"Murmuring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... noises. The presence of so many sleeping men was strange. It was very beautiful, very solemn. It gave one a kind of awe to think that thus so many famous armies had slept before the battles of the world, before Pharsalia, before Chalons, before Hastings. Presently the murmuring became so slight that I fell asleep, forgetting everything, only turning uneasily from time to time, to keep the cool night wind from blowing on my cheeks so ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... Will, which an eminent stranger had stirred up. How academic it seemed, compared with the passionate realities of life. But somehow he found himself lingering on at the academic discussion, postponing the realities of life. Every now and again, he was impelled to glance at his watch; but suddenly murmuring, "It is very late," he pulled himself together, and took leave of his learned brethren. But in the street the sight of a telegraph office drew his steps to it, and almost mechanically he wrote out the message: "Regret detained. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... another island not quite as large as the first. It was four thousand five hundred miles long by something less than three thousand wide, and was therefore about the size of Africa. It had several high ranges of mountains and a number of great rivers and fine harbours, while murmuring, bubbling brooks flowed through its forest glades. There were active volcanoes along the northern coast, and the blue, crimson, and purple lines in the luxuriant foliage were the most beautiful they had ever seen. "I propose," said Bearwarden, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... her failure at the cave, Kate came back to the cabin and went to her room without any word to Buck or Lee Haines, but when they sat before the fire, silent, or only murmuring, they could hear her moving about. Whatever sleep they got before morning was not free from dreams, for they knew that something was impending, and after breakfast they learned what it was. She struck straight out from the shoulder. She was going ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... her mouth but said nothing; and before Laura could make some trivial remark Miss Panton nervously filled in the pause by murmuring: "Quite so. Delays ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... of the heavily laden, murmuring and groaning camels was followed by another troop of some fifty mounted men, whose horses pranced and caracoled to the faintly heard blaring of trumpet and beating of drum in front, while like a gigantic, ungainly ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... the open roads, and they came to the borders of the forest and struck into an unfrequented track; the noddy yawed softly over the sand, with an accompaniment of snapping twigs. There was a great, green, softly murmuring cloud of congregated foliage overhead. In the arcades of the forest the air retained the freshness of the night. The athletic bearing of the trees, each carrying its leafy mountain, pleased the mind like so many statues; and the lines of the trunk led the eye admiringly ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thus prayed, kneeling on the stone floor of the little kitchen, dark under the universal canopy of cloud, the rain went on clashing and murmuring all around, rushing from the eaves, and exploding with sharp hisses in the fire, and in the mingled noise they had neither heard a low tap, several times repeated, nor the soft opening of the door that followed. When they rose from their knees, it was therefore with astonishment ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... we heard the murmuring of water, and the slumberous breathing of crickets throughout the night; and left the inn the next morning in the gray twilight, after it had been hallowed by the night air, and when only the innocent cows were stirring, with a kind of regret. It was only ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... they might be returned to the public labour, or be sentenced to such other punishment as may be thought adequate to the importance of their offence. What the consequence of the amelioration of the rigour of punishment would be may easily be imagined; instead of continually murmuring at the gloomy prospect before them—of displaying indifference to the future—of beholding before them no limitation of their slavery, nothing but misery, toil, and death; instead of these cheerless contemplations, they would begin to display a degree of contentedness with the situation to ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... time, smoking the last cigar in his case, and murmuring to himself a line from Hamlet—the saddest, he ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... shore from the deck of a vessel which keeps well towards the middle. On the present occasion we could distinguish nothing, on either hand, except the tops of trees, with occasionally a windmill or a lighthouse; but the view of our own fleet was in truth so magnificent as to prevent any murmuring on that account. Immediately on entering, we were joined by Admiral Cockburn with three line-of-battle ships, several frigates, and a few sloops of war and gun-brigs, by which means the squadron could now muster above twenty vessels entitled to display the pendant, besides ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Central India. From these affections children pine away and die, without showing any external marks of disease. Their death is attributed to witchcraft, and any querulous old woman, who has been in the habit of murmuring at slights and ill treatment in the neighbourhood, is immediately set down as the cause. Men who practise medicine among them are very commonly supposed to be at the same time wizards. Seeking to inspire confidence in their prescriptions by repeating prayers and incantations over ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... slowly all the scattered people leaned forward, murmuring their thanks, and the men stood up and gathered ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... and, of these, one, a minister plenipotentiary, received twelve thousand dollars, and seven ministers resident, seventy-five hundred each. Seward, with the advice of Thurlow Weed, filled them all with tried and true supporters. Greeley, who, for some time, had been murmuring about the Secretary's appointments, let fly, at last, a sarcastic paragraph or two about the appointment of Andrew B. Dickinson, the farmer statesman of Steuben, which betrayed something of the bitterness existing between the Secretary of State and the editor of the Tribune. For more ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... very hot indeed, and the troops who had not yet got their marching feet suffered terribly, even though the people by the wayside brought out fruit and eggs and drinks. There was murmuring when some officers refused to allow their men to accept these gifts. But a start had to be made some time, for promiscuous drinks do not increase marching efficiency. We, of course, could do pretty well what we liked. A little coffee early ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... The oldest, a boy, was also seized by the pestilence, and in an unguarded moment, under the influence of delirium, wandered from his sick-bed out into the suburbs of the city, and lying down in the tall grass by the roadside, looked steadfastly up, murmuring, incoherently at times, 'Mother said God would come and take care of me—would come and take care of me!' A gentleman happening to pass at the time, and hearing the unusual sounds, went where the lad was lying, and rousing him, asked him what he was doing ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... shrugging his shoulders, he looked at the man With the mask and the axe, and a murmuring ran Through the crowd, who below, were all pushing to see The gaoler kneel down, and receiving ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Preparation day for the Communion. Preparation services sometimes lasted till sunset Several ministers were usually in attendance. At night the grave old elders would meet in clusters, under the shadow of a rock, or in a cave, or beside the murmuring brook, and spend hours in prayer. With the dawn of Sabbath the people were astir, and soon appeared again on the grounds. Then began the solemn services that lifted their souls into the heavens of joy, and brought them into the glorious presence ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... the same words"—and then came the silvery jingle of the sixty marks that the townsmen offered for their lord's assent. A moment more and the assent was won, "given pleasantly too," the monks commented bitterly, as "murmuring and grunting," to use their own emphatic phrase, they led Sampson to the chapter-house. But murmurings and gruntings broke idly against the old abbot's imperious will. "Let the brethren murmur," he flashed out when one of his friends told him there was discontent in the cloister at his dealings ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... the fact that his animals were safe, except for the two that had died, Mr. Macksey seemed worried. Several times he paid a visit to the cellar, or the store room, where the provisions were kept, and more than once the girls heard him murmuring to himself. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... the central European materialistic civilisation. In the villages unbelief is unknown. In our green fields, under our dark-blue heaven, in our little white houses and wooden cottages, on the banks of our murmuring brooks and magnificent rivers, atheism is unknown. Every family in a house is regarded as a little religious community. The head of the family presides over this community and prays with it. When I tell you that, I tell you my personal experience. I ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... the young girl, who shrank in terror and loathing from that woman's presence, and sought the privacy of her own chamber, murmuring: ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... get away from the unhealthy shore, stepped boldly into the river, shooting over it in a close row of bamboo platforms elevated on high piles, amongst which the current below spoke in a soft and unceasing plaint of murmuring eddies. There was only one path in the whole town and it ran at the back of the houses along the succession of blackened circular patches that marked the place of the household fires. On the other side ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... Mr. George, "even if they do not get into a frolic, they sometimes go on talking to a later hour than they imagine, and the sound of their voices is heard like a constant murmuring through the partitions, and disturbs every body that is near. So you must do all your talking in the course of the day, and when eight o'clock comes, you must bring your discourse to a close. You may sit up as long as you please to read or write; ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... surrounding fields. The slates on the roof were as dark as the sky they reflected; and that magnificent summer residence, completely transformed by the bitter, silent winter, without a leaf on its trees or a pigeon on its roofs, showed no life save in its rippling brooks and the murmuring of the tall poplars as they bowed majestically to one another, shaking the magpies' nests hidden ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... guests having arrived, I ride several times around the brick-walks, the strange audience of turbaned priests and veiled women showing their great approval in murmuring undertones of "kylie khoob" and involuntary acclamations of "Mashallah! mash-all-ah!" as they witness with bated breath the strange and incomprehensible scene of a Ferenghi riding a vehicle, that will ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and Arka, opposite the highest portion of the Lebanon; and again in the north between Cape Possidi and Jebili, opposite the more northern part of Bargylus. The hilly region in these places is a broad tract of alternate wooded heights and deep romantic valleys, with streams murmuring amid their shades. Sometimes the hills are cultivated in terraces, on which grow vines and olives, but more often they remain in their pristine condition, clothed with ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... wind blew gently down the little valley of the Lairet, which wound and rippled over its glossy brown pebbles, murmuring a quiet song down in its hollow bed. Tufts of spiry grass clung to its steep banks, and a few wild flowers peeped out of nooks among the sere fallen leaves that lay upon the still greensward on each shore of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... earned a home yet! I look forward to years of labor, profit, and peace. To-day I found some lines in the morning paper. Nay, don't curl your lips with a sneer at what you call 'newspaper poetry.' Listen to the words that came like a message from the spirit-land to my murmuring heart." Her voice was low and unsteady, as ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... aforesaid was strenuously opposed by them. The said Hastings did, notwithstanding this opposition, persevere, and by his casting vote alone did carry the said unjust and oppressive demand. The Rajah submitted, after some murmuring and remonstrance, to pay the sum required,—but on the express condition (as has been frequently asserted by him to the said Warren Hastings without any contradiction) that the exaction should continue but ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... against me. Touching one's character in that way is no trifling matter, and I did not feel like sitting quietly down under representations so entirely false. Had I been guilty, I would have borne the deserved rebuke without a murmuring word. Some proposed that the new Governor and Council make a general investigation of the prison matters, and I put this in with the rest. But they were not inclined to that unless parties preferred charges, in which case they ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... level, a second crew were tamping a set of holes to be sunk twelve feet. Above them the drills were cutting into the third ledge, and still higher and farther back, at twenty feet, the largest of all the crews was sinking the eighteen-foot holes to complete the fracture of the great wall. Above the murmuring of the steel rang continually the calls of the foremen, and hour after hour the shock of the drills churned up and ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... Dieppe. "Or," he amended with a dawning smile, "she 's making a fool of me." His smile broadened a little. "Why not?" he asked. Then he drew himself up and slowly returned to his own side of the barricade, shaking his head and murmuring, "No, no, Jean, my boy, no, no! He 's your host—your host, Jean," as he again seated himself on the bench ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... lines of wading horsemen the draft oxen advanced, following the wagons, strung out, but all holding their footing in the green water that broke white on the upper side of the wagons. A vast murmuring roar came up ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... nature, she warbled as unrestrainedly as the birds who listened to her quavering crescendos; and more than once she had become so absorbed in this forest practising, that twinkling stars peeped down at her through the fringy canopy of murmuring firs. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... salvages are more treacherous than a quicksand. Try him with more questions," suggested Hopkins, the other men murmuring assent, while the Indian glancing with his opaque, black eyes from one to another showed not how much he understood of what went ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... soft place in it, when he heard a rustling sound among the leaves, and, looking up, he saw the Cockalorum perched upon the bough beside him. He was gazing sadly at the plum, and his feathers were more rumpled than ever. Presently he gave a long sigh and said, in his low, murmuring voice, "Perhaps it's a sugar-plum," and then flew clumsily ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... I saw her standing outside the door of the house waiting for us, so eager that she could not remain seated, and as I sprang from the carriage she came hurrying out to meet me, uttering a curious little murmuring sound which touched ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... buoyant element of tone. It was only by degrees that out of this absolute essence of sheer sound distinctions of rhythm and pitch began to appear, and to assume definite musical form. The theme at first was pastoral and sweet, suggestive of rustling grasses and murmuring reeds, interwoven with which was an exquisite lilting tune, the song of the souls as they sped down the river. But one by one other elements crept into the strain; it increased in volume and variety of tone, in complexity ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... thou dost come, my friend. I hear often thy light hand on my harp, when it hangs on the distant wall, and the feeble sound touches my ear. Why dost thou not speak to me in my grief, and tell me when I shall behold my friends? But thou passest away in thy murmuring blast; the wind whistles through the gray hairs ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... enough to everybody with half an eye; then the Coroner announced that no further evidence would be taken that day, and adjourned the inquest for a fortnight. Such of the public as had contrived to squeeze into the court went out murmuring, and Triffitt and Carver went out ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... broke off his story, and crossing to the window, opened it. "Listen!" he said. I heard as it were the sound of innumerable voices chattering and murmuring and whispering in some mysterious language, and at times the voices blended and the murmurs became a ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... a seeming malignity was lifting, veil upon thick veil, now that the mischief was accomplished, Dick could see the faint outlines of land; gaunt trees and a house, quite near at hand, certainly within call. Mrs. Hayter was in a paroxysm of terror, murmuring her fright and strange endearing terms all jumbled together, and the deck had waked to life; they seemed in the centre of a curious, nerve-ridden crowd. It was all very embarrassing; Dick had to hold on to Mrs. Hayter ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the earth be as fair as I hear them say, These flowers her children are! Do they her beauty keep? They are fresh from her lap, I know; For I caught them fast asleep In her arms an hour ago. With the air which is her breath— Her soft and delicate breath— Over them murmuring low! ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Kirby was past murmuring anything; all her efforts were directed towards at least ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... ardently argued in their favor, but finally gave in that they, perhaps, were a little bit too dark. "Why do you not take a studio where you can see real sunlight; there is one empty now with Southern exposure, right in this building." Old Melville shook his head, murmuring some excuses of "can't afford it," of "being used so long to this one," but his visitor insisted, "he would pay the rent and fix matters with the landlord." The good soul did not understand much about painting, about tones and values, but merely ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... another cursing the French who fright away literary curiosity by their threats of an invasion; another swearing at his bookseller, who will advance no money without copy; another perusing, as he walks, his publisher's bill; another murmuring at an unanswerable criticism; another determining to write no more to a generation of barbarians; and another resolving to try, once again, whether he cannot awaken the drowsy world to a sense ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... discussing it with his learning. In the court, they are dissatisfied in heart; out of it, they keep talking in the streets. While they make a pretense of vaunting their Master, they consider it fine to have extraordinary views of their own. And so they lead on the people to be guilty of murmuring and evil speaking. If these things are not prohibited, Your Majesty's authority will decline, and parties will be formed. The best way is to prohibit them, I pray that all the Records in charge of the Historiographers be ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... glowed the light from the window. The stone shafts showed black against it. Murmuring words of passionate love as I gazed upon the signal, I grasped my strong box under my arm, and with rapid strides approached the Chateau de la Carque. No sign of light or life, no human voice, no tread of foot, no bark of dog indicated a chance of interruption. A blind was down; ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... flowers of the Amra trees on the mountain tops while the murmuring bees pursue their ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the light shone forth, and again was shut out; still no wind filled our sails. I knew, however, that it might come ere long. Sophie still lingered by my side. Hitherto the ocean had slept in silence. Suddenly a rushing murmuring sound fell ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... listeners nobody moved, but there was a murmuring, and all eyes were fixed upon the speaker, who, either by design or accident, leaned upon the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... her a parade of morning-glories, purple and white, pink and blue, while Miranda sat in a ring of marigolds and red columbines. Each was slowly swaying to and fro, murmuring to herself, and manipulating with small, darting fingers her rainbow throng of ladies. Rand, unseen, watched the manoeuvres for a while, then coughed to let them know he was there, and presently sat down upon a root of cedar, and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... indeed, I came hither to die here, but I did not come to see all that I now see, and I had no reason to expect the kind of treatment we are having. Sir, sir, this is man's day; God's day will come, who will reveal many things and avenge everything." She died on the 6th of August, 1661, murmuring over and over again, "Good by; good by!" And, when she was asked why she said that, she replied simply, "Because I am going away, my children." She had given instructions to bury her in the preau (court-yard), and not to have any nonsense ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... always take a sleeper and always did. I rode on the truck because I didn't want to ride inside the car and have to associate with a wealthy porter who looked down upon me. I am the man who was found down the creek the next day gathering wild ferns and murmuring, "Where am I?" ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... thus, having silent communion with our thoughts, when the Boy, his little head resting on W——'s shoulder, broke the spell by murmuring from the fullness of his heart, "Mother, why cannot we keep on doing ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... thoughts were wrought into those same initials! How many times, while her fingers were busy fashioning them, she had planned to make just such for her very own! How often, as she wrought, she had laid her lips to the A C, murmuring to herself over and over again, "Aileen—Champney, Champney—Aileen," so filling and satisfying with the sound of this pleasing ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... men. The windows of the apartment stood open; outside fountains splashed in the sun; music played in a distant glade: and all the world seemed glad. And as the queen listened to pleasant sounds of wit and gossip, murmuring around her, the courtiers, at sound of a well-known footstep, suddenly ceasing their discourse, fell back on either side adown the room. At that moment the king entered, leading a lady apparelled in magnificent attire, the contour of whose face and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... the shrieks of murderers and their victims at the Carmelites. If it was His will that I should come alive out of that butchery, it was, no doubt, because I was reserved for some fate which I am bound to endure without murmuring. God will protect His own; He can do with them according to His will. It is for you, not for me that we ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... deal of murmuring followed this, some of the men evidently agreeing with their captain, others feeling with Israel that I had had too many favours shown me. Then they talked too low for me to hear, except now and then fragments of sentences about the "queer-coloured flag on the Flying Swan," ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... of poetry find it not only, perhaps not most, in the ideals which she has sometimes described, but in a child's song by Christina Rossetti about a mere crown of wind-flowers, and in tragedies like Lear, where the sun seems to have set for ever. They hear this spirit murmuring its undertone through the Aeneid, and catch its voice in the song of Keats's nightingale, and its light upon the figures on the Urn, and it pierces them no less in Shelley's hopeless lament, O world, O life, O time, than in the rapturous ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley
... programme, the incident of the slaughter was not dropped out of the story, but a new explanation of it was framed. Instead of simply making a human sacrifice, mankind as a whole was destroyed for rebelling against the gods, the act of rebellion being murmuring about the king's old age and loss of virility. The elixir soon became something more than a rejuvenator: it was transformed into the food of the gods, the ambrosia that gave them their immortality, and distinguished them from mere ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... wind moving restlessly, and the trees complaining, and the tide-water whispering. The dark night was filled with a multitudinous murmuring. For a long while Peter and his mother clung to each other. From time to time she whispered to him—such pitiful comfortings as love may lend ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... this seemed quite to content him. He drew in his elbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow, saying, "Bien, bien;" and after murmuring something else in French, which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of the prior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back and wandered away down the terrace, as I rushed off to ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... look where they are, the Boches! Can we stop? It's impossible. We must go on till we've thrown them out. It is dreadful, but what would you have? Ah! Our son—he was so promising!" And the mother, weeping over the tin-tacks, would make the neatest little parcel of them, murmuring out of her tears: "Il faut que a finisse; mais la France—il ne faut pas que la France—Nos chers fils auraient t tus pour rien!" Poor souls! I remember another couple up on the hillside. The old wife, dignified as a duchess—if ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... blue distance. Wearily my way Downward I dragged, through fir groves evermore Where bright green moss moved in sepulchral forms, Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard, The sweet bird's song become a hollow sound; And the gale murmuring indivisibly, Reserved its solemn murmur, more distinct From many a note of many a waterbreak, And the brook's chatter; on whose islet stones The dingy kidling, with its tinkling bell, Leapt frolicksome, or old romantic goat Sat, his white ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... bearing in her beak a sprig of moss, or a leaf from the well-remembered spot where they had been so happy in the spring-time of their life; and when she reached the prison, if her loved one was grieving, pining for the liberty he had lost, the home ties thus rudely broken, her sweet voice murmuring, 'I am here, love,' seemed to bring comfort to that poor failing heart; and as she tenderly pressed her cool, fresh beak to his, so parched and dry, he would reply, striving to be gay for her ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... seemed changed, and assumed a gloomy aspect. A wood of aspen trees which we were passing seemed to be all in a tremble, with its leaves showing white against the dark lilac background of the clouds, murmuring together in an agitated manner. The tops of the larger trees began to bend to and fro, and dried leaves and grass to whirl about in eddies over the road. Swallows and white-breasted swifts came darting around the britchka and even passing in front of the forelegs of the horses. While rooks, ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... if the touch of her face and her body, and the murmuring of her voice changed and soft close to his ear, as she murmured mere words of love to him, drew him away from the life of deeds and doubts and made a new world for him, wherein he beheld all those fair pictures of the happy days ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... why the Salvation Army is able to carry on the great machinery of its vast organization is that its people are trained to obey without murmuring. Cheerfully and laboriously the men set to work. Winter rains were setting in, with a chill and intensity never to be forgotten by an American soldier. But wet to the skin day after day all day long the Salvationists worked against time, trying to finish the hut before the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... the sky, the wind blew and at once the leaves in the treetops began murmuring and whispering among themselves, and the birds that went flying all over the world would often alight on some branch near the tower and sing to the Princess as she worked or chatter some exciting story that she could ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... cried he, "the smallest sensibility, shew but for me the most distant concern, and I will try to bear my disappointment without murmuring, and submit to your decrees as to those from which there is no appeal: but to wound without deigning even to look at what you destroy,—to shoot at random those arrows that are pointed with poison,—to see them fasten on the heart, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the party, and utterly spoiled the festive intentions of young Aragon. Lorenzo was put to bed, from which retreat, at midnight, his fearful groans summoned the colonel to his side. The latter found him tossing and murmuring, but incapable of uttering a word. His faithful Eusebio, at the head of the bed, answered for him. The honest fellow feared lest his master might have caught again a touch of the old fever which had formerly attacked him in searching for cascarillas in the environs of Tipoani in Bolivia. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... at the head of the murmuring rapids, Joe now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket-knife, while I looked on; and a tragical business it was,—to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... this from the shore, where the waves fall in low murmuring ripples, or from the ship's deck, far out upon the sea, where there is no sound of water save the laving of the vessel's bow as she rises and sinks in the broad-backed swell; but there is something more than pleasant, ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... could do. Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby made such a compact crowd around Bobberts that no one else could squeeze in, but Kitty dropped on her knees and edged up to the crowd, murmuring, ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... disgust at the sight. A great crowd had gathered to receive Leyba, and the priests were compelled to dance in the middle of the street, but this again only caused disgust. A couple of priests were then beaten in the usual fashion in a private house. This caused murmuring even among those of the soldiers who were natives of the Cagayan valley. At the same time two other priests were horribly whipped ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... as a series of small but increasingly vigorous movements on the other side of the wall, then as a voice murmuring, then as a falling of little fragments on the hither side and as ten pink finger tips, scarcely apprehended before Romance became startling and emphatically a leg, remained for a time a fine, slender, actively struggling limb, brown stockinged and wearing a brown ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her wasted dying look, keen and yet vague,—her ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... anon the ground up gaf*, *gave And Arcita anon his hand up haf*, *lifted And more incense into the fire he cast, With other rites more and at the last The statue of Mars began his hauberk ring; And with that sound he heard a murmuring Full low and dim, that saide thus, "Victory." For which he gave to Mars honour and glory. And thus with joy, and hope well to fare, Arcite anon unto his inn doth fare. As fain* as fowl is of the brighte ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... with hers, his fingers had strayed through the mazes of her superb raven ringlets, his lip had pressed hers unrebuked, and his ear had drunk in long murmuring low-breathed sighs, and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... quickly by the tree, where Johnnie stood silent with downcast eyes a few moments; then dropping upon his knees leant his face against the bark, his eyes closed, his lips murmuring. ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... Guthorm Gunhildson and Hakon Ivarson had all been together on that cruise. King Harald now proceeded out of Throndhjem fjord to Austrat, where he was well received. Afterwards the king and Fin conversed with each other about this new event of Einar's and his son's death, and of the murmuring and threatening which the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... murmuring, half to myself, half to Peterkin—'I believe you've got some rubbish in your head about the parrot being a fairy. If I were mamma I'd stop your——' but at that I stopped myself. If Clement had heard me he would have been down upon me for disrespectfulness in saying to a baby like Pete ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... passed, and a new moon rose behind the fortress and threw a golden shimmer over the sea. The waves were washing over the rocks with a deep, mysterious murmuring. To Chris, kneeling at her window, it was as if they were trying to tell her a secret. She had knelt down to pray, but her thoughts had wandered, and somehow she could not call them back. Almost in spite of herself, she went in spirit over the rocks till she came ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... in intelligence and cultivation as they wax in worldly goods. After all, woman is our most marvellous native product—that sort of woman. Heigho!" Having given vent to this sigh, Littleton proceeded to recognize the hopelessness of the personal situation by murmuring with a slightly forced ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... crown?" "I will relate their stories when we reach Our confines," said the guide; "for thou, O king, Differing in both from all thy countrymen, Seest not their stories and hast seen their fates. But while we tarry, lo again the flame Riseth, and murmuring hoarse, points straighter, haste! 'Tis urgent, we must hence." "Then, oh, adieu!" Cried Gebir, and groaned loud, at last a tear Burst from his eyes turned back, and he exclaimed, "Am I deluded? O ye powers of hell, Suffer me—Oh, my fathers!—am I torn—" He spake, ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... knows that the sea breeds intimacies. By the time the white houses of Algiers rose on their hill out of the bosom of the waves Mademoiselle Verbena and Mr. Greyne were—shall we say like sister and brother? She had told him all about her childhood in dear Paris, the death of her father the count, murmuring the name of Louis XVI., the poverty of her mother the countess, her own resolve to put aside all aristocratic prejudices and earn her own living. He, in return, had related his Eton days, his momentary bias towards the militia, his marriage—as an innocent youth—with Miss Eugenia ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... her eyes wide open, while David comforted her for the absence of mamma. He played with her and told her stories, and by and by undressed her gently, kissing her hands and her little bare feet, and murmuring such tender words, that baby grew good and sweet, and forgot that there was any one in the world ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... had scarcely weighed anchor, when the admiral split, and immediately went to the bottom, so that they had hardly time to save the men. The crowd of people, who were gathered together on the shore to see them go off, beheld this dismal accident, and took it for a bad omen of the expedition; murmuring at the same time against Father Xavier, who was the author of it, and casting out loud cries to recal the other vessels. The governor, who saw the people in an uproar, and apprehended the consequences of this violent beginning, sent in haste to seek the Father. The ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... unforeseen result. When she presented herself at Wistaria Terrace the baby did not know her. Her stepmother shed a few tears, which were half-gratification. The elder children were already a bit shy of her, the baby's immediate predecessor even murmuring of her as "the yady," and surveying her from afar, finger in mouth. But the baby could in no way be brought to recognise her, and only shouted lustily when she tried to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... and boys in great commotion, all running hurriedly, in one direction, bending their steps towards the opposite shore. Their step was light and quick, but a look of sadness was in every face. We could only, now and then, gather up a few murmuring words that fell from ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... birds awakte her with their morning song, Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare, The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among The ratling boughes, and leaves, their parts did beare; Her eies unclos'd beheld the groves along Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare: And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent, Provokte ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... and bellow, as he got upon his feet, overturning his chair and coincidentally dislodging several articles of china and glassware. He stood among the ruins for one moment, publicly wiping his brow with a napkin, then plunged, murmuring, out of the room and up the stairway; and, before any of the company had recovered speech, the front door was heard to slam tumultuously, its reverberations being simultaneous with the sound of footsteps ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... their house, like the souls that, according to Plato, watched in charnels over their own mouldering bodies. Day dawned, and the beams of the winter sun, smiling away the clouds of the past night, played cheerily on the murmuring waves of the ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Chamber in which Lord ESLINGTON once had a place, chanced to hear this question. Delighted with it. Wished he could introduce something of that sort in House of Lords. Went about Lobby with his faithful umbrella (companion of his daily life, wet or shine) murmuring the musical phrases. "Recognised and established regulations," "afford pastime to large masses of industrious population," "unable from pecuniary circumstances," "the more expensive forms of sport." That all very well, but not quite all. ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... frost over the ground. Anna, huddled in the hay, could see her breath go out in fog; while the moon, shining in her face, seemed to veil in shadow the forms of her companions—Elsie Cobbler with her round, soft elbow over Brandon Adam's face, Susie Ploughman murmuring to Alec Stove . . . She was chilly and wakeful; and watching the moon through miles of empty sky, heard, as if from far away, the singing up front, back of the driver's seat, and Thomas, whispering at ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... projecting crags which impend over the river. At a little distance below the bridge, "the fissure gradually spreads its rocky jaws; the bottom opens; and, instead of the dark precipices which have hitherto overhung and obscured the struggling river, it now emerges into day, and rolls its murmuring current through a winding valley, confined within magnificent banks, darkened with woods, which swell into bold promontories, or fall back into sweeping recesses, till they are lost to the eye in distance. Thickly shaded by trees, which shoot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... So murmuring, as he retreated to the farther part of the library, with his bundle of rolls under his arm, he again busied himself in the ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... restlessly. It seemed a low fever; for his face was pale; only the old ruddiness showed unnaturally, like the mark of his old-country lineage, left from bygone years of youth and sunlight on his paling life. And Jamie's eyes met Mr. Bowdoin's; he had been murmuring rapidly, and there was a smile in them; but this now he lost, though the eyes had in them no look of recognition. He became silent as his look touched Mr. Bowdoin's face and glanced from it quickly, as do the looks of delirious persons and young children. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... with me, I wonder?—I felt something so strange, and my heart was so lumpish!—I wonder what ailed me!—But this was so unexpected!—I believe that was all!—Yet I am very strange still. Surely, surely, I cannot be like the old murmuring Israelites, to long after the onions and garlick of Egypt, when they had suffered there such heavy bondage?—I'll take thee, O lumpish, contradictory, ungovernable heart! to severe task, for this thy strange impulse, when I get to my dear father's and mother's; and if I find any ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... from heaven for thy salvation; I took upon Me thy miseries not of necessity, but drawn by love that thou mightest learn patience and mightest bear temporal miseries without murmuring. For from the hour of My birth, until My death upon the Cross, I ceased not from bearing of sorrow; I had much lack of temporal things; I oftentimes heard many reproaches against Myself; I gently bore contradictions ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... Whether it was secretly confiscated by the customs, or was accepted as a just tribute by the populace from a poetic admirer, I do not know, but I hope it is now in the keeping of some dark-eyed Spanish girl, who will wear it while murmuring through her lattice to her novio on the pavement outside. It was rather heavy to be worn as a veil, but I am sure she could manage it after dark, and could hold it under her chin, as she leaned forward to the grille, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... our horror for the nude women and unsightly productions with which Monsieur Courbet[58] has honoured the exhibitions of paintings, we remember with delight several, admirably true to nature, with sunshine and summer breezes playing among the leaves, and streams murmuring refreshingly over the pebbles, and rocks whereon climbing plants cling closely; and, besides these landscapes, a good picture here and there, executed, if not by the hand of an artist—for the word artist possesses a higher meaning in ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... lamp of love, High in yon lofty arch of dewy blue; When gentle dews distilling from above, Sparkle upon the spreading grass and groves of yew— When sinks to rest the faintly murmuring breeze, And dim and indistinct the landscape view— Lonely I stray among the poplar trees And muse, dear Eleanor, dear ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... else you must set up Monarchy again. Monarchy is twofold, either for one king to reign, or for many to rule by kingly principles. For the king's power lies in his laws, not in his name. And if either one king rule, or many rule by kingly principles, much murmuring, grudges, troubles, and quarrels may and will arise among the oppressed people upon every gained ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... and despondency, as if their having rejected the sound-footed, and having chosen the halting king, which the oracle had specially warned them against, was the occasion of all their distresses. Yet the regard they had to the merit and reputation of Agesilaus, so far stilled this murmuring of the people, that notwithstanding it, they entrusted themselves to him in this distress, as the only man that was fit to heal the public malady, the arbiter of all their difficulties, whether relating to the affairs of war or peace. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... voice died away in a soft murmuring cadence, and the nightingale alone poured out her heartful of lore to the ancient moon. But as Nehushta rested immovable by the marble balustrade of the terrace, there was a rustle among the myrtles and a quick step ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... song, beyond that Alpine bound, Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene, There by a murmuring stream may I be found, Whose gentle airs around Waft grateful odours from the laurel green; Nought but my empty form roams here unblest, There dwells my heart with her who steals it from ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... iniquity, and cannot do wrong to any man. Would there be so much impatience amongst you, and fretting against his dispensations, if ye believed this solidly? Would ye repine against his holy and just ways, were it not to charge God with iniquity? Your murmuring and grudging at his dispensations is with child of blasphemies, and he who can search the reins sees it, and constructs so of it. You say by interpretation, that if ye had the government of your own matters, or of kingdoms, ye would order them better than he doth. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... great part, of his time. He is carried to it, I understand, in his limousine in the sunnier hours of the morning; for an hour or so each day he moves about among the warm smell of the barley and the quiet hum of the machinery murmuring among its dust. ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... heard to utter himself unguardedly in respect of the primate, and that was amongst friends, and after the second glass permitted of his cousin George. 'Tut! laud me no Laud,' he said. 'A skipping bishop is worse than a skipping king.' Once also he had been overheard murmuring to himself by way of consolement, 'Bishops pass; the church remains.' He had been a great friend of the late sir Ringwood; and although the distance from his parish was too great to be travelled often, he seldom let a year go by without paying ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... group of the older men were recounting the stirring scenes of the boom days, when flour was ten dollars a bag, and sugar twenty-five cents a pound; and the big flood of '82, when the Souris, the peaceful little murmuring stream that now glinted through the trees below them, ran full from bank to bank and every house in Millford had a raft ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... away during the afternoon, murmuring constantly words of love and hope, the last intelligible being, "Love each ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... In lawns the murmuring bee is heard, The wooing ring-dove in the shade; On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird Takes wing, ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale, not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day. [Footnote: Prologue ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... doing this Mrs. Boynton lay quietly in the bed talking to herself fitfully, in the faint murmuring tone that was habitual to her. He could distinguish scarcely anything, only enough to guess that her mind was still on the Bible story that he was reading to her when she fainted. "THE ROD OF AARON WAS AMONG THE OTHER ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... automatically murmuring something about transferred epithets, apologised for this pedantic ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating, these unprofitable speculations with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I accidentally loosened the clasps; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... to Paris was frightful. The nearer we got, the more dishevelled became my wits. The power of concentration deserted me. Finally, as we were running in, I found that I had forgotten the French for 'moths.' I'd looked it out the night before: I'd been murmuring it all day long: and now, at the critical moment, it had deserted me. I clasped my head in my hands and thought like a madman. Nothing doing. I thought all round it, of course. I thought of candles and camphor and dusk. My vocabulary became gigantic, but it did not include ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... But soon he is in bed with cold bandages. At first he feels broken, and thinks of writing home and getting taken away; and the verse of a hymn he had learned years ago sings through his head, and he goes to sleep, murmuring,— ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... some of the articles of the New Laws forbidding slavery to them, he continued: "According to this, it is I who might much better complain of you, for not obeying your King." The situation was a deadlock, for the Bishop was immovable, neither would the Spaniards give way. From murmuring against his decision and questioning his authority to impose such unreasonable and ruinous commands, they passed to calumny and ridicule, and as these weapon are forged by evil imaginations and their exercise is unhampered by the restrictions of truth, many fantastic accusations ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... been betrothed to a carpenter of Friendship, and he was at work on their house when, a month before the wedding-day, Delia and that young carpenter had "run away." Who in Friendship could not tell that story? But before I had made an end of murmuring something— ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... her eyes as she led her son away. By and by they came to another edifice. In a niche in the stone wall near the entrance was the figure of Jesus on a cross. He paused and looked at it for several minutes, murmuring, "Strange! Strange!" ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... a little grating in the door through which Prince Arthur called. A hollow, dreary, murmuring voice replied. It was the voice of the Red Cross Knight, which, when the champion heard, "with furious force and indignation fell" he rent that iron door and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... sound of lamentation 'mid the murmuring nocturne noises, And an undertone of sadness, as from myriad human voices, And the harmony of heaven and the music of the spheres, And the ceaseless throb of Nature, and the flux and flow of years, Are rudely punctuated with the drip of human tears ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... nearer and nearer to her feet,—that other river, on which her soul should sail away to meet her glorious dead; that river which whispers "Forever, forever;" that river which is never unquiet, and whose waves are murmuring of nothing less beautiful than of meeting, of ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... the helm was put up, the cutter's bows fell off, and in a few minutes the water was heard murmuring under her head, as the Scud glanced through the lake at the rate of five miles in the hour. All this passed in profound silence, when Jasper again gave the order to "ease off the sheets a little and ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die." But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various |
