"Prattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it dear! Why, it isn't a horn you buy, but an ear; Only think, and you'll find on reflection You're bargaining, ma'am, for the Voice of Affection; For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth: Not to mention the striking of clocks - Cackle of hens—crowing of cocks - Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox - Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks - Murmur of waterfall over the rocks - Every sound that Echo mocks - Vocals, fiddles, and ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... land. Among his friends it is known that Cipriani de Lloseta lived alone because he was faithful to the memory of one who, but for the hand of God, would have lived with him until she was an old woman, filling, perhaps, the great gloomy house in the Calle de la Paz with the prattle of children's voices, with the clatter of childish feet ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... the bosom, that was really due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray fog deepened into night, she drew Carry closer toward her, and, above the prattle of the child, pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary interval between, she was now wandering—a journey so piteous, willful, thorny, and useless ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... mind the year—you could speak no English, and when next I saw you, after a lapse of two years, you would prattle no French; when again we met, you were the nymph with bright and flowing hair, which frightened his Highness Prince James out of his feline senses, when, as you came in by the door, he made his bolt by the window. It was then that you entreated me, with "most petitionary vehemence," ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... Shetland pony, accompanied the Queen and the Prince in their morning rambles. Sometimes the little one was carried in her father's arms, while he pointed out to her any object that would amuse her and call forth her prattle. "Pussy's cheeks are on the point of bursting, they have grown so red and plump," wrote the Prince to his stepmother. "She is learning Gaelic, but makes wild work with the names ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... an old farm-house, below where I sat, calling the cattle home. The barking of dogs sounded clear in different parts of the vale, and about scattered hamlets, on the hill sides. I could hear the far-off prattle of a company of girls, mingled with the lazy joltings of a cart, the occasional crack of a whip, and the surly call of a driver to his horses, upon the high road, half a mile below me. From a wooded slope, ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full of interest; men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproached any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... me first something about herself: that she was a petted and somewhat spoiled only daughter; something of an heiress, too, if one might judge from her prattle about charming and costly costumes and a rather reckless expenditure of pin-money; and that she was betrothed to Gerald Trent, of the great Boston firm of Trent and Sons, with the full consent and approval of all concerned. What life could be more serene? Young, fair, rich; a lover and ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... immeasurable tables for the banquet; and they deserved to be under the thraldom of such a task. When they were yet in flesh and blood, and ate the fruits of the earth, they were of that equivocal kind, who seem the friends of all men and yet are the friends of none; whose tongues continually prattle of the noble precepts of virtue, which they feel not in their hearts; who only abstain from evil because it is accompanied by danger, and from doing good because it requires courage and self-denial; who traffic with religion, and, like avaricious Jews, lay out their ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... where you knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good. So you ought to have come." She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle about her own affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... grace of God to save us; he adds, 'I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel,' he bringeth them to the moral precept, to prove the sincerity of his good conversation by (Acts 20:33). And when men have juggled what they can, and made never such a prattle about religion; yet if their greatest excellency, as to the visibility of their saintship, lieth in an outward conformity to an outward circumstance in religion, their profession is not worth two mites. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... One Tongue, that will prattle Love, if you put the Heart in time (for they are Commodities I resolve shall go together) I have Youth enough to please a Lover, and Wit enough to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... than she was accustomed to laugh at Lady Harriet Beaton's comic stories. This child's prattle was amusing to her. ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... of fashionable resort, where the fine folk of Europe now bathe, and flirt, and prattle politics or scandal so cheerfully during the summer solstice—cool and comfortable Ostend—was throughout the sixteenth century as obscure a fishing village as could be found in Christendom. Nothing, had ever happened there, nobody had ever lived there, and it was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and a nation Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed, And a gospel of war and damnation, Has not empire a right to be proud? Fools prattle and tattle Of freedom, reason, right, The beauty of duty, The loveliness ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... to face with the idea of the Builder and Sustainer of it all showing Himself in a burning bush, exhibiting His hinder parts, or behaving in other familiar ways ascribed to Him in the Jewish Scriptures, the incongruity must appear. Did this credulous prattle of the ancients about miracles stand alone; were it not associated with words of imperishable wisdom, and with examples of moral grandeur unmatched elsewhere in the history of the human race, both the miracles and their 'evidences' would ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the hundred pounds, I couldn't fancy what the deuce and all he meant by such prattle. I was half afraid he might be having me on, as I have known him do now and again when he fancied he could get me. I fearfully wanted to ask questions. Again I saw the dark, absorbed face of the gipsy ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... his work was over, they would ramble o'er the lea, And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree, And ANNIE'S simple prattle entertained him on his walk, For public executions formed ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... wring from the little maiden one word of what she heard or saw, after she entered these mysterious and secluded apartments. The slightest question concerning Master Heriot's ghost, was sufficient, at her gayest moment, to check the current of her communicative prattle, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... it had been assumed that as soon as Dion went back to business in Austin Friars, No. 5 Little Market Street would receive its old tenants again, be scented again with the lavender, made musical with Rosamund's voice, made gay with the busy prattle ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... an oath, and never broken." Especially was Towandahoc attached to the Buckingham family, who ever treated him kindly, and to the little girl who played with his bow and arrows, and tried in her artless prattle to pronounce his name. Unbroken peace had hitherto prevailed between the red men and the pale faces, owing to the just and friendly treatment the natives had experienced; but symptoms of another spirit began now to appear. ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious. 1895 SHAKS.: Richard II., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture which always comes with nightfall on the equator was lapped up by the thirsty ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... only languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was served with toast ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, which he would draw after him as far as he could bend them, then letting them fly ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... husband of a fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Para. In a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... the result of notes taken during many years; for while he was thinking out the book he never neglected any amusing scraps of childish conversation or funny anecdotes about children which came to his notice. It is this fact which gives such verisimilitude to the prattle of Bruno; childish talk is a thing which a grown-up person cannot possibly invent. He can only listen to the actual things the children say, and then combine what he has heard into ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... are my bedside books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories. I don't heed them. It was ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the animal behaviour prattle of the learned head-master, it reveals, on the one hand, only the academic fondness for seizing upon high-sounding but empty phrases and using them to alarm the populace, and on the other hand, only the academic incapacity for observing facts correctly and reporting them honestly. The truth is, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... remained in jail, where brother William did all he could for their comfort. Betty went to see them sometimes, and brought me tidings. She was not permitted to enter the jail; but William would hold them up to the grated window while she chatted with them. When she repeated their prattle, and told me how they wanted to see their ma, my tears would flow. Old Betty would exclaim, "Lors, chile! what's you crying 'bout? Dem young uns vil kill you dead. Don't be so chick'n hearted! If you does, you vil nebber git ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... dumb? About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as we do not understand ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... laughed silently. She did not fear to confront these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends lounging in for an afternoon call. They spoke in a low, rapid tone, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... Joseph enjoyed every minute that he spent in Betsy Butterfly's company. And if at times she found his prattle a bit tiresome, she was too well-mannered ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... invariably met at the door with word that he was sleeping and did not wish to be disturbed. The first two times I believed Mrs. McGurk; after that—well, I know our doctor! So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle her unconscious good-bys to the man who had saved her life, I despatched her ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... posing, who have transformed Galatea into a woman of flesh and blood, animated by true womanly love for Pygmalion as the first man on whom her eyes alight. Sentiment of this kind, whether intended by the author or not, would scarcely harmonize with the satirical spirit of the play, and the innocent prattle which Miss Anderson gives us in place of it meets sufficiently well the requirements of the case dramatically, leaving the spectator free to derive pleasure from his sense of the beautiful, here so strikingly appealed to, from the occasionally audacious turns of the dialogue in relation to ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... from the very nature of the undertaking that it was practically limitless; that a bibliomaniac of so many years' experience could prattle on indefinitely concerning his "love affairs," and at the same time be in no danger of repetition. Indeed my brother's plans at the outset were not definitely formed. He would say, when questioned or joked about these amours, that he was in the easy position of Sam Weller ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... continued to prattle on. She had taken the girl's hand in hers, and was gently forcing her down on to a low stool beside her armchair. She was talking about Paul, and said something about Anne Mie, and then about the National Convention, and those beasts and ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... between his love to Christ and his love to Jenny Lavender. Stay—had he not? What was that faint something, without a name—a sort of vague uneasiness, which had seemed to creep over him whenever he had seen her during those months—a sense of incongruity between her light prattle and his own inmost thoughts and holiest feelings? It was so slight that as yet he had never faced it. He recognised now it was because his heart had refused to face it. And conscience told him, speaking loudly this time, that he must hold ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... knowingly whenever her city connections were alluded to; and therefore it was no wonder that in a short time the child forgot the friends she had loved, grew ashamed of the parents she had honoured, learnt to prattle on subjects of which she knew nothing, and to affect all the premature airs of a woman, with more than the usual ignorance of a child, as children are now ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... with a jerk and scanned the smoking peak, from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, and began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his faculties seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy laboring of the mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were a fractious child. When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made no protest, but followed me ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... It was too greedy. It rose up (as it rises up to-day), shamelessly, in our legislative halls, and declared that profits were impossible without the toil of children and babes. It lulled its conscience to sleep with prattle of sweet ideals and dear moralities, and allowed the suffering and misery of mankind to continue and to increase, in short, the capitalist class failed to ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... never to marry, his relations were ever clustering about him, paying the grossest adulation to a man, who, disgusted with mankind, received them with scorn, or bitter sarcasms. Something in my countenance pleased him, when I began to prattle. Since his return, he appeared dead to affection; but I soon, by showing him innocent fondness, became a favourite; and endeavouring to enlarge and strengthen my mind, I grew dear to him in proportion as I ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... joyously on, and the minister and child roamed about amid the green things of the earth. All the loveliest haunts of that pleasant spot had echoed the grave, but gentle tones of the man of God, and the answering prattle of the little one who went tripping on by his side, sometimes thoughtful and earnest, sometimes merry and glad; and now the time had come for Mrs. Dunmore to return to her city residence, and they must bid their kind friends at the Rectory good-by. Mrs. Colbert sat with ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... this sort of thing went on without any interruption or any solitary thing out of the ordinary, Ailsa strolling along leisurely, with the boy's hands in hers and his innocent prattle running on ceaselessly; then, of a sudden, whilst they were moving along close to the Park railings and in the shadow of the overhanging trees, the figure of an undersized man in semi-European costume, but ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... axles, and even the quiet of the night encampment had been always more or less broken by the movement of unquiet sleepers on the wagon beds, or the breathing of the cattle. But here there was neither sound nor motion. Susy's prattle, and even the sound of his own voice, would have broken the benumbing spell, but it was a part of his growing self-denial now that he refrained from waking her even by a whisper. She would awaken soon enough to thirst and hunger, perhaps, and then what was he to do? If that ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... not the talk of those fat agitators. Who prattle of Gladstone, or Churchill, or worse; Expect not your rights from professional praters, But manfully trust in your courage ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent—the scoffer of hallowed things; and him who "looks upon the wine while it is red;" him too, "who hath a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slandereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in silence and secrecy, the deep fountains of your own heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and that of him who would woo you, is more ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... child, "do all the people praise and call on him; why do the birds sing of the king; and why do the brooks always prattle his name, as they dance from the hills ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... did not confess it to myself, for I did not read my heart clearly. She was so young, and I had gray hairs! I persuaded myself that my love for her was like that of a father, and it was as a father that she cherished me. Ah, I passed many a delicious hour listening to her gentle prattle and her innocent confidences; I was happy when I saw her skipping about in my garden, picking the roses I had reared for her, and laying waste my parterres; and I said to myself that existence is a precious gift from God. My ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... same time, when she was sitting near him one day, listening to his prattle, her attention was drawn to his repeated and formidable hammering. On investigating into its object, she found that it was the continuation of the labour of many days, during which he had undermined the ground about the corner of the house, had entirely removed the corner-stone, and was zealously ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... of his oldest friends. We are sorry to say that Miss Thorndyke remains quite faithful to Captain Egerton, and goes so far as to refuse for his sake the rector of the parish, a local baronet, and a real live lord. There are endless pages of five o'clock tea-prattle and a good many tedious characters. Such novels as Scamp are possibly more easy to write than they are ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... pietists, sceptics obtuse Who Progress impede with crude cackle, Predestinate duffers of prattle profuse, Who the biggest world-problems would tackle; State-quacks, shouting Emperors, queer School-Board cranks, We'll give you our best benediction, And speed you at parting with heartiest thanks, If you'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... needed, But we managed someha, to pool throo'; An what we wor short we ne'er heeded, For that child fun us plenty to do. But we'd health, an we loved one another, Soa things breetened up after a while; An nah, that young lad an his mother, Cheer mi on wi' ther prattle an smile. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... Anything more blissful, gladsome, confident than her manner at first could hardly be described, but when it presently began to give way to something half shy, half appealing, almost tender,—when long silences and down-drooping lashes replaced the ceaseless prattle and frankly uplifted eyes,—then there was little room for doubt in Aunt Lawrence's mind that Flo had ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... and found the trout of the Yellowstone too easy a prey. Hallett Phillips himself, who managed the party loved to play Indian hunter without hunting so much as a fieldmouse; Iddings the geologist was reduced to shooting only for the table, and the guileless prattle of Billy Hofer alone taught the simple life. Compared with the Rockies of 1871, the sense of wildness had vanished; one saw no possible adventures except to break one's neck as in chasing an aniseed fox. Only the more intelligent ponies scented ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... a most intolerable monopolizer of the sex; in short, I have very little relish for any conversation but theirs: I love their sweet prattle beyond all the sense and learning in ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... is Fairy, wondrous wise, Sunshine laughing in her eyes, Who will prattle on for hours To the brooks and trees and flowers, To the birds and butterflies, To all creatures 'neath the skies, Understanding all they say In a curious sort of way! This is Fairy, wondrous ...
— Fairy's Album - With Rhymes of Fairyland • Anonymous
... modesty, as if forsooth no woman were modest but she who talketh with her chamberwoman or her laundress or her bake-wench; the which had Nature willed, as they would have it believed, she had assuredly limited unto them their prattle on other wise. It is true that in this, as in other things, it behoveth to have regard to time and place and with whom one talketh; for that it chanceth bytimes that women or men, thinking with some pleasantry or other to put another to the blush and not ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Coffee-House daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... to his liking—broiled kids' flesh, the red wine, the mushrooms sought through the early dew—his hunger and thirst so daintily satisfied, as he sat at table, like the first-born of King Theseus, with two wax-lights and a fire at dawn or nightfall dancing to the prattle and laughter, a bright child, never stupidly weary. At times his very happiness would seem to her like a menace of misfortune to come. Was there not with herself the curse of that unsisterly action? and not far from him, the terrible danger of the father's, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... replies:—'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think it fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such remarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle) as 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... amused at his significant performances. He turned his knowing head one way, and then another, now sidewise toward the fruits, and then obliquely up at me, as I sat enjoying the repast, enlivening his gestures with gentle prattle, and yet never making a single demonstration in the direction of my food. He put me in such good humor that I was ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... gardens, thy flowers and thy fruit. But most of all, thy gay and happy inmates, their glad and joyous hearts beating with generous emotions, and their countenances brightened with the welcome smile. Ah! how I seem to hear, as in time past I have heard, their lively prattle, or their merry laugh echoing across the lawn, or through the flower garden, or along the winding paths down the steep ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... little fellow ran on with his pretty prattle, I was diligently pursuing the lady and child of the specimens through the sketches. On every leaf I encountered them, ever changing, yet always the same. Here was the child by my side,—unquestionably the same; though now I looked in vain for the anxious mouth and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... prattle," said the beggar, clutching her fast, and listening as one all ear; and by this time the two knights were close at hand, the taller holding the dog, straining in a leash, while the good Grand Prior spoke. "How fares it with thee, friend? And ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stayed her hour and then obediently went away, in spite of Jed's urgent invitation to stay longer. She had asked a good many questions and talked almost continuously, but Mr. Winslow, instead of being bored by her prattle, was surprised to find how empty and uninteresting the shop seemed after ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of learning to dance as of learning to climb chimneys. Up to the age of seventeen, as I have shown, I had a great contempt for the female race, and when age brought with it warmer and juster sentiments, where was I?—I could no more dance nor prattle to a young girl than a young bear could. I have seen the ugliest little low-bred wretches carrying off young and lovely creatures, twirling with them in waltzes, whispering between their glossy curls in quadrilles, simpering with perfect equanimity, and cutting pas in that abominable ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... down gracefully—we could not withstand such prattle. The blacksmith turned in some beans, the boys from Manchester divided their scanty store of flour and bacon, I brought some salt, some sugar, and some oatmeal, and as the small man put it away he chirped ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class against class! That is the very parrot prattle that we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following example:- A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great number of servants, who were good for nothing, who, when he asked ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And, as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Mother's knee, Mother's knee: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Where I used to stand and prattle With my teddy-bear and rattle: Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee, They sure look good to me! It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day! I'm going back, Believe me, oh! I'm going back (I want to go!) I'm going back—back—on the seven-three To the dear old ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... but that their tattling would last a whole night, for there's hardly one of them who hath not at the least a hundred in their Budgets; but because it is high time that either the Dry or Wet-Nurse must go to swathe the child, they begin to break off and shorten their prittle-prattle. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... husband, for Naradia was almost hysterical and was willing to prattle on. Kahn Meng smiled tenderly. "Naradia," he continued, lowering his voice gently, "now that Peter Moore and I are at last together, will you excuse us? You must be exhausted, my dear—after this unpleasant affair. Will ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... and holding her fan of ostrich feathers in one hand, and her riding-mask of black velvet in the other, seemed anxious, by all the little coquetry practised on such occasions, to secure the notice of her companion, who sometimes heard her prattle without seeming to attend to it, and at other times interrupted his train of graver ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... couple of children," smiled Francisco on the evening before their departure. He was writing a novel, in addition to the other work for Carmony and Pixley. Sometimes it was hard work amid this unusual prattle by his usually sedate and silent parents. He tried to imagine the house without them; his life, without their familiar and cherished companionship.... It would be lonely. Probably he would rent the place, when his novel was finished ... ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... of this town, and mention Mrs. Hawker's name, not one person in ten would know there is such a being in their vicinity; the pele mele of a migratory population keeping persons of her character and condition in life, quite out of view. The very persons who will prattle by the hour, of the establishments of Mrs. Peleg Pond, and Mrs. Jonah Twist, and Mrs. Abiram Wattles, people who first appeared on this island five or six years since, and, who having accumulated what to them are relatively large fortunes, have launched out into vulgar and uninstructed finery, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,—flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, each with a piece of baggage. Other candles ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. The old servant, Marguerite, was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us. Gay and daring, she always knew how to make the men laugh with her prattle, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably so; but I would not let her have ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... the young gentleman continued to prattle on—and meantime Jurgis was trembling with excitement. He might grab that wad of bills and be out of sight in the darkness before the other could collect his wits. Should he do it? What better had he to hope for, if he waited longer? But Jurgis had never committed a crime in his life, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... voices. What should he do, where should he go? To return to the yard and face the workmen was not to be thought of; if he went to his lodgings he would be called to dinner, and have to listen to the inane prattle of the school-master. That would be even more intolerable than this garish daylight, and these careless squads of men and women who paused in the midst of their laugh to turn and stare. Was there no spot ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... not that abject kind of poverty which stints the supply of food and fire in a house. It did not still the prattle of the children, or banish childish mirth from the dwelling. It was not the wolf at the door, but the wolf in the dim possible distance when the poor father, bent with age, would perhaps be unable to keep his little flock together. But the boy had never thought of such a ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the douanier is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... offended, and with reason, at the freedom of his speech; yet, his manner, was so much beyond anything I had been accustomed to for ease and pleasantness, that I soon forgave him, and when he encouraged me, began to prattle about my affairs, being only, with all my conceit, the silly lassie my mistress ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... portended something; and on "one vivid daybreak," half through April, Pompilia learned what that something was. . . . Going to bed the previous night, the last sound in her ears had been Margherita's prattle. "Easter was over; everyone was on the wing for Rome—even Caponsacchi, out of heart and hope, was going there." Pompilia had heard it, as she might have heard rain drop, thinking only that another day ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... seems to-day, this vacant prattle, Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West, Voice of the great arbitrament of battle That puts our temper ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... mistaken, for I must confess that the briny rivulets descended fast on my furrowed cheeks, she was such a winning Child, and had such a regard for me and always came and told me all her little things, and as she was now speaking, some of her little prattle was very taking, and the lively images of these things intrude themselves more into my mind than they should do, but there is allowance for moderate grief on such occasions. But when I am telling you of my own grief and sorrow, I know not what to say of ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... guide, we must infallibly conclude that the devotional instinct implanted in the heart of the entire human race has its correlative that the longing for immortal life which burns in the breast of man was not a brutal mistake, else concede Nature a poor blunderer and all this prattle anent her ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty, The jewel in my dower, I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; 55 Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... voice would sing idly or prattle with an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some bird or butterfly and ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Amy's happy prattle became intolerable. Tom hinted at things he had to attend to; things that must be done; and time was fleeting. But in vain—the girl chirped on. Tom thought, "Oh, hang her, ain't I ever going to get rid of her?" At last he must be attending to those things—and she said artlessly that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the strength to brave the iron will of her mother. Kind words and affectionate glances were the only expressions of sympathy she could safely indulge in. The men employed on the farm were always glad to hear her prattle; she was a great favorite with them. Mrs. Bellmont al- lowed them the privilege of talking with her in the kitchen. She did not fear but she should have ample opportunity of subduing her when they ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... enough to make sufficient penitence impossible. 'Tis true that in a few weeks the delirium was at an end. Oh, what were my sensations when the mist dispersed before my eyes? I called for my husband, but in vain!—I listened for the prattle of my ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, "That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fourth was never more heard of. In a few days after, the husband and father returned from Winchester (where he had been for salt) and instead of the welcome greeting of an affectionate wife, and the pleasing prattle of his innocent children, was saluted with the melancholy intelligence of their fate. It was enough to make him curse the authors of the outrage, and swear eternal enmity to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... "You'll soon get accustomed to me," he said, brightening—"won't mind my merry prattle any more 'n the song ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... contentedly seated themselves on the bank to wait for a cloud, while old Robert proceeded to consult his fly-book. Neither of them seemed in a very talkative mood; indeed, when you are in front of a Highland river, with its swift-glancing lights, its changing glooms and gleams, its continual murmur and prattle, what need is there of any talk? Talk only distracts the attention. And this part of the stream was especially beautiful. They could hardly quarrel with the sunlight when, underneath the clear water, it sent interlacing lines of gold chasing one another across the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... sensitiveness. "One favour I would request of you, that is, that you should come to learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every little thing, and remember that eagles do not prey on flies. Enough! I know that you will laugh at my prattle; but I do not care; Nature has made me so, and I ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Sarah's prattle with only half an ear, adding a word now and then to keep her tongue going, till another dance was called. Nelse Baker asked Sarah to be his partner, and she rose. Finding himself alone, Westerfelt got up. As he did so, he caught another ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... you would when I got to this point. You people who prattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exact meaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is very vague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity ever dreamed up stated that things fell at such and such ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... excite our sympathy, we should remember that we likewise are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten. ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... Masnavi of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi (13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... you're rich; I always did enjoy the prattle of children, but I can't fool away any more time on you—so run ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... mother's mortuary prattle with a face from which no impatience of it could be inferred, and Mr. Ferris made no comment on what was oddly various in character and manner, for Mrs. Vervain touched upon the gloomiest facts of her history with a certain impersonal statistical interest. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... Widewood. Was it, she wondered, the noble fear that he might subject her to those social rumors that are so often all the more annoying because only premature? Ah, if he could but know how lightly she regarded such prattle! But she would not tell him, even in impersonal verse. On the contrary, she contributed to the Presbyterian Monthly—a non-sectarian publication—those lines—which caught one glance of so many of her friends and escaped ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... girl, in making her very marked advances, had been governed by the unwavering instinct which always guided her choice of companions, the old man, for his part, could not but find refreshment, after his long, solitary voyage, in the pretty Tuscan prattle of the child. Most Italians love children, and the Count Giovanni Battista Allamiraviglia appeared to be no ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... themselves on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children knew what the ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... sound rose from it and seemed to float and hover over it like a weird, invisible, acoustic canopy. Three hundred voices, men's, women's and children's, rose and fell, rose and fell—at first in a medley of scoffings, laughter, sullen murmurs, earnest dispute and children's prattle—a strange composite sound indeed! But as the minutes passed and the mass moved on and stopped as the Flopper paused to rest, and moved on and stopped and moved on again, gradually this changed, very ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. As I heartily detest the whole race, I determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable Miss B—came in. As I never meet her without experiencing a heartfelt pleasure, I stayed and talked to her, leaning over the back of her chair, and did not perceive, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... and shores were firmer— The blue sea over the bright sand roll'd; Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur, Sheen of silver and glamour of gold— And the sunset bath'd in the gulf to lend her A garland of pinks and of purples tender, A tinge of the sun-god's rosy splendour, A tithe of his ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... to this prattle. His eyes were on the pigeons cleaving the air with short, graceful flights. Presently he felt the soft touch of baby curls against his hand, and little Bug had fallen asleep with his drooping head on ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... they in all the respects over which man has control! On the one hand the air is vocal with the mingled tumult of a vast and prosperous population. Every hillside smiles with an abundant harvest, every valley shelters a thriving village, the click of a busy mill drowns the prattle of every rivulet, and all the multitudinous sounds of business denote happy activity in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... more, but I have grown stingy. The minutes are my gold-pieces. (Takes her hand.) When I hold your hand in mine, I am happy. Before I cared for you, I did not see the sun shining, and now when it rains, all the drops prattle ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, and turned to me as the ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... on whatever befall, the good do not prattle, longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... then that suffices amply for their enjoyment. Mrs. Wriothesley, triumphant in her schemes, chatted gaily with Mr. Cottrell, who was Sybarite enough to know that the discussion of the fish salad that he was then engaged upon, accompanied by the prattle of a pretty woman and irreproachable champagne, was about as near Elysium as a man of his years and prosaic temperament could expect to arrive at. He had had some conversation with his hostess on the way home. They had both arrived at the ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... that Meredith could do, and after his notorious effort to shift the subject he could do very little, the light prattle ran on about Helen Sherwood and Brainard Macauley. Tom abused himself for his wild notion of cheering his visitor with these people who had no talk, and who, if they drifted out of commonplace froth, had no medium to float them unless they sailed the currents, of local ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... fence with a child's prattle. She might have amused herself by encouraging this chatterbox to go through the list of their acquaintances, and pick out a goodly choice of suitors. She might have encouraged her to give expression to her profound ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... He lit a cigar, and stared silently at the fire. From the mantelpiece Jill's photograph smiled down, but he did not look at it. Presently his attitude began to weigh upon Freddie. Freddie had had a trying evening. What he wanted just now was merry prattle, and his friend did not seem disposed to contribute his share. He removed his feet from the mantelpiece, and wriggled himself sideways, so that he could see Derek's face. Its gloom touched him. Apart from his admiration ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... they, but they hear not," may be said of all the world. Tragedies and comedies go on continually before us which we neither see nor hear; cries of distress and prattle of infants, songs of love and screams of war, alike fall upon deaf ears, while we calmly discuss the last book or the news from Borriboo-lah-Gha, as completely oblivious as if all this stirring life did ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... lag heavily on her hands; but it appeared to her now that these interminable days of vacation would never come to an end. She passed one of them with Edith and Rufus Malcome, and this was by far the most insupportable of any. "She loved Edith dearly," she said; "but could not endure the childish prattle and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... empty church at the end of springtime, crowds passing outside, a desolate man behind a closed door, and a little child, with the face of an angel, sitting alone in a carven pew. He could hear her answer him in her childish prattle, could feel her cool little hand slip into his as she asked about the lonely man within. Then he remembered the kiss. The floods dried up. Mark's sorrow was beyond ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach |
