"Murmuring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moccasins behind him, the red moccasins before him; and just over the latter the ball of light, which was now burning with such brilliancy that the luminous hemisphere around it formed a wide and lofty dome in the solid darkness of the cavern. For some moments past he had heard a murmuring sound, as of abundant waters rippling over a rocky bed; and filling all the air was a delectable perfume, as if flowery fields and fruitful groves must be blooming and waving not far off. By this time nothing amazed him. Nothing frightened him. He moved and felt and thought ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... And that is the reason why I worship these woods with all my heart. Ah! if you could only see them in the month of June, when the foliage is at its fulness. Flowers everywhere—yellow, blue, crimson! Music also everywhere—the song of birds, the murmuring of waters, and the balmy scents in the air. Then there are the lime-trees, the wild cherry, and the hedges red with strawberries—it is intoxicating. And, whatever you may say, Monsieur de Buxieres, I assure you that the beauty ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... expression, and the strange wish uttered over his sleeping sister long ago. Harry's reckless, aimless life might be explained in this way; and all that had perplexed her through that year. Every thing confirmed the belief that this tragical assertion was true, and Christie covered up her face, murmuring, with an involuntary shiver: ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... dispersed storm," [25] and northward rises Mashuk, like a shaggy Persian cap, shutting in the whole of that quarter of the horizon. Eastward the outlook is more cheery: down below are displayed the varied hues of the brand-new, spotlessly clean, little town, with its murmuring, health-giving springs and its babbling, many-tongued throng. Yonder, further away, the mountains tower up in an amphitheatre, ever bluer and mistier; and, at the edge of the horizon, stretches the silver ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... speaking, and they could see his head poked out from the partly open flap of the smaller tent. Evidently he must have been awake at the time, or else the sound of murmuring voices aroused him; for Max always declared that he was a very ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... scene—the calm loch, the murmuring stream, the roaring waterfall, the wild rocks with trees growing amidst them, and the lofty hills rising in many varied shapes on every side, still higher peaks towering to the sky, the party began to ascend a path which led to the spot where the picnic was to be held. It was a green knoll on the ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... sounds ceased at the first blow of the axe, and a deathly silence succeeded, followed by a low, deep, murmuring roar. ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... laugh, and the iron grip of my own strong and implacable fingers seemed to close with a keen agony upon my own throat, and a curtain seemed to fall over my eyes. Then I gasped for breath, and a warm pungent smell clung in my nostrils, and a white light swam into my eyes, and I heard a voice murmuring far off, but in an accent strangely familiar and commonplace, "He's coming round ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... no danger was apparent to the eye, the ear could catch the sound of a murmuring noise beyond the limits of the horizon, like the coming in of the tide. Soon a confused sound was heard of bellowing and neighing and bleating, and about a mile to the south immense flocks appeared, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... the grass a little spring Runs with jocund murmuring; All the place rejoices; Cooling zephyrs breathe and sing With ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... wrought therein a herd of kine with upright horns, and the kine were fashioned of gold and tin, and with lowing they hurried from the byre to pasture beside a murmuring river, beside the waving reed. And herdsmen of gold were following with the kine, four of them, and nine dogs fleet of foot came after them. But two terrible lions among the foremost kine had seized a loud-roaring bull ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... as swift as the horses that galloped up and down the valley at the behest of riders whose minds titillated with whatever phase of the fiesta appealed to them most; and paint with colors as vivid as were the dreams of the women, from the peonas in the huts to the senoritas and senoras murmuring behind the shelter ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... delectable; the two girls, arrayed in cool white lawn, rosy-cheeked, beaming; the gay talk and banter and laughter; the blissful hours together on the grass beneath the trees, with the wide mesa diffusing an immense languor, with the mountains bestowing a vast peace, with the brook at their feet murmuring an accompaniment to their words—hours to treasure, hours of pure gold: Little wonder that Dave, lying full length and gazing upward through the boughs at the blue vault, allowed his eyelids to sink and at last to close. Little wonder the ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... ears were pricked forward, and up to him came the drone of a wakening earth. Even the roots of the grasses must have been singing in their joy, for all through that sunlit valley there was the low and murmuring music of a country that was at peace because it was empty of men. Everywhere was the rippling sound of running water, and he heard strange sounds that he knew was life; the twittering of a rock-sparrow, the silver-toned aria of a black-throated thrush down in ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... broadens, as it bears us on. But the rills from which it gathered, and the ocean whereto it tends, are now, as ever in the past, inscrutable. It is therefore futile to suppose, at this short stage upon our journey, while the infant founts of knowledge are still murmuring to our ears, that any form of faith or science has been attained as permanent; that any Pillars of Hercules have been set up against the Atlantic Ocean of experience and exploration. Think of that curve of possibly twenty ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... against it. The courtesies of the game are few. I think that this must be why the passion for it leaves me after a month. When at cricket you are bowled first ball, the wicketkeeper can comfort you by murmuring that the light is bad; when at tennis your opponent forces for the dedans and strikes you heavily under the eye, he can shout, "Sorry!" when at golf you reach a bunker in 4 and take 3 to get out, your partner can endear himself by saying, ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... A soil of black loam was under us, a thick soft underbrush reached our knees, and lacy, flexible leaves and branches were at our shoulder height. We pushed them aside, forcing our way softly forward. It was not far. The little murmuring voices of ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... list, murmuring the names aloud and nodding approval at each. But when she came to the last name, she did not utter it. She cast a black glance at Rachel, and a spark leaped up in the depths of the pale eyes. On her face were anger, amazement, incredulity, the ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... voice, round, mellow, cheery, and her articulation is charming. Other things being equal, I think you, who are, perhaps, oversensitive, would live from two to three years longer with her than with the other. I suppose a man who lived within hearing of a murmuring brook would find his life shortened if a sawmill were set up within ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... that, soft and continuous, remote, now clearer, now confusedly murmuring? He must have slept, but now he lay in sudden perfect consciousness, and that music fell upon his ears. Ah! of course it was the rising tide; he ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... silver beard flowing, and tongue clothed in wisdom the choicest, Sitting 'neath shadowy birches, telling a story by Mimer's Unceasingly murmuring fountain, he too a saga unending. Covered with straw was the floor, and upon a walled hearth in the center, Constantly burned, warm and cheerful, a fire, while down the wide chimney Twinkling stars, heavenly friends, glanced upon ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... general, who was not impressed with a similar way of thinking, was highly indignant at this act of the Saint, and murmuring to himself, he said: "Ah! Brother Francis, it is quite certain that your extreme simplicity will be the ruin of the Order. You place alongside of you, men who have neither learning nor talents, and you affront those who ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... Jerusalem, which was absorbed in sleep, and now they came out of the gates of the city, and in the valley, full of fantastic, motionless shadows, the stream of Kedron stretched before them. Now they were frightened by everything. The soft murmuring and splashing of the water on the stones sounded to them like voices of people approaching them stealthily; the monstrous shades of the rocks and the trees, obstructing the road, disturbed them, and ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... omitted relating to the great Genoese Navigator, and some amount of legend mixed up with history does not ill beseem the grand figure of Christopher Columbus. Still, it is an undoubted fact that there was much murmuring on board the caravels, but it would seem that the crews, cheered by the words of the admiral, and by his brave attitude in the midst of uncertainty, did not refuse to do their duty in working ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... eternal silence itself gulfs it. He leaves Wordsworth, he goes straight into the middle of the eighteenth century, and he sees Thomson with his hands in his dressing-gown pockets biting at the peaches, and hears him between the mouthfuls murmuring— ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... though they required the most consummate nautical skill, to be enabled to contend successfully against them; but the unfortunate situation, to which the party were exposed, rendered him subject to the almost daily murmuring and caprice of people less conscious than himself of their real danger. From the experience they had acquired at Tofoa of the savage disposition of the people against the defenceless boat's crew, a lesson was learned how little was to be trusted, even to the mildest of uncivilized people, when ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... hardships without repining; anticipating a chastisement of the Indians, and the deriving of an abundant supply of provisions from their conquered towns—They had arrived within ten miles of the Ohio river, and could not witness the blasting of their expectations, without murmuring. A council of war was held—disappointment and indignation were expressed in every feature. A majority of the officers were in favor of proceeding to the Ohio river, under the expectation that they might fall in with some of the enemy—they marched to the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... where their dead relative lay, it was closed, but yielded to his gentle pressure, and opened noiselessly,—sure enough, there she was, still lying beside the dead smiling face, but now she was speaking, in a low, murmuring tone, such heart-rending words as brought the tears to Guy's own eyes while ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... into her fingers, so quietly and unostentatiously that it was there and in her pocket before any one had time to notice it. She went out murmuring ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... above all the officers, began to grow weary of their sojourn at Boulogne, a town less likely, perhaps, than any other to render such an inactive existence endurable. They did not murmur, however, because never where the First Consul was did murmuring find a place; but they fumed nevertheless under their breath at seeing themselves held in camp or in fort, with England just in sight, only nine or ten leagues distant. Pleasures were rare at Boulogne; the women, generally ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the mingled storm and peace, Beyond clear sunshine, as the vast, green fields Basked in soft light, though glistening yet with rain. The roar of all the town was now a buzz Less than the insects' drowsy murmuring That whirred their gauzy wings around his head. The breeze that follows on the sunsetting Was blowing whiffs of bruised and dripping grass Into the heated city. But he stood, Disconsolate with thoughts of fate and sin, Still wrestling with his soul to win it back From her who claimed it to ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Barbarossa had wrested from the Spaniards. The deepening shroud of evening was now upon all, transmuting white and yellow walls alike to a pearly greyness. To westward stretched the fragrant gardens of the house, where the doves were murmuring fondly among the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically sailing came the harsh ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... of the place was not complete nor, as I have said, was the darkness. At the far end of the choir, behind the high altar, was the light of many candles, and there were people murmuring or whispering, though not at prayers. There was a young priest passing me at that moment, and I said to him in Latin of the common sort that I could speak no Spanish. I asked him if he could speak to me ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... short silence which followed the departure of the commander, Maitre Quennebert could hear the widow still murmuring something, but he was less disposed than ever to attend ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the lake lies, sleeping too, rocking upon its breast the lily leaves, whose flowers are now all gone. Over there the hills are purple with flowering heather, and beyond them, yet not so far away but that the soft murmuring of it can be heard, dwells the sea, spreading itself out, grand, immense, until it seems to ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... there is a regimental dance, and which they designate, until called to order, as "hugging booths." There he was to be seen at any hour of the day in close communion with a fascinating lady, heads close together, murmuring confidences, an idyll in a vestibule—or rather a succession of idylls, because there was a succession of ladies, all of them different except in that all of them were charming. After two or three months he disappeared, and only then ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... under his leading to Jerusalem. It is not enough for our princes that we have remained here a whole year, and that two hundred thousand men-at- arms have fallen here! Perish all they who would remain at Antioch, even as its inhabitants but lately perished!" But, murmuring all the while, they staid at Antioch, in spite of a violent epidemic, which took off, it was said, in a single month, fifty thousand persons, and amongst them the spiritual chief of the crusade, Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who had the respect and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... oars in the bottom of the boat. D'ri helped me in, where I lay back with a mighty sense of relief. Then he hauled in a rope and anchor, and shoved off. The boat, overrunning the flow in a moment, shot away rapidly. I could feel it take headway as we clove the murmuring waters. D'ri set the oars and helped it on. I lay awhile thinking of all the blood and horror in that black night—like a dream of evil that leads through dim regions of silence into the shadow of death. I thought of the hinted ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... her form tenderly to his heart, murmuring senseless, meaningless words of comfort and love, like a mother crooning her babe to sleep. And he still clasped her there till the new day peeped through the blinds. And the storm raged at intervals with all the ferocity of unspent passion. ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... to think that verses, which ran like fire through one's fingers, which seemed, in the feverish delight of writing them, beautiful enough to fill the world with brightness, are more lost now that they are gone into circulation, than when they were but a confused murmuring in the brain of their author. It reminds one of a ball-dress. When it is tried on in the sympathetic family circle, it is expected to outshine and eclipse every dress in the room; but under the blaze of the gas it is lost in the crowd. Well, Herscher is a lucky fellow. He is read and ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... with a little instrument no larger than our hands; it seems to us that chaos would return again; we have written and revised the laws both human and divine, and we are afraid of our catechisms; we suffer thirty years without murmuring and imagine that we are struggling; finally suffering becomes the stronger, we send a pinch of powder into the sanctuary of intelligence, and a flower pierces the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... down, slow fountains murmuring song— These bring no peace. Befooled by words Was he who, when in love a victor strong, Left it for ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... began to wake up all around them in the darkness. Strange creaks and quacks and croaks broke out, sudden snappings of twigs, a scurry among dead leaves, a splash in the water, the far whir of wings. There were no insect noises, no resonant voices of bull-frogs; weird squeaks arose at intervals, the murmuring complaint of water-fowl, guttural quack of duck and bittern—a vague stirring everywhere of wild things settling to rest or awaking. There were things moving in the unseen ooze, too, leaving sudden sinuous trails in the dim but growing lustre that whitened above the trees—probably ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Almighty for preserving me as he had done, and that it would be folly and wickedness on my part to repine because I could not obtain all that I wished. I waited, therefore, for His own good time, without murmuring, and in full confidence that all was ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... the remainder xamin, which the Saxons, who did not use x, writ csamen, or scamen, is contracted into scan: as from dominus, don; nomine, noun; abomino, ban; and indeed apum examen; they turned into sciame; for which we say swarme, by inserting r to denote the murmuring; thesaurus, store; sedile, stool; [Greek: hyetos], wet; sudo, sweat; gaudium, gay; jocus, joy; succus, juice; catena, chain; caliga, calga; chause, chausse, French, hose; extinguo, stand, squench, quench, stint; foras, forth; species, spice; recito, read; adjuvo, aid; ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... ye Muses, keep your votary's feet From tavern-haunts where politicians meet Where rector, doctor, and attorney pause, First on each parish, then each public cause: Indited roads and rates that still increase; The murmuring poor, who will not fast in peace: Election zeal and friendship since declined, A tax commuted, or a tithe in kind; The Dutch and German? kindling into strife; Hull port and poachers vile!—the serious ills ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... after the reading of the poem. Mr. Homer, slightly flushed with his own emotions, gazed eagerly at Miss Phoebe, who sat very erect, the tips of her fingers pressed together, her whole air that of a judge about to give sentence. Miss Vesta looked somewhat disturbed, yet she was the first to speak, murmuring softly, "The feeling is very genuine, I am sure, Cousin Homer!" But ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... chord. This is a completely new effect obtained from the valve horn, fanfares on horns and trumpets having before always been in the major, since the natural scale contains no minor chord. Brangaene and Isolde listen intently: Isolde thinks the horns are gone, and what they hear is only the murmuring of the stream and the rustling of the leaves. The fanfare is taken up by wood-wind (K.A. 85'2(1)), and at last melts into a new sound, with clarinets in 6-8 time against muted violins and violas in 8-8, beautifully suggestive of the rustling of leaves. Then ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... years ago King Zoheir ruled Arabia. Now Shedad, a son, nettled under the stern sway of his sire and longed for the chase and the combat. The green plains becked, the murmuring streams sang until the heart of Shedad grew sad. When the sun rose one morn he gathered his camels and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... of their own class, stepped out from her group of attendants, and knelt on the pavement, stretching out her hands towards the dark palace with a prayer—they could hear her murmuring,—"For her sake—for the sake of the innocent one who hath been wronged—Holy Mother of Angels, grant us one of her blood to ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... bulk of the early colonists were thoroughly British, and Captain Godfrey was no exception. They suffered what most early colonists suffer, but they suffered without murmuring, because they were Englishmen in an English colony. They possessed a sort of blind loyalty and a sincere patriotism toward their King and old England. Their spirit is ours, and a century or more has been forming and moulding it into a purely Canadian patriotism, ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... said "check, check" above him, and flirted a brilliant tail; but Ralph Peden was not afraid of whin-chats. Here he settled himself to study, knitting his brows and drumming on the ground with the toe of one foot to concentrate his attention. The whin-chat could hear him murmuring to himself at intervals, "Surely that is the sense—it must be taken this way." Sometimes, on the contrary, he shook his head at Luther's Commentary, which lay on the short, warm turf before him, as if in reproof. Ralph was of opinion that Luther, but for his ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... lovingly amongst the clouds, and rested upon the waters. All the bustle of the town had been left far behind; there was nothing to break the silence but the measured plash of the oars, and the soft rippling and murmuring of the water as the little boat rode ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... satisfied thy soul With the pure river of His joy and love, Subdued each murmuring thought to his control, And stayed thy mind on ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... than violets These thoughts of thine, friend! Rather thy reedy brook— Taw's tributary— At midnight murmuring, Descried them, the delicate Dark-eyed goddesses, There by his cressy bed Dissolved and dreaming Dreams that distilled into dew All the purple of night, All ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... this blow without succumbing. The body must have freedom if the spirit would not go mad. Conscious, or perhaps not conscious, of his release from her restraining hand, albeit profiting by it, he staggered to his feet, murmuring that word of doom: "Wound! wound! my darling died of a wound! What kind of a wound?" he suddenly thundered out. "I cannot understand what you mean by wound. Make it clear to me. Make it clear to me at once. If I must bear this grief, let me know its whole depth. Leave nothing ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Dort and Papendrecht so it is in Venice. Except these beastly, vile-smelling boats there is nothing new, thank God. Everything else is faded, weather-worn, and old, everything filled with sensuous beauty—sky, earth, lagoon, garden wall, murmuring ripples—the same wonderful Venice that thrills its lovers ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... when they should repay, they will ask time, and will return tedious and murmuring words, and will ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... an apology. McTeague, miserably embarrassed, rolled his eyes about the room, murmuring, "That's all right—that's ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... had aroused a deep sense of jealousy and angry admiration. So cunning was the handiwork of herself, Withers and Mary that she felt fairly sure that no one had the slightest notion of how this decoration of poppies was accomplished, for Evie had run round her in small mouse-like circles, murmuring to herself: "Very effective idea; is it woven into the cloth, Elizabeth? Dear me, I wonder where I could get some like it," and Mrs. Poppit had followed her all up the street, with eyes glued to the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... too long. The memory of Burns—I am afraid heaven and earth have taken too good care of it to leave us anything to say. The west winds are murmuring it. Open the windows behind you, and hearken for the incoming tide, what the waves say of it. The doves, perching always on the eaves of the Stone Chapel [King's Chapel] opposite, may know something about it. Every home in broad Scotland keeps ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... self-restrained, purposeful life! The west wind was rippling through the orchards which bordered the garden. The muffled roar of the Atlantic was in his ears, a strange everlasting background to all the slighter summer sounds, the murmuring of insects, the calling of birds, the melodious swish of the whirling knives in the distant hayfield. Wingrave was alone with his thoughts, ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pure, noble, gentle life it was! The very thought of him, faring quietly about among his hills and lakes, murmuring his calm verse, in a sober and temperate joy, looking everywhere for the same grave qualities among quiet homekeeping folk, brings with it a high inspiration. But we tend to think of Wordsworth as a father and a priest, rather than as a brother and a friend. He is a ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... dragged the boat up the little beach. At once, turning his back upon the sunset, he plunged with long strides into the ravine, making the water of the stream spurt and fly upwards at every step, as if spurning its shallow, clear, murmuring spirit with his feet. He wanted to save ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... tranquillity. They were soothed by the never-failing devotion of those that were always at hand to read to him or to receive his remarks. He often asked to hear chosen chapters from the Book of Isaiah (as the 40th and 55th), sometimes murmuring over to himself any striking verses that they contained, and at other times repeating by heart favourite Psalms. At times he delighted to hear his little girl, who had been the constant companion of his travels, repeat some of Keble's hymns, especially those on the festivals ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... their absence; but I fancy that the spirits of Siddons and Kemble, Macready and Garrick, looked down with kind approval upon these earnest young actors as they recited the matchless old words, moving to and fro in the quaint setting of trees and moonlight, with an orchestra of cooing doves and murmuring zephyrs. ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... country, amid sweet, green fields, and clustering vines, and shady trees, and murmuring brooks. Her father was a good old farmer, as happy and contented with his few acres, as if he owned all Great Britain. Mary was his only child. Her mother died when she was a very little girl. Mary could not even remember how she looked; but her father ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... remembered, just in time, that he was Dionysus. He conquered his first impulse and put his arms around her. As he did so, he discovered that his face was being covered with kisses. Kathy was murmuring little indistinct terms of endearment into his ear every time she reached it en route from one side of ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... emptied a bottle of lacryma with which he had provided himself for any emergency, had looked long around him to choose a spot where the grass was especially high and thick, and had laid himself down to a sound sleep, murmuring as he did so, this sublime observation, "O laziness, but for the sin of Adam you would be ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... knight would have settled the point, by taking the whole contest upon himself; but this the other knights would not permit. It was at length determined, as before, by lot, and the cavalier who lost the chance retired murmuring ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... hurried off, and sent up a message to Miss Franceska Vanderkist, to come and speak to him, and he walked up and down the sitting-room where breakfast was being spread, like a panther, humming Prospero's songs, or murmuring vituperations, till Franceska appeared, a perfect picture of loveliness in ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the forecastle, and passed among the crew, with every thought recalled from its excursive flight to the duty of the moment. Ludlow continued on the forecastle, alone. There was a low, whispering sound in the ship, like that which is made by the murmuring of a rising breeze,—and then ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... waving leafage, ethereal and sweet; and running down, like children to their mother, were numerous little hills densely clothed in a green lighter and more dainty than that of the parent hill, throwing graceful curtsies to the murmuring river at the foot. As I write here, bathed in the beauty of spring sunlight, it is difficult to believe that a few hours since the thermometer was at zero. Little spots of habitation, with foodstuffs growing alongside, looking most lonely in their patches of green in ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... alone upon the rock which overtopped the dell. We arranged ourselves in such groups as suited our inclinations, upon some rising ground below. The great trees waved overhead, low murmuring. The waterfall splashed drearily. Below, not a whisper was exchanged. Above, the man poured out his triumphant death-song in sonorous periods. Below, great fear was upon all. Above, ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... and absolution of sins—" Alves was breathing heavily, her lips murmuring the mighty words after the priest. Was there a sore hidden in her soul? Did she crave some supernatural pardon for a desperate deed? The memory of miserable suspicions flashed over him, and gravely, sadly, he watched the quivering face by his side. If she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... see what we shall see," dryly commented the commander, murmuring a few words in Hal ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... the Lord Treasurer, the Lord President, and the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Rochester, disapproving and murmuring, consented to serve. Much as he had to endure at the court, he could not bear to quit it. Much as he loved the Church, he could not bring himself to sacrifice for her sake his white staff, his patronage, his salary of eight thousand pounds a year, and the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to embrace his old mother. Here was tragedy indeed, a bit of biting pathos from a humble life. He gave the best that was in him as he enfolded the feeble old woman and strained her to his breast, murmuring to her that she must ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... surface of the hollow, once covered with slimy mud, and the traces of the banks, could one guess that it had been a pond. A farm-house had stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there, which had ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... when Brusson brought the casket, there came a knock at De Scuderi's house door at midnight. Baptiste, forewarned of this nocturnal visit, at once opened the door. De Scuderi felt an icy shiver run through her as she gathered from the light footsteps and hollow murmuring voices that the guards who had brought Brusson were taking up their stations about the ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... you seek perfect peace, relief from your fellows, and the simple life, try Sark—and see that you live in a cottage!" he remembered Adam Black murmuring softly, as they sat smoking at the Travellers' one night, shortly after that memorable dinner of the Whitefriars'. And then he had heaved a sigh of regret at thought of being where he was when he might have been ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... it you are here." And having jumbled her father and the umbrella well together in her reply, Jo slipped out of the room to give Meg a chance to make her speech and air her dignity. But the instant she vanished, Meg began to sidle toward the door, murmuring... ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... him—he dreamed of his father's father—a thing he had not done for years. Dressed in a snuff-coloured suit, with knee-breeches and shining shoe buckles, he appeared walking down the little street of Portadown leaning heavily upon a blackthorn stick and murmuring sadly, "Nobody cares for me, nobody takes any notice of ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... cone, and approached within dangerous proximity to it. The volcano-girl often pulled my arm to induce me to keep back; but when she saw I was determined to look down into the horrid flaming gulf of fire that yawned near the cone, she followed me, murmuring a low pensive song. On reaching the edge, which was uncertain and trembling, I halted and gazed; and while the guide and my companions shouted to me to come back, enjoyed a moment of fearful joy. I was standing on the brink of a vast chasm of fire, in which no flame ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... while general shows scrupulousness to the uttermost farthing. To subordinate, to foe, even to malicious plotters against him, he was almost guiltily magnanimous. He loved popularity, yet, if conscious that he was right, would face public murmuring with heart of flint. Became the most famous man alive, idolized at home, named by every tongue in Europe, praised by kings and great ministers, who compared him with Caesar, Charlemagne, and Alfred the Great, his head swam not, but ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... history. In England, under the administration of William Pitt, there was for several years such a scarcity of wheat that to make it hold out longer, a law was passed by Parliament that the army should be supplied with bread made of unbolted flour. This occasioned much murmuring on the part of the soldiers, but nevertheless the health of the army improved so greatly as to be a subject of surprise. The officers and the physicians at last publicly declared that the soldiers had never before been so ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... whose names are weighty in the nation's councils, and these gray-haired, dignified financiers might well be gathered to arbitrate a dispute involving empires; but why these office-boys and clerks, with their restless, surprised eyes and uneasy gestures? The flourishing of papers, the murmuring of voices in a confusion of "seventy-five million," "we buy," "we sell," "we are," "we will"—words, nothing but words; then silence as one reads from a stiff parchment certain resolutions which the suave gentleman with incisive steel-clicking manners, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... her lips moved for a second as though they were murmuring a prayer. Then, with such an expression of happiness that ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... of Trees, Near which there is a little murmuring Spring, From whence a Rivulet does take its rise, And branches forth in Channels through the Garden; —'Twas near a place like that—where first I saw ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... was like a stone for a time after she heard the story told by the murmuring waters of ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... fair pastures stretch away to the feet of the grassy hills: and a winding stream of water wanders in and out: now hiding in dim groves of spreading elms: now creeping from the darkness, with a murmuring voice and stealthy gliding motion, to change its very nature, and become the noisiest brook that ever babbled over sunlit pebbles on its way ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... laughed and dropped her hands. "Would you care, Madam, if I were dead? Would you shed any tears? Not you! Why should you? At this late hour of time, when after twenty-one years passed in each other's close company we are no nearer to each other in heart and soul than if the sea murmuring yonder at the foot of these walls were stretching its whole width between us! Besides—we are both past our youth! And, according to certain highly instructed scientists and philosophers, the senses and affections grow numb with age. I do ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... she sat down by my side And called me. When no voice replied, She put my arm about her waist, And made her smooth white shoulder bare, And all her yellow hair displaced, And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, 20 Murmuring how she loved me—she Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, To set its struggling passion free From pride, and vainer ties dissever, And give herself to me for ever. But passion sometimes would prevail, Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain A sudden thought of one so pale For ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... the sands, watching the waves idly lap the shore, Lola brought herself nearer to me with a rhythmic movement as no other creature form of woman is capable of, and looked into my eyes. And she whispered something to me which led to an infinite murmuring of foolish things. I put my arms round her and kissed her on the lips and on her cheek—whether the beautiful or the maimed I knew not—and she sank into a long, long silence. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... children, are much subject in the jungly parts of 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 ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... children of the tenantry or villeins of the abbey. All round this room is a bench of stone against the wall, and the pedestal also of the master's seat. There are, likewise, the ruins of the mill; and the mill-stream, which is just as new as ever it was, still goes murmuring and babbling, and passes under two or three old bridges, consisting of a low gray arch overgrown with grass and shrubbery. That stream was the most fleeting and vanishing thing about the ponderous and high-piled abbey; and yet it has ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with the smell of clover and water lily and rimmed now by the rising moon, Philip found his resolution of the afternoon difficult to utter. The pool at his feet was a motionless mirror of summer stars. Surely there could be nothing but peace in this tranquil world of tree and grass and murmuring river. And yet— ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... gorgeous bloom, and mirrored in sequestered lakes fringed with pied water-lilies; groves of majestic cedars inviting to repose; rambling shrubberies and evergreen trees festooned with flowering vines; brooks as clear as crystal, murmuring over their pebbly beds, now hiding under drooping boughs, now lost in brakes of tall reeds and foliage plants; grassy meadows gay with crocusses, hyacinths, and tulips, or such-like flowers; isolated rocks and boulders mantled ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... in the hillside was covered over Meredith's little form; stayed to see the flowers hide the scar, murmuring again and again: "In the hope of joyful resurrection." His was the task to bridge life and death, and there was no doubt ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... something of this sort," said Sybil, speaking in a murmuring tone, and looking round her with a wild expression, "this bargaining of blood, and shall I call it love? But that was ever between the oppressors and the oppressed. This is the first time that a child of the people has been so assailed by one of her own class, and who exercises ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... murmuring among the damsels of Norman descent, who were as much unused to see the preference given to a Saxon beauty, as the Norman nobles were to sustain defeat in the games of chivalry which they themselves had introduced. But these sounds of disaffection were drowned by the popular shout ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Under colour of charity, spiritual guides have become extremely opulent, and in the face of impoverished nations enjoy wealth, which was destined solely for the unfortunate; while the latter, far from murmuring, applaud a pious generosity, which enriches the church, but rarely contributes to the ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... stood a large and ancient-looking colored man, and for a moment he only stood there, breathing laboriously and murmuring in strange, half-audible tones. Then, with sudden unexpected perception, he took in the scene before him. Half mortified, half conciliatory, he ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... man paid me well for getting her, and 'twasn't my fault if she got sick and died. Poor thing! poor thing! poor little blue-eyed Lizzie! She was innocent enough when she first came, but she got to be as bad as any—until she got sick and died. Poor little Lizzie!" And thus murmuring incoherently, the unhappy woman sat down upon the floor, and bent her head ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... long been sitting 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 ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... come in my way to speak of that strange murmuring of phantoms and their attendant seers, psychometers, and dactylomancers, which in these latter days has revived among us. And what I may have to say about what is called Spiritualism will reflect actual observations. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... darkness Extend vain arms in a frozen gesture of protest . . . A clock ticks softly; a gas-jet steadily whirs: The pencil meets its shadow upon clear paper, Voices are raised, a door is slammed. The lovers, Murmuring in an adjacent room, grow silent, The eaves make liquid music. . . . Hours have passed, And nothing changes, and everything is changed. Exultation is dead, Beauty is harlot,— And walks the streets. The ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... velvet witchery of her eyes,—it seemed to me that I beheld a something imaged, not of herself, nor of the moment only,—a something weirdly sensuous: the Spirit of tropic Nature made golden flesh, and murmuring to each lured wanderer:—"If thou wouldst love ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... his glance alone showed signs of life. A dying light gleamed in those eyes once so brilliant. Then, murmuring the words, "God and my country!" he ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... of the kings of the House of Stuart. Neither in the Declaration of Right nor in the Bill of Rights is there a word on the subject. William, therefore, thought himself at liberty to give away his hereditary domains as freely as his predecessors had given away theirs. There was much murmuring at the profusion with which he rewarded his Dutch favourites; and we have seen that, on one occasion in the year 1696, the House of Commons interfered for the purpose of restraining his liberality. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the box appeared to be in progress of conveyance from the house, but after a brief murmuring of question and answer, it was put down again, and somebody knocked ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... laughing. Some of them regarded him as a curious little creature, so serious, yet so bright and jolly, and always so delicate in his way with them. They all liked him, and he adored them. Polly he felt he belonged to. Then Connie, with her mane of red hair, her face of apple-blossom, her murmuring voice, such a lady in her shabby black frock, appealed to his ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... What Clifford Wentworth had told him—that had affected him, too, in an adverse sense; but it had not liberated him from the discomfort of a charm of which his intelligence was impatient. "She is not honest, she is not honest," he kept murmuring to himself. That is what he had been saying to the summer sky, ten minutes before. Unfortunately, he was unable to say it finally, definitively; and now that he was near her it seemed to matter wonderfully little. "She is a woman who will ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... grass was burning in a hundred places. The herd, sweeping on, was snorting its terror, yielding absolutely to the blind instinct of flight. And steadily the thunderous murmuring sound from the hoof-smitten earth rose and swelled. Closer and closer they came. Terry ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... to see the tall, pale woman put out her hands with more than a mother's pity in her eyes, and open her lips, murmuring a name beneath ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... and marked in its whole course through the plains to the northward and westward by lines of gum-trees. The pure bright water ran over a bed of clear pebbles, with a stream nine feet wide, rippling and murmuring like the rivulets of England—a circumstance so unusual in the character of Australian watercourses, that it interested and pleased the whole party far more than a larger river would have done; this characteristic did not, however, long continue, for like all the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... sped like magic through the crowd, breaking the tension. They all went mad with joy. Men shook hands with perfect strangers; women hugged each other, murmuring incoherently, and mothers gathered their little ones ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... fading traditions of the old salons. Through all the changes which tried her fortitude and revealed the latent heroism of her character, she seems to have kept her sweet serenity unbroken, bending to the passing storms with the grace of a facile nature, but never murmuring at the inevitable. One may find in this inflexible strength and gentleness of temper a clue to the subtle fascination which held the devoted friendship of so many gifted men and women, long after the fresh charm of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... roundly, that a boy who began so well and had such very pretty notions about shooting was positively thrown away in the Four Courts. My uncle, however, was firm, and as old Sir Harry supported him, the day was decided against us, Considine murmuring as he left the room something that did not seem quite a brilliant anticipation of the success awaiting me in my legal career. As for myself, though only a silent spectator of the debate, all my wishes were with the count. Prom my earliest boyhood a military life had been my ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles. Why art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... of a few months, disgusted many of the old friends and conciliated many of the old enemies of his house. The city was becoming mutinous. Oxford was becoming loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring. Somersets and Wyndhams were hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now Lord Bute, who was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters; and Johnson was one ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... land of mirth and social ease, Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire! Where shading elms along the margin grew, And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew; And haply though my harsh note falt'ring still, But mocked all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill; Yet would the village praise my wondrous ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... "scooched" to go through, and, picking up her basket, went on to the amphitheatre. Jerry need not have wondered whether she remembered his ornate poem. She did, every word of it, and as she walked she said it to herself in a murmuring tone. When she was within the beloved inclosure she paused a moment before setting down her basket, and looked about her. The place was not so grand as her childish eyes had found it, only a great semicircle of ground brown with pine ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... spheral melody,—swept through the forests, and they, too, trembled into song. And though now the warmth has faded out, though the ruddy tints and amber clearness have paled to ashen hues, though the murmuring melodies are dead, and forest, vale, and hill look hard and angular in the sharp air, you know that it is not death. The fire is unquenched beneath. You go your way not disconsolate. There needs but the Victorious Voice. At the touch of the prince's lips, life shall rise ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various |
