silenter. Peace Was between them; a passionless rapture of respite as soft as release. Not a sound, but a sense that possessed and pervaded with patient delight The soul and the body, clothed round with the comfort ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... bushes and brambles, and under rocks, and behind old wooden houses. When he has caught some hideous insect that makes one shudder, he blushes with pleasure, and looks at his wife and me, and says, with the prettiest lisp: 'This is what I call enjoying the day.' To see the manner in which he obeys Her is, between ourselves, to feel proud of being ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... ladies, young and old, sitting at tea at the end of a long table. A group of men was dimly visible behind their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers, talking loudly, with a lisp, in English. Through a door beyond the group could be seen a light room ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... room, and Peggy was instantly aware that something unusual was in the air, for every one seemed flocking together in one corner and listening in charmed silence to the sound of one flute-like voice. Peggy had hardly time to catch the sound of a familiar lisp before there came a quick exclamation of surprise, and a radiant vision, all pink and white and glitter of diamonds, glided forward ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... crowning, The West leads on a host, to cure the drouth Only when meadow, field, and you are drowning. They gladly hearken, prompt for injury,— Gladly obey, because they gladly cheat us; From Heaven they represent themselves to be, And lisp like angels, when with lies they meet us. But, let us go! 'Tis gray and dusky all: The air is cold, the vapors fall. At night, one learns his house to prize:— Why stand you thus, with such astonished eyes? What, in the twilight, can your mind ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... the dye, in that rough mesh, The sea has only just o'er-whispered! Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh, As if they still the water's lisp heard Through ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Della," said the girl, sinking at her mistress's feet in a fit of wild weeping, "don't, don't ask me this. I never knew it myself till yesterday, and then I wrung it from my mother, who charged me, if I valued her life, never to lisp it again. It made me wretched. Oh, Miss Della, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... afflicted with a dreadful lisp, on account of a hare-lip, so that as the boys used to say if offered a fortune he could get no closer to the real thing when dared than to say "thoft thoap." But then Ted was a marvel in his way, for he had more knowledge of medicine than all the other boys ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... meal, and inquiring in their cups, 'What news from the divine world of poesy?' Hereupon a personage with a hyacinth-coloured mantle over his shoulders brings out some mawkish trash or other, with a snuffle and a lisp, something about Phyllises or Hypsipyles, or any of the many heroines over whom poets have snivelled, filtering out his tones and tripping up the words against the roof ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... hearts by knowing black from white, Who with much pains, exerting all his sense, Can range aright his shillings, pounds, and pence. The booby father craves a booby son; And by heaven's blessing thinks himself undone. Wants of all kinds are made to fame a plea; One learns to lisp; another not to see: Miss D——, tottering, catches at your hand: Was ever thing so pretty born to stand? Whilst these, what nature gave, disown, through pride, Others affect what nature has denied; What nature has denied, fools will pursue, As apes ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... is, in some degree, the common training of all Mormons. Every Mormon boy attends Sunday School as soon as he is old enough to lisp his song of adoration to Joseph, the Kingly Prophet, and to the Savior with whom Joseph is early associated in his childish mind. At six years of age, he enters the Primary Association; at twelve he is in the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association; at fourteen or even earlier, ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... child can speak he should be made to lisp the noble words of truth, and to love it, and to abhor a lie! What a beautiful character he will then make! Blessed is the child ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... nursery, teaching little fingers to play before the tongue can lisp a sentence. Alas! this natural training has often been stopped at school. Hitherto, until quite lately, in schools both low and high, rede-craft has had the place of honor, hand-craft has had no chance. But a change is coming. In the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... and growing old in their respective acts, even thus they become human beings that are, of course, ordained to return. Coming to sinful births and becoming Chandalas or human beings that are deaf or that lisp indistinctly, they attain to higher and higher castes, one after another in proper turn, transcending the Sudra order, and other (consequences of) qualities that appertain to Darkness and that abide in it in course of migrations in this world.[106] Attachment to objects ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... remember the time when in such a scene he would have been perfectly at home; self-restrained, vigilant, and effective. But on this night it was nothing above mere inarticulateness—hoarse and ineffective fury—an almost painful exhibition. Sometimes his lisp became so strong that he was scarcely able to utter the words he desired to bring out. The Prime Minister became "The Primisther," the Chief Secretary the "Cheesesecry," and all this impotence was made the more manifest by thundering on the box ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to himself in an ugly way. "I wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, only look at him!—Look at his gold wristlets; listen to his simper, his lisp. Little girl—oh, little girl, what have you done to yourself?—for you have done nothing to me, child, that can match ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... three or four decades of life, each umbrella is selected from a whole shopful, as being most consonant to the purchaser's disposition. An undoubted power of diagnosis rests with the practised Umbrella-Philosopher. O you who lisp, and amble, and change the fashion of your countenances—you who conceal all these, how little do you think that you left a proof of your weakness in our umbrella-stand—that even now, as you shake out the folds to meet the thickening snow, we read in ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Oh, those purposeless lives! They exist simply because they are in the world and cannot help it. With the girls especially, marriage is the chief aim, and what should be the holy relation is entered upon almost in childhood. As soon as they begin to lisp they are talking of their lovers. A little wee girl came to a teacher's home, and after answering in monosyllables the common questions as to schools and Sunday-schools, there was a lull in the conversation, when she spoke up: "I hain't got no sweetheart." For all marriage is the ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... and pants he could not sit down in—dressed like a grasshopper! Well, this human cricket came up to the clerk's desk just as I came in. He adjusted his unseeing eye-glass in this wise and lisped to the clerk, because it's "Hinglish, you know," to lisp: "Thir, thir, will you have the kindness to fuhnish me with thome papah and thome envelopehs!" The clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled out a drawer and took some envelopes and paper and cast them across the counter and turned away to his books. You ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... is not that its locks are crisp; Your humble servant's hair is crisper, It is not that its accents lisp; I, too, affect a stammered whisper: Nor that a gorgeous bow it wears And struts with particoloured bib on; I like these macaronic airs; I'm very ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... moving the serene loveliness of her placid brow. He knelt by her side. It was his little Beatrice, this strange, cold, marble statue—his little baby Beatrice, who had leaped in his arms years ago, who had cried and laughed, who had learned in pretty accents to lisp his name—his beautiful child, his proud, bright daughter, who had kissed him the previous night while he spoke jesting words to her about her lover. And he had never heard her voice since—never would hear ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... had she learnt to lisp the name Of martyr, yet she thinks it shame Life should so long sport with that breath, Which, spent, can buy so ...
— Santa Teresa - an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings • Alexander Whyte
... his mind's eye which he no longer expected to see, no longer ventured to hope for. He saw his smiling wife with a smiling child on her lap; he saw himself smile, and felt a pride he had never known when he heard its soft childish voice lisp: "Fa-ther." Yes, Kate was right, all the other things that go by the name of happiness are nothing compared to this happiness. Only a father, a mother, knows ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... Writer,—the Earl of Shaftesbury, in his Characteristicks: "The British Muses, in this Dinn of Arms, may well lie abject and obscure; especially being as yet in their mere Infant-State. They have hitherto scarce arriv'd to any thing of Shapeliness or Person. They lisp as in their Cradles: and their stammering Tongues, which nothing but their Youth and Rawness can excuse, have hitherto spoken in wretched Pun and Quibble" (1711, i., ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... were used by Jacob for the purpose of intimating the manner of death awaiting the Ephraimites, the descendants of Joseph. As fish are caught by their mouth, so the Ephraimites were in later days to invite their doom by their peculiar lisp. At the same time, Jacob's words contained the prophecy that Joshua the son of the man Nun, the "fish," would lead Israel into the Holy Land. And in his words lay still another prophecy, with reference to the sixty thousand men children begot in the same night ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... slowly in a struggle between a restless body, a restless mind, and a restless soul, all tending in different directions, and at last they stood in a row before their aunt to recite their morning's task. Even little Jamie had his verse of Scripture to lisp, and was patted on the ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the world, making the climb at considerable speed, but without much noise. He was the quietest man in Paris. He was so quiet that he had to have a muffler cut-out on his own great heart to keep it from drowning his voice! There is a soft lisp in his speech which might fool strangers who do not know about the steel of his nerves and the keenness of his eye. He sat in a roomy office with a clean desk, toyed with a paper knife and made quick, sure, accurate ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... night and dawn, and sudden fire. Janet was bald to the heart inhabiting me then, as if quite shaven. She could speak her affectionate mind as plain as print, and it was dull print facing me, not the arches of the sunset. Julia had only to lisp, 'my husband,' to startle and agitate me beyond expression. She said simple things—'I slept well last night,' or 'I dreamed,' or 'I shivered,' and plunged me headlong down impenetrable forests. The mould of her mouth to a reluctant ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... when her cheeks were ruddier than now, when wealth and fame and happiness seemed lying just before me, ready to be gathered in, and farther away still, to a gentle, blue-eyed mother—now long gone—teaching her child to lisp ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... within the sphere of her observation, her little tongue was as active as her hands. She learned to talk very early, and so speedy was her improvement in the art of prattling, that, before she was three years old, she could lisp out a tale in very intelligible language. Her parents were so unwise as to encourage her in this mischievous kind of ingenuity, not only from the pleasure they took in hearing how fast she learned to speak, ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... and "society" with Alma Montague and Nellie Harden, and grew quite familiar with the names and doings of the great society dames. She even learned—at considerable pains—a "society" tone of voice with a drawl in it and a little lisp. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... weep. Her tears fell on her lover's face, but they were tears of joy; and with them were mingled tiny bursts of laughter and a thousand endearing words without sense, like the lisp of a little child. She quite forgot that the sight of her joy might sadden the heart ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... inspected, they cannot be right. It is also believed that some of easy consciences have two sets of them, but we cannot affirm the fact. As to the corn measure, the Company itself has always been suspected, but who dare lisp it? The payment in zeewant, which is the currency here, has never been placed upon a good footing, although the commonalty requested it, and showed how it should be regulated, assigning numerous reasons therefor. But there is always misunderstanding and discontent, and if anything is said before ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... bones shone two very merry blue eyes. He was indeed an outlander, but yet a Thibetan in language, habit, and attire. He spoke the Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the gutturals. It was not so much a lisp ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... them caught sight of the wisp of cloth on the nail, and cried out to the other. They both went back to the house, and brought two more to look at it. I saw the rotund figure of my late captor, and I thought I made out the man with the lisp. I noticed that ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... frightful gulf to glare, Rent wide beneath his footsteps? Nature!—no! Kings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flower Even in its tender bud; their influence darts 105 Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins Of desolate society. The child, Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred name, Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts His baby-sword even in a hero's mood. 110 This infant-arm becomes the bloodiest scourge Of devastated earth; whilst specious names, Learned in soft childhood's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... about hunting hers and Benny's stockings, and after she had hung them up, heard her sweet voice again as she wondered over and over if Santa really would forget them. He heard the mother, in a choking voice; tell her treasures to get ready for bed; heard them lisp their childish prayers, the little girl concluding: "And, O, Lord! please tell good Santa Claus that we are very poor; but that we love him as much as rich children do, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... continued: 'While as many as fifty good gossipers predicted daily the marriage of Bolt to some aristocratic belle, there came along a lady of the name of Mrs. Bolt. This person, whose name Mr. Bolt had been extremely careful not to lisp, caused a desperate sensation among his admirers. My Lady Longblower was seen to cool away like liquid tallow, while not a few who had been equally fervent just before, said it was a very impertinent thing in Mr. Bolt. But as that gentleman took a more philosophical view of the matter he returned ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... scene if it were to represent the facts. His father did not brighten all over and demand, "Miss Pasmer, of course?" he contrived to hide whatever start the news had given him, and was some time in asking, with his soft lisp, "Isn't that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... straw hat to match. She had a pale slightly freckled complexion, little hard blue-grey eyes with that sort of nose which redeems a squarish shape by a certain delicacy of structure; her chin was long and protruding and her voice had a wooden resonance and a ghost of a lisp. Her talk had a false consecutiveness due to the frequent use of the word "Yes." Her bearing was erect and her ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... a husband who's found a good catch," So lisp rosy lips that romance little reck. Yes, and many a close "matrimonial" match Is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... laughed and sneered, Fadlallah, humbled yet resolved, returned to his house, leading the ragged Halil, and entered his wife's chamber. Selima was playing with her seventh child, and teaching it to lisp the word "Baba"—about the amount of education which she had found time to bestow on each of her offspring. When she saw the plight of her eldest son she frowned, and was about to scold him; but Fadlallah interposed, and said, "Wife, speak no harsh words. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... found on the edge of the cliffs a cot in which lay a rosy-cheeked babe. How it came to pass none could tell, but we all thought that the cot must have been fastened to a board, which became detached from the cot at the very moment when the sea threw it on the land. The babe was just able to lisp her name—'Angela,' which corresponded with the name embroidered on her clothing. This is all we know about her; and I greatly fear that those to whom she belonged perished in the storm. Even the wreckage ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... speak plain. Grandma couldn't speak plain. They lisp. They talk fast. Sound so funny. Mama and auntie speak well. Plain as I do now. They was up wid Mars White's childern more. Mars White sent his childern to pay school. It was a log house and they had a lady teacher. They had a accordion. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... said I, "as that mock literary air which it is so much the fashion to assume. 'Tis but a wearisome relief to conversation to have interludes of songs about Strephon and Sylvia, recited with a lisp by a gentleman with fringed gloves and a ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for existence—one is inclined to the opinion that it must have many enemies. The valves are frail and brittle, and only when they gape are they revealed, and the gape is self consciously polite. The sponge embraces the slender mollusc so maternally that rude yawning is forbidden. It may lisp only and in smooth phrases, such as "prunes" and "prisms"; and, moreover, the host further insures it against molestation by the diffusion of an exceptionally powerful odour, which, though to my sense of smell resembles phosphorus, is, I am informed on indubitable ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... to read, by the tales of genii, sorcerers, demons, ghouls, enchanted caves and castles, and monsters and monstrosities of every name. The exceedingly impressible and poetical nature of children (for all children are poets and talk poetry as soon as they can lisp) appropriates and absorbs with intense relish these fanciful myths, and for years they believe more firmly in their truth than in the realities of the actual world. And I more than suspect that this child-credulity rather slumbers in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... at Bulteel's pan were as miscellaneous as the audience at Drury Lane Theatre, only mixed more closely; the gallery folk and the stalls worked cheek by jowl. Here a gentleman with an affected lisp, and close by an honest fellow, who could not deliver a sentence without an oath, or some still more horrible expletive that meant nothing at all in reality, but served to make respectable flesh creep: interspersed with these, Hottentots, Kafirs, and wild blue ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... gate, Spunyarn grasps his friend and companion in sorrow warmly by the hand, his bronzed face brightens with an air of satisfaction, and like pure water gushing from the rude rock his eyes fill with tears. How honest, how touching, how pure the friendly lisp-good bye! "Keep up a strong heart, Tom,—never mind me. I don't know by what right I'm kept here, and starved; but I expect to get out one of these days; and when I do you may reckon on me as your friend. Keep the craft in good trim till then; don't let the devil get master. Come and see us now and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Feeling of no kind abounded in that house; this pure little drop from a pure little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart, and sent a gush to the eyes. Half an hour or an hour passed; Georgette murmured in her soft lisp that she was growing sleepy. "And you shall sleep," thought I, "malgre maman and medecin, if they are not here ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... years; No more her smile brings joy to thee, When tempest toss'd on life's rough sea. Fond mother, where's the rosy child Which once upon thy bosom smiled?— In her thou daily didst rejoice,— She caught her language from thy voice; When she had learned to lisp thy name, New love with those sweet accents came. Soon did this bud of promise bloom, But oh, it blossomed for the tomb!— Each art, which thy fond care has tried, The fell destroyer's power defied. And brothers, ye, too, weeping stand— Pale death has robbed your household band Well may ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... human affection to look after their spiritual welfare; to see that they imbibed no erroneous opinions on the subject of religion; that they run into no excessive improprieties of belief as well as conduct. The child would have its father or mother to teach it to lisp the name of its Creator in prayer, or hymn His praise. But in this experimental school of instruction, if the orphans have any friends or connections able to look after their welfare, it shuts them out. It is made the duty of the governors of the institution, on taking the child, so ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster |
