"Whispering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dark hair and heavy black moustache were like dashes of ink on a clean page. Near him sat the parson and another gentleman, whom she afterwards learnt to be a London physician; and on the parson whispering a few words the Baron opened his eyes. As soon as he saw her he smiled faintly, ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... a daring horseman might give rein to a young horse, rejoicing in the risk, the boy discarded wisdom and its whispering curb; his nature leaped forth in sudden comradeship, and impulsively he held out ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the display of holiday fireworks; but vain to me such mimicry. A tall and mysterious shadow, more dark and awful than any which will steal among the graves of the old churchyard to-night, has risen and now stands beside whispering in the ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... spoke Sanders, the boss of seven counties, as he entered. Glancing around the room, he continued, bending toward the Colonel and muffling his now whispering voice with his hand: "I want to speak to you alone. ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... chided Harris, and at length quarreled violently with him, although his own apprehension waxed continually greater. Carmen said little. Hour after hour she toiled along, floundering through the bogs, fording the deeper streams on Rosendo's broad back, whispering softly to him at times, often seizing and pressing his great horny hand, but holding her peace. In vain at evening, when gathered about the damp, smudging firewood, Harris would bring up to her the causes of her flight. In vain he would accuse ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... wailed Mrs. Barraclough. "Sergeant Ealing, do excuse me whispering to my maid, but it is so difficult to speak ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... through the cabins that another owner was coming in, and that none of the slaves were to be sold out of the State. This assurance satisfied the others, but it did not satisfy Harriet. Already the inward monitor was whispering to her, "Arise, flee for your life!" and in the visions of the night she saw the horsemen coming, and heard the shrieks of women and children, as they were being torn from each other, and hurried ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning-star; While throng'd the citizens, with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips,—"The foe! they ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... Dora recovered from the bewilderment occasioned by the confusion of the post office, they found themselves in one of the many leathern mail bags rumbling Eastward. As it was perfectly dark they could not see their companions, so listened to the whispering and rustling that went on about them. The newspapers all talked politics, and some of them used such bad language that the dolls would have covered their ears, if their hands had not been tied down. The letters were better behaved and more interesting, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... mystery, even the police station was shaken out of its usual business-like indifference. There was no other topic of conversation in any of the rooms but the mystery of the golden bullet and the doors closed from the inside. The attendants and the policeman gathered whispering in the corners, and strangers who came in on their own business forgot it in their excitement over ...
— The Case of the Golden Bullet • Grace Isabel Colbron, and Augusta Groner
... moment, there was no possibility of escape from the reality of the sound. He halted and turned his head like lightning, grasping his rifle in his nervous, determined way as he peered back into the gloom, whispering to himself: ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... she had at her disposal a suite of rooms in royal Windsor, where with other venerable dames of her own age and standing she could spend the twilight of her days discussing long-forgotten scandals and whispering sad things about the grandfathers and the grandmothers of the young courtiers all around them. There Nigel might leave her with an easy mind when he turned ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... granite-ribbed valleys, flooded with sunset wine, Peaks that pierce the aurora, rivers I must explore, Lakes of a thousand islands, millioning hordes of the Pine? Do they not miss me, I wonder, valley and peak and plain? Whispering each to the other: "Many a moon has passed . . . Where has he gone, our lover? Will he come back again? Star with his fires our tundra, leave us ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... 1,300 feet in diameter. There is a fine circle at Rollright, in Oxfordshire, which is the third largest in England. The diameter of the circle is about 107 feet, and the stones numbered originally about sixty. Near the circle stand the Five Whispering Knights, five large stones leaning together, probably the remains of a dolmen, and a large solitary stone, or menhir. Popular tradition has woven a strange legend about these curious relics of bygone ages. A mighty chieftain once ruled over the surrounding country; but he was ambitious, and ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... if afraid to be seen in the group of Skinners; but a blaze of light, raised by some articles thrown in the fire by his persecutors, showed the peddler the face of the purchaser of his little domain. Occasionally there was some whispering between this man and the Skinner nearest him, that induced Harvey to suspect he had been the dupe of a contrivance in which that wretch had participated. It was, however, too late to repine; and he followed ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the devil tormenting you. Don't you mind him, sir. The damned one keeps whispering, "Drink! Drink!" And you answer him, "I shan't drink! I shan't drink!" ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... complexions are not so good as those of Englishwomen; their beauty does not last so long; and their figures are very inferior. But they are most beautiful. I still reserve my opinion of the national character,—just whispering that I tremble for a radical coming here, unless he is a radical on principle, by reason and reflection, and from the sense of right. I fear that if he were anything else, he would return home a Tory. . . . I say no more on that head for two months from this time, save that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... to talk in low tones, as if some one had been listening. It was the whispering of their hearts, for the angel of happy love has no voice louder than a whisper. She asked him to say again that he loved her, but as soon as he began to say it she stopped his ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined," I see Benjamin Franklin, in the Congress of 1776, already past his seventieth year, prosperous, famous, by far the most celebrated man in America, accepting without demur the difficult and dangerous mission to France, and whispering to his friend, Dr. Rush, "I am old and good for nothing, but as the store-keepers say of their remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag-end, and you may have me ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... praise to Him Who gives us all things) more have yielded me Permanent shelter: and beside one friend, Beneath the impervious covert of one oak I've raised a lowly shed and know the name Of husband and of father; not unhearing Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, Which from my childhood to maturer years Spake to me of predestinated wreaths, Bright with no fading colours! Yet, at times, My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life Still most a stranger, most with naked heart, At mine own home and birthplace: chiefly then When I remember ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... like a star in the sunrise, nevermore in the fullness of the day to be remembered. Yet it was not of her beauty I thought as I stood spellbound before her. I seemed to see a dim little valley full of whispering pines, and a girl standing under their shadows, looking at me with the same great, greyish-blue eyes which gazed upon me now from Marian Lindsay's face—the same face, matured into gracious womanhood, that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... waited, snorting. There he waited, trembling with fear, chained by curiosity, and ready to leap away in arrowy flight should the sun wink on the tell-tale brightness of steel or the noosed rope dart whispering through the air above him. But there was no such sign of danger. The man came steadily on with his right hand stretched out palm up in the age-old token of amity, and as he approached he kept talking. Strange power was in that voice to enter the ears of the stallion ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been at some time introduced; whispering and jesting with some marked young lady, while she made an occasion to arrange her berthe or her ringlets, and adding herself, as if by accident, to any trio or quartette of pre-eminent distinction. She had at length the anxiously desired opportunity to put out her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... endure to the end of time,—always a shadow hanging over her brightest day, a cloud that would not vanish. Out of the silence had come a murmur more desolating than the thunderbolt with all its bombastic fury; out of the silence had come a voice that would go on forever whispering into her ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... his right arm against it, and fought it with the vigor of determination. But to doubt the worth of his life-work,—to doubt the destiny and capability of the race his soul loved because it was his; to find listless squalor instead of eager endeavor; to hear his own lips whispering, "They do not care; they cannot know; they are dumb driven cattle,—why cast your pearls before swine?"—this, this seemed more than man could bear; and he closed the door, and sank upon the steps of the chancel, and cast his robe ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... becoming human, I have only become humanitarian," Maitland seemed to hear his own thoughts whispering to himself in a night-mare. Through the slowly broadening winter dawn, in snatches of sleep that lasted, or seemed to last, five minutes at a time, Maitland felt the thought repeating itself, like some haunting refrain, with ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... whispering in at the cabin-window, for just then we heard steps overhead as if two people were walking along the deck, and directly after I could make out voices in eager conversation fairly loud for a few moments, and then they died away, and I knew by the sounds that the speakers ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... deep, cool sleep; a slumber beside a shadowed pool, with the wind whispering gently in strange tree tops, and water rippling ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... from down-town, found her busily superintending the two servants while they cleaned up his room. It was an unexpected attention on her part. He withdrew quietly. A little while later, leaning over the balusters, she saw Willard whispering to him earnestly. "Did she, my boy?" she heard the man cry under his breath. "Why, now, mumsy must just have been a little tired. I don't think it was anything else." Willoughby's smile seemed enough at the moment to reassure almost ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... timid glances around him. He was not a nervous man at ordinary times, but like many country people, he had a vein of superstition running through his phlegmatic temperament, and the events of the night had swept away his calmness. The croaking of the frogs and the whispering of the trees filled him with uneasiness, and he kept glancing backwards and forwards from the lake to the wood, as though he feared the murderer might suddenly appear from the misty surface of the one or the dim ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Lessways that the truest kindness would be to give Florrie a trial. Florrie was very strong, and she had been brought up to work hard, and she enjoyed working hard. "Don't you, Florrie?" "Yes, aunt," with a delightful smiling, whispering timidity. She was the eldest of a family of ten, and had always assisted her mother in the management of a half-crown house and the nurture of a regiment of infants. But at thirteen and a half a girl ought to be earning money for her parents. Bless you! She knew what a pawnshop ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... realised. It is not easy to select the best; some may like one and some another; the nude, depilated devil bounding and casting darts against the Wicket Gate; the scroll of flying horrors that hang over Christian by the Mouth of Hell; the horned shade that comes behind him whispering blasphemies; the daylight breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains and falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian's further progress along the causeway, between the two black pools, where, at every yard or two, a gin, a pitfall, or ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... those two Chinese are always whispering to one another about," whispered one duck to her friend. "They annoy me—we have never spoken ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... sweet reflection while Alice giggled a little more. Then she herself stopped and thought also. After all perhaps—! One had to be practical. The tenor of her thoughts was such that she did not giggle again when Amabel broke the silence by whispering with tremulous, soft devoutness. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... could not get from him; he must sleep on it. O suspense! you torture! He had seen a place he thinks will suit us: it is a bad omen his saying that so soon after. As I went to bed I could not help whispering, 'If he and I are parted, so will you and Jane.' The cruel boy answered me out loud, 'Thank you, little girl: that is a temptation; and you have put me ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... home and found Soerine in a temper and the house upside down, he was not disturbed at all, but soon cheered them all up. He always brought something home with him, peppermints for the children, a new shawl for mother—and perhaps love from Granny to Ditte, whispering it to her so that Soerine could not hear. His good humor was infectious; the children forgot their grievances, and even Soerine had to laugh whether she wanted to or not. And if the children were fond of him, so too were ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... before me, and I turned reluctantly away. But my thoughts keep harking back to the little town beside the turquoise bay, to the restfulness of its old, old buildings, to the perfume of its flowers, and the whispering voice of its turquoise sea. So some day, when the world is really at peace and there are no more wars to write about, I think that I shall go ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... To happy convents, bosom'd deep in vines, Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines: To isles of fragrance, lily-silver'd vales,[412] Diffusing languor in the panting gales: To lands of singing or of dancing slaves, Love-whispering woods, and lute-resounding waves. But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps, And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps;[413] Where, eased of fleets, the Adriatic main Wafts the smooth eunuch and enamour'd swain, 310 Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round, And gather'd every ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... husband, my Lord, you do not believe it. Say you do not believe it. Send the whispering fiend away. ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in his waistcoat pockets or put his hands behind him, looked over our heads, and ever and again rose to his toes and dropped back on his heels. He had a way of drawing air in at times through his teeth that gave a whispering zest to his speech It's a sound I can only represent as a ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... tapestry, on which lay a skeleton—the bones of the shipwrecked survivor who had been murdered. As they broke into the room, and went to fling open the long-closed window, they heard a great rushing noise, and cries and groans, and they declared that the garden was filled with evil spirits, rustling and whispering, mopping and mowing, for upwards ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... the second sister had white bread (and butter beside) and as much fresh milk as they could drink; but Christine had to eat cheese-parings and bread-crusts, and had hardly enough of them to keep Goodman Hunger from whispering ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... he had hardly lost his senses when he felt Jimmie shaking him. Just as before the Irish boy was whispering in his ear. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... she heard her true Love's voice Low whispering at the walle, Awake, awake, my clear Ladye, 'Tis ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... again, until at last the smile changed into a burst of sobbing, and to Abel Newt's extreme discomfiture, and Sligo Moultrie's secret amusement, Major Scuppernong suddenly turned and fell upon Abel's neck, and tenderly embraced him, whispering with tipsy tenderness, "My dearest Belch, I love you! Yes, by Heaven! I swear I ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... other side, when a sepulchral note sounded in my ear. It was like the memento mori of the old Roman;—as though some one pointed in the midst of my bliss to the sword hung over my head by a thread. It was the voice of Larry, whispering in his agony just above my ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... the sight of the huge and crowded theater, full of watchful eyes and whispering lips, full of brains and souls waiting to be fed, the sound of its hum and stir, sent a warm thrill through her, thrill of expectation, of desire. She thought of that man, Jacques Sennier, hidden somewhere, the cause of all that was happening in the house, of all that would ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... a murderous glare in Paul's eyes as Locke unconcernedly withdrew, whispering to the detective, who nodded deferentially to the young scientist who had been assigned by the Department of Justice, strangely, to the very case which now he realized in some unknown way must concern himself and the very mystery ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... messenger; and his fear that such had been the end of Nathan's undertaking was greatly increased by what followed. The shots and whoops suddenly ceased, and, for ten minutes or more, all was silent, save the roar of the river, and the whispering of the fitful breeze. "They have taken him alive, poor wretch!" muttered the soldier, "and now they are forcing from him a confession of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... whispering in his ear, asks why her mother bade her not remind him that the morrow was the mother's fete-day. The presence of the blithe all-hoping young, looking on with innocent unconscious eyes at the veiled tragedy of love turned ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... were alone in the study for a long time; she remembered Annie going in with the lamp and coming out and whispering that they wanted her. She found them sitting in the lamplight alone, close together, holding each other's hands; their faces ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... He drank in her loveliness in rapturous drafts, and swayed from side to side examining with critical eye the outline of her fair mould. She had thrown her cloak from her and stood slightly in front of Constantine, as he, holding a candle at her elbow, leant close to her ear, whispering and holding a small paper for her to read. As she read, her eyes flashed, her bosom rose and fell neath the covering of her short, full waist; and Monmouth's eyes seemed ravished by it. It had been his misfortune, he thought, to see long, modish, tapering stays that bruised his fancy as it ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... Then it seemed to him that not so many were about him. He felt his revolver slide from his hip-pocket. He was pushed gently forward, and a door closed behind him. The sound of footsteps died away with that of whispering voices. ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... rising like the white vapour from the cottage hearth, on a morning that is sunny and serene;—if to impart that sober sadness over the spirit, which inclines us to forgive our enemy, that calm philosophy which reconciles us to the ingratitude and knavery of the world, that heavenly contemplation whispering to us, as we look around, that "All is good;"— if these be merits, they ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was a perfect sea of flowers, waving and whispering round her ankles, and the pollen water was calm and blue; and presently it was not water through which they sailed, but the blue blossoms of the flax, which she gathered in ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... "Listen!" she resumed, whispering hurriedly. "If Eve comes—she'll let herself in with the latchkey—you must stand quiet here. I shall turn out the gas, and I'll let you out after she's gone upstairs? Couldn't ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... little men, inhabit cliffs, and picturesque and romantic scenes. Another class of marine or water spirits, called Nebunabaigs, occupy the rivers and lakes. There is an articulate voice in all the varied sounds of the forest—the groaning of its branches, and the whispering of its leaves. Local Manitos, or fetishes, inhabit every grove; and ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... a buzz of excited whispering. "What does it mean?" "Is she afraid to state her defense after that terrific arraignment of the defendant?" "Oh, there comes in the timidity of woman!" said an old and skilled criminal lawyer. "Does she not realize that it is a fatal evidence of weakness not to state a ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... song of the sea in the shell, The swish of the grass in the breeze, The sound of a far-away bell, The whispering leaves on the trees," ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Senators lounged upon the sofas set apart for visitors, and talked with idle Congressmen. A dreary member was speaking; the presiding officer was nodding; here and there little knots of members stood in the aisles, whispering together; all about the House others sat in all the various attitudes that express weariness; some, tilted back, had one or more legs disposed upon their desks; some sharpened pencils indolently; some scribbled aimlessly; some yawned and stretched; a great many ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... oilcloth apron drawn up to her chin, while she continued to drive the horses through a slit. The rear of the wagon made a blur ahead of them. Now the 'pike sides faded from fresh green to a general dulness, and trees whispering to the rain lost their vistas and indentations of shade, and became a solid wall down which a steady pour hissed with settled monotony. Boswell and Johnson no longer foraged at the 'pike sides, or lagged behind or scampered ahead. They knew it was a rainy October night without lightning and thunder, ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... till they sparkled and danced and seemed to turn into sunbeams that at length broke away and glanced into the blue above, where they played about just as the sunlight does on a bright spring-day. Others, again, knelt down upon the soft carpet, and seemed to be whispering something very sweet to some one or something hidden below; and before very long up sprang long, tender shoots, and then thin buds appeared, and by and by the buds swelled and burst, and then where every bud had been was a flower. And all ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... for dancing: in the first place, some women dance gracefully, and even elegantly, and show themselves off undoubtedly to advantage; (if any exhibition on a woman's part be an advantage;) then it gives an excuse for whispering, and squeezing of hands, and stealing flowers, and a thousand nameless skirmishings preparatory to what they are endeavouring to bring about—an engagement; but for a man to be fond of shuffling and twirling himself out of the dignity of step which nature gave him—picking his way through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... to the communicative townsman, and, whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both made their ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... confessed was an act of folly, but nothing more, and that the idea of its constituting an offence punishable by law was absurd in the extreme. This sent them to book, and, after turning over sundry ponderous tomes, and consulting various statutes of all sorts and sizes, besides whispering together, and shaking their heads once and again, till I began to fear that their necks would be dislocated, they arrived at the conclusion that I was right, or thereabouts. This fact the eldest, most bald, and most stupid of the party, chosen by common ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the other—"but I'd have them to understand, that had the presumption to use my name in any such manner, that I know when and where to be dacent with any mother's son of Parrah More's faction; and that I'll be afther whispering to them some of these ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... A little whispering took place between the fairy and the duchess; and then the fairy said out loud, 'Yes, I thought she would have told you.' Grandmarina then turned to the king and queen, and said, 'We are going in search of Prince Certainpersonio. The pleasure ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... moonbeams. You would like to hide, to suppress yourself by holding your breath. But still the watch must be kept; you must, at the least sound, issue from your retreat, face the invisible and bluntly disturb the imposing silence of the earth, at the risk of bringing down the whispering evil or crime upon yourself alone. Whoever the enemy be, even if he be man, that is to say, the very brother of the god whom it is your business to defend, you must attack him blindly, fly at his throat, fasten your perhaps sacrilegious teeth into human flesh, disregard ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... violin, and tuned it softly, with little rustling, whispering notes, speaking of perfect accord between owner and instrument; then she looked up at the child and smiled, and began to play "En revenant d'Auvergne." It was a tune that the little people always loved, and when one heard it, the feet began to dance before the head. Sure enough, the door opened ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... and glance behind At every common forest-sound— The whispering trees, the moaning wind, The dead leaves falling to the ground; As on with stealthy steps they go, Each thicket ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... to 100 F. It should be taken accurately—and should be maintained. Bath tub thermometers may be purchased at any drug store. The restless child, after the bowels have been freely moved, is placed in the water, and, without whispering, talking, or laughing, he remains there for at least twenty minutes, after which he is carefully lifted out, wrapped in a sheet and very gently dried off with soothing strokes and placed at once into his night clothes. As before said, ninety per cent ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... as I awoke, that some moss from the branches fell on my head. What! are you awake, Thor? It is now time to get up and dress; but you have not far left to the burg that is called Utgard. I have heard that you have been whispering among yourselves that I am not small of stature, but you will see greater men when you come to Utgard. Now I will give you wholesome advice. Do not brag too much of yourselves, for Utgard-Loke's thanes will not brook the boasting of ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... right, then." Timmie's brow smoothed with relief. He was silent a moment, and then his little whispering voice again, ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... in my own story and somewhat pleased with the fluency of it, but my audience annoyed me. There was intermittent whispering, with some laughter, and I inferred that one or another would occasionally stimulate this inattention by tickling a companion with a straw. Miss Anstell, who is so frivolous by nature that I sometimes question her right to a place in my classroom, I even ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... it was this way. All around him rose perfectly straight smooth walls. He could look up and see a little of the blue, blue sky right overhead and whispering leaves of trees and bushes. Over the edge of the smooth straight wall grasses were bending. But they were so far above his head, so dreadfully far! There wasn't any place to climb out! Grandfather Frog was in a prison! He didn't ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... governing a free country sovereign-masterlike. His haughty prejudice against France still ruled all the decisions of the English government, but Lord Bute, the young monarch's adviser, was already whispering pacific counsels destined ere long to bear fruit. Pitt's dominion was tottering when the first overtures of peace arrived in London. The Duke of Choiseul proposed a congress. He at the same time negotiated ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... know it," said Captain Bellfield to himself. Then the widow punished Mr Cheesacre for his sullenness by whispering a few words to the Captain; and Cheesacre in his wrath turned to Charlie Fairstairs. Then it was that he spake out his mind about the Captain's rank, and was snubbed by Charlie,—as was told a page ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... her lips tight, and looked up at the gallery. There was a little stir in that part of the court, a shuffling of feet, and suppressed whispering. In vain the crier shouted, "Silence! silence, there!" The bustle continued for about a minute, and then all became quiet again. A policeman stated "a female had fainted," and our curiosity being satisfied, we all with one ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was always well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... speak truth, Excellency. I might add—(had I not been whipped into politeness to my superiors!) that the deluded maid had lost her wits ere she fell into love with a face seen from a balcony—or with a voice whispering to her in the darkness of ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... king was a terrible old man who wore six-shooters and spurs, and shouted in such a tremendous voice that the rattlers on the prairie would run into their holes under the prickly pear. Before there was a royal family they called the man "Whispering Ben." When he came to own 50,000 acres of land and more cattle than he could count, they called ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... intention, I had struck her—one hasty blow was given, and now my youth was blighted, my peace of mind was gone; the source of all pure joys, of all holy thoughts, was dried up within me. I should never stand again in the sacred silence of the solemn night, and feel as if its whispering winds were bringing tidings from a better world to my soul. And in those days of glowing beauty, when streams of light intoxicate the eye, when all nature breaks into song, or blossoms into flower, never again should I feel myself as in past years, a part of that bright creation, longing only, ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... performance was enacted. The "afflicted girls" fell on the floor, uttered piercing shrieks, and cried out upon their victim. "There is a man whispering in her ear!" one of them suddenly exclaimed. "What does he say to you?" the judge demanded of Martha Corey, accepting at once the "spectral evidence". "We must not believe all these distracted children say," was her sensible answer. But good ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... A lion's hide with shaggy hair; Aletes, old in danger grown, His helmet takes, and gives his own. Then to the gates, as forth they fare, The band of chiefs with many a prayer The gallant twain attends: Iulus, manlier than his years, Oft whispering, for his father's ears Full many a message sends: But be it message, be it prayer, Alike 'tis lost, dispersed ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... To be heard across the room, she is obliged to exert herself. While you were gone, if I mistake not, she did not utter a word. Clara and I had all the talk to ourselves. Still it may be that she held a whispering conference with you on the hill; ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... I shouted. "You little brick! What are you whispering about? Pee-wee's hit it!" I just fairly shouted. "We're all right. Get in the car," I yelled at him, and I gave him a push. "Telling your patrol leader to ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... groups; In solid phalanx, rigid and compact; In labyrinth of branches interspread, Impervious to the rain and midday sun; In form spontaneous, without regard To law of uniformity, there stand In silent awe, or whispering to the breeze, The sombre fir and melancholy pine. And many a denuded avenue Of varying and considerable width, Cut through the growth of balsam, spruce and pine, Which stands erect and proud on either hand, Attests the swift and desolating ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... aisles chilled her, and their deep silence and extent, feebly shone upon by the moon-light, that streamed through a distant gothic window, would at any other time have awed her into superstition; now, grief occupied all her attention. She scarcely heard the whispering echoes of her own steps, or thought of the open grave, till she found herself almost on its brink. A friar of the convent had been buried there on the preceding evening, and, as she had sat alone in her chamber at twilight, she heard, at distance, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... of fortifying ivory cast but denser shadows into the inexplorable. The solitudes here grew murmurous. To and fro through secret passages in the recesses leading up deviously to lesser twin caverns of nose above, the gnomes Morphean went about their business, whispering at first, but presently bold to wind horns in ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... the rose-bower, and tuning the barbut[13] of his soul-deluding melody; indeed, whilst the Ant was night and day industriously occupied, the thousand-songed bird seemed fascinated with his own sweet voice, echoing amidst the trees. The Nightingale was whispering his secret to the Rose,[14] and that, full-blown by the zephyr of the dawn, would ogle him in return. The poor Ant could not help admiring the coquettish airs of the Rose, and the gay blandishments of the Nightingale, and incontinently remarking: "Time alone can disclose what may be the ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Gad. [A sibilant whispering becomes audible: they are all saying Sh-ch to themselves]. Szczepanowska! Not an English ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... away: I heard his voice whispering some time in the passage, but he did not return. Various small speeches now dropped, by which I found the house was all in disturbance, and the king in some strange way worse, and the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... "No," replied the Count, "the French are not here; and, therefore, gentlemen, I desire you will again sit down, and rely upon my word." The balls continued to fly about; the officers, however, continued to eat and drink without apprehension, though not without whispering their conjectures to each other upon the singularity of their entertainment. The Count, at length, rose from the table, and addressing himself to the company, said, "Gentlemen, I was willing to convince you how ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Ottilie, of seeing her, whispering to her, exchanging his confidence with her, increased with every day. He determined to write to her, and ask her to carry on a secret correspondence with him. The strip of paper on which he had, laconically enough, made his request, lay on his writing-table, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... The tapers which have been burning five hundred years glistened upon the tomb of the holy St. Genevieve. Here and there old women and girls were kneeling in the chapels, whispering their sins into the ears of invisible priests. And beneath the delicate tracery of screen and staircase, and the gloriously-painted windows, and the image of Jesus crucified looking down upon all, some groups of ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... be firm and dauntless. Lend your ears To no designing whispering court-minions. What may your ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... vanishing memory before their eyes. The flames shot high, carrying with them the last remnants of the city which had stood proud and tall an hour before. Then a silence fell, deathly, like the lifeless silence of a grave. Out of the silence, little whispering sounds of the Jungle-land crept to their ears, first frightened, then curious, then bolder and bolder as the wisps of grass and little animals ventured out and out toward the clearing where the city had stood. Bit by bit the Jungle-land gathered courage, and ...
— The Link • Alan Edward Nourse
... being searched with reference to the business on which his cousin was there that day; bur suddenly it occurred to him that Margaret had given him to understand that Mr Slow did not expect her. He stepped over to her, therefore, one step over the papers, and asked her the question, whispering ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... thing, the possibility of which she had never dreamed, staring her in the face, waiting to be done, and she felt that she could not do it. Oh, why was it necessary? "Why not let everything be as it has been?" said that wily villain Satan, whispering in her ears. "They were false vows; they are better broken than kept. He does not love her, though he said he did. And how can we ever endure it, the shame, the disgrace, the horrid explanations, our name, the Erskine name, on everybody's lips, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... whimper? This I know, he loved Me then, and pleasured only where I moved About the house. And I had pleasure too To know of me he had it. Then we knew The day at hand when he must take the road And leave me; and its eve we close abode Within the house, and spake not. But I wept." She stayed, and whispering down her next word crept: "I was beguiled, beguiled." And then her lip She bit, and rueful showed her partnership In sinful dealing. But he, in his esteem Bleeding and raw, urged on. "To Kranai's deme He took thee then?" Speechless she bent her head Towards her ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... a wondering complacency, half funny, half pathetic. Sometimes he would say, looking at her wistfully, "Oh, it's so nice to be ill!" And once, the first time she untied his right arm, and allowed it to move freely, he slipped it around her neck, whispering, "You are very good to me, mother." Christian crept away. She dared not clasp him or cry over him, he was so weak still; but she stole aside into the oriel window, her heart full ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... arm, whispering: "You can get out that window onto the top of the roof below, then a drop to the ground. But hurry before they think to guard that way!" "Anne!" called a voice ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... good deal vexed; she could not understand how any King could be so stupid. She always stayed out all night. She used to go and see her friends after she had done whispering dreams to the King, and only got home in time to light the fire for breakfast, so she never knew how the Princess put out the lamp every night, and cried ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the ground together, and with song And sprightly reed came dancing on behind.[12] There too a herd he fashion'd of tall beeves 715 Part gold, part tin. They, lowing, from the stalls Rush'd forth to pasture by a river-side Rapid, sonorous, fringed with whispering reeds. Four golden herdsmen drove the kine a-field By nine swift dogs attended. Dreadful sprang 720 Two lions forth, and of the foremost herd Seized fast a bull. Him bellowing they dragg'd, While dogs ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... always watching me, Floy, let me watch you, now!' They would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would recline the while she lay beside him: bending forward oftentimes to kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired, and how she had sat up so ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... still faintly illumined by the embers of the hearth. A glance told him it was empty; but he felt with his hands in all the dim corners, agonizingly whispering her name. There was no evidence here that any struggle ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... day brought no soothing surprise. Cold nods of good-morning greeted her, groups of whispering critics edged away from her contaminating presence. Even Peggy, the faithful, had gone over to the enemy. The nervous strain of the day told on her, and when she made a bad mistake in a recitation ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... on stone to keep this city with its haughty towers and sombre domes above the rushing and destroying currents of the sacred river. The river like a liquid ax is continually cutting away the foundations of the city. At night you can hear the whispering Ganges gnawing at the stone embankments. And that is why all the tall towers of Benares lean slightly over the water's edge. Their roots are being cut as beavers cut the roots of trees. And any Hindu who comes into Benares feels the age of India; she has lived very ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... had been no sign of Jack Curtiss or Bill Bender, but the boys now saw them hastening up to a member of the committee and whispering to him. A moment later a man, with a megaphone boomed out from the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... while the rest of us stood whispering in the hall. Five minutes later the two descended together. But while we others climbed into the cars, Jill twitched a lead from the rack and took her stand upon the steps, with Nobby leaping for joy about her sides. And when she cried "Good-bye," there was a ring ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... councillors stared at her, whispering to one another, and before ever they had done their whisperings out from among the gloom ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... in a snug elbow-chair near a comfortable English fire, told a long, tough yarn about mountains of sugar and rivers of rum, bottle-nosed porpoises, sharks, grampuses, and flying-fish, until I fell sound asleep, but, however, not so sound to prevent my hearing my best end of the ship whispering to someone to put more coals on the fire, and roast a chicken for my supper, and then she added, with her dear, musical, soft voice, "Dear fellow! How sound he sleeps. I hope he will awake quite refreshed, and eat his supper with a good appetite. How rejoiced ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... chap by the shoulders and placed him before the picture. 'See yourself,' I added. The boy stared at the sea urchin, at those painted eyes full of the sea wonder, at those parted lips, that mouth whispering to the sea. ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Strange whispering sounds filled the air, audible above the shouting of the men. The net about me grew tighter; I felt myself being lifted from the ground. Others were being treated the same way; one of the Ertak's crew shot straight up, not a dozen feet away, writhing and squirming. Then, at ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... executioners, with merely a hand breadth of cloth to cover them, they were then led away to execution. The cannon fired to announce their death was shattered to pieces, and the gunners' clothes burnt, which was considered ominous, many whispering 'Thus will the kingdom of Ranavalona Manjaka ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... roused him from the stunned condition into which he had sunk. When he opened his eyes the flash of a bright light made him close them again immediately; but through the mist that veiled his senses he heard the whispering of two women, and felt two young, two timid hands on which his head was resting. He soon recovered consciousness, and by the light of an old-fashioned Argand lamp he could make out the most charming girl's face he had ever seen, one of those heads which ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... a moment, for, as Jeanette, shy, and dewy-eyed, held out her arms to her new-found friend, quite suddenly Lucile knew. Impulsively she threw her arms about the older girl and drew her close, whispering, softly, "Tell me all you feel you can, Jeanette; you can ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... bitterness and resentment against a secretiveness which is interpreted to mean failure. The patience of the people is worn threadbare. Their temper has grown ragged. They are sick of whispering diplomats. ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... literary villainies, and at sixty they commenced with murderous ferocity a series of answers to arguments which it was proved upon them afterwards that they themselves had emitted at thirty—thus coming round with volleys of small shot on their own heads, as the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's begins to retaliate any secrets you have committed to its keeping in echoing thunders after a time, or as Sir John Mandeville under Arctic skies heard in May all those curses thawing, and exploding ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the triple star, crossed quickly to a phone panel in the speaker's stand at one side of the stage. He jerked out an instrument. The buzz of excited whispering that had swept the audience gave place to utter silence. Each quiet, incisive word that Chet spoke was clearly heard. He ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... cried, but then, all at once, a sort of sick sensation came over me. Dad and Doctor Martin seemed to be waltzing round me, with the furniture and everything else following suit, and I fainted away again, I fancy; although I could hear their whispering voices, as of people who were far away in the distance. Then, there was ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... added, swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to him, Gregg. Stay with him—you'll have a measure of security—and you can help him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I won't be with you—no use making it look as though we were doing anything unusual. If your graphs show anything—or if Snap picks up any message—bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... at each other; and, withdrawing to a corner, a whispering consultation took place, in which Lady Maclaughlan's opinion, "birch, balm, currant, heating, cooling, running risks," etc. etc., transpired. At length the question was carried; and some tolerable sherry and a piece of very substantial ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... palace, first whispering in her husband's ear with her arm round his neck: "Tell my grandmother everything and ask ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the gossip-mongers were whispering round rumours of violent flirtations, and even when she was in Les Carmes they said that she and her fellow-prisoner, General Hoche, were too familiar, and coupled the name of the ex-Count with that of a young lady suspect. The truth of such accusations seems highly improbable, ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... whispering voice, which disease had for some time so nearly hushed, she said, "I shall sing in heaven." Her voice had been the charm of many a pleasant circle. But she added, "I shall no ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... of betrothal was never returned. In the morning, as Colonel Eden and his sister drove for the last time into Cloon, they saw groups of frieze-coated men and blue-cloaked women whispering together with sad faces, and a shutter being closed ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... rebuke, said she wouldn't raise Cain; and, indeed, she and Johnny were preternaturally quiet until things had been cleared away and the taffy could be started. When it was on the stove, there was at least ten minutes of whispering while they watched the black molasses shimmer into the first yellow rings. Then Johnny, in a low voice, talked for a good while of something he called "Philosophy"—which seemed to consist in a profound disbelief in everything. "Take religion," said Johnny. "I'd like to discuss it with you; I ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... trees in the angle," she said; and she was about to invite me to come and sit with her when her attention was distracted from me; for the people had drawn together into groups, and I heard everybody whispering: "That's Marie Pellegrin." Seeing her coming, her waiter with much ostentation began to draw aside tables and chairs, and in a few minutes she was sitting under her tree, she and La Glue together, their friends about them, Marie distributing absinthe, brandy, and cigarettes. A little procession ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the home-sick ocean shell Far from its own remembered sea, Repeating, like a fairy spell, Of love, the charmed melody It learned within that whispering wave, Whose wondrous and mysterious tone Still wildly haunts its winding cave Of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... more lonesome hills, more dreary fields, and black masses of woodland. Not one homely roof was visible in the hard, white moonlight, nor the glimmer of a lamp, nor a waft of chimney-smoke; not even the tinkle of a sleigh-bell or a foot-step was to be heard. The silence seemed whispering to the hills. One star glimmered in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... type-setting modern world, with its multitudinous knowledges, its aroused conscience, its spurred and yet thwarted sympathies, its new incitements to egotism also, and new tools and appliances for egotism to use,—placed, as it were, in the focus of a vast whispering-gallery, where all the sounds of heaven and earth came crowding, contending, incessant upon his ear? One sees at a glance how the serious thought and poetry of Greece cling to a few master facts, not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... Monsieur and I lived; he brought with him the Dauphin, who was then a child of about ten years old. As soon as I had finished my toilette the King returned to the old Chateau, where he received me in the Guards' hall, and led me to the Queen, whispering at the same time,—"Do not be frightened, Madame; she will be more afraid of you than you of her." The King felt so much the embarrassment of my situation that he would not quit me; he sat by my side, and whenever it was necessary for me to rise, that ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... with grief; and what of happiness could there be for her in the broad sunshine which poured forth from the windows of heaven, inviting the living babies of all present mankind to find life and health in its luxurious enfolding? She saw the sun climb the skies with imperious magnificence, and whispering voices from remote Cathay tempered the radiance of the day with ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... face upon her quivering arms whispering, "God help me!—God help me," yet straining her ears to catch every sound without. And she made no resistance when Dalton at last found her, and, seating himself at her side, drew her ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... three-quarters of an hour went a third time, and after him Herries a second time, and with him Lord Bexley. Another very animated conversation took place between Lord Lansdowne and Lord Goderich, when the latter went to the King a fourth time, and after him Lord Lansdowne, Goderich whispering something to him as he went in. Previous to this I remarked a conference between Lord Lansdowne, Goderich, and Carlisle, after which Carlisle took Tierney into the next room, evidently communicating what had passed. Something was clearly going on, but I could ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Naab entered with his wife. She was as pale as if she were in her shroud. Hare caught Mother Ruth's pitying subdued glance as she drew the frail little woman to her side. When August Naab began fingering his Bible the whispering ceased. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey |
