"Chatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... newspaper in her hand. If you had not been deaf and blind to her defects, you would have noticed that she couldn't fix her attention on it. She was always ready to join in the chatter of the ladies about her. When even their stores of gossip were exhausted, she let the newspaper drop on her lap, and sat in ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... poises it lightly on her hip, and runs singing to the village well, where each house has its representative waiting for the morning supply. There is the plash of dripping water, the creak of wheel and straining rope, and the chatter of girl voices. ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the master of the gathering on the lawn would not dare to throw sand on the spots where the rich man's prideful skin had been raked off. The entertainment was to consist of talk among the older ones, chatter among the slips of girls and striplings of men, with ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... that awful reducing my waist measure seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; he wouldn't have minded if I weighed five hundred pounds, I felt sure. He loved me—really, really, really; and I had sat and weighed him with a lot of men who were nothing more than amused by my chatter, or taken with my beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to them through ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... women are splendid, so quiet and strong, As with resolute purpose they hurry along— Excepting the flappers, who chatter as shrilly As parrots let loose ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... the Winchester boys, asserted his claim with a quiet firmness that proved irresistible. Grace was said with solemn brevity by the Colonel, whose sum total of orthodoxy was comprised in that brief grace, and in regular attendance at church on Sunday mornings; and then there came a period of chatter and laughter which might have been a little distracting to a stranger. Each of the boys and girls had some wonderful fact, usually about his or her favourite animal, to communicate to the father. Aunt Betsy broke in with her fine manly voice at every turn in the conversation. Ripples ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... minutes to myself to think," she said to herself, drawing hastily back behind the thick screen of leaves until they should pass. She did not feel in the humor just then to listen to Miss Raynor's chatter ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... I could never tell you. Real love is like real religion—you can't talk about it. Makes you want to joke, even if you can't think of anything funny to say—makes you chatter about anything else, or just keep still. Seems to be something down here—this is my heart, isn't it?—hope I have the right place, I left school so early—seems even when I refer to it I ought to—well, as I said, make a sort ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the circumstance; she looked with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and the jewelled necks of the women. The social essence of Alicia's little dinner-party passed into her, and she moved her head like the civilian's wife. She felt the champagne investing her chatter and the chatter of the Head of the Department of Education with the most satisfying qualities, which were only very slightly dashed when she glanced over the brim of her glass at Stephen, sitting at the turn of the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Plessy went up the steps, wondering who it was that had drawn the long sharp breath of suspense, and uttered the long sigh of immense relief. The landlord or Lieutenant Faversham? Captain Plessy had not been in the cellar at the time when the landlord had seemed to hear the chatter ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Saturday evening, my old nurse arrived to fetch me! How I would embrace the old woman in transports of joy! After dressing me, and wrapping me up, she would find that she could scarcely keep pace with me on the way home, so full was I of chatter and tales about one thing and another. Then, when I had arrived home merry and lighthearted, how fervently I would embrace my parents, as though I had not seen them for ten years. Such a fussing would there be—such a talking and a telling of tales! To everyone ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... not tell whether her presence conduced to diligence or to chatter, but he minded her more than any one else, and always stuck close to her, insisting on her admiring all his proteges. There was one with whom he was certainly doing a work, which, as Julius truly said, no one more ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in their bright summer attire and full of chatter; as the train was not due for some moments, several got out of their carriages and went to other carriages to gossip. It was a very lively and agreeable scene: there being no outsiders, they were like one large family. In the middle of the large open space beside the platform ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... rejoice at seeing only this? Judging by his looks, the reverse. Before, he only trembled slightly, with a hue of pallor on his cheeks. Now his lips show white, his eyes sunken in their sockets, while his teeth chatter and his whole frame shivers as if under an ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... essays to denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human speech. There are some things, he says in effect, about which you can really talk; and there are other things about which you cannot properly talk at all, but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or moralize, or chatter. ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... at Chakdara, and so times without number, it is the gallant British subaltern, in spite of silly chatter, who again and again has shown the highest attributes of an officer and a soldier. It is the foolish custom of a certain class of Englishman to decry all that is their own; and amongst the latest of these victims of a dyspeptic imagination is the British officer. Men ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... with which a Roman populace would look upon a gladiatorial show. Not a voice heard in the sufferer's behalf. At length the powers of nature give way; the blood flows back to the heart—the teeth chatter—the voice trembles and dies, while the victim drops ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... health, and partly to chafing irritation at mere gossip, although I had no power to think of anything better, or say anything better myself, I was avoided both by the commonplace and those who had talent. Commonplace persons avoided me because I did not chatter, and persons of talent because I stood for nothing. "There was nothing in me." We met at M'Kay's two gentlemen whom we thought we might invite to our house. One of them was an antiquarian. He had discovered in an excavation in London some Roman remains. This had led him on to the study of ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... radiantly in for a moment. Christine's parlor was gay with firelight and noisy with chatter and with the ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... politics. It was the talk most natural to her; the talk of the world she knew best; and as Elizabeth was full of shrewdness and natural salt, without a trace of malice, no more at least than a woman should have—to borrow the saying about Wilkes and his squint—her chatter was generally in ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to serve as a living-room for the whole family. Although past ten o'clock, the remains of breakfast were still on the table, and were not appetizing to look at. We sat down on chairs placed in a circle, the whole party commencing to chatter volubly, and scarcely a word being intelligible to me. Presently the vrow brought me a cup of coffee in a cracked cup and saucer. Not wishing to give offence, I tried to swallow it; the coffee was not bad, if ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... creatures, sighing in the dark. But so it is with human life everywhere—a foolish chatter and in ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... you, Mrs. Hunt." Norah's voice sounded strange in her own ears. She wanted to get away from the room, and the light-hearted chatter . . . to make sure, though she was sure already. The guns of France seemed ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... As we turned toward it we saw Lady Saffren Waldon being helped into the commandant's litter, borne by four men, the commandant himself superintending the ceremony with a vast deal of bowing and chatter, and Professor Schillingschen looking on with an air of owning litter, porters, township, boma, and all. As we turned our backs on them they started off toward the neat ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... "Box the chatter, Harry, and ship it east," Tom interposed, showing signs of interest. Then, in a louder voice, ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... stops here long enough to allow a few minutes ashore, and the visitors ramble over to the hotel, chat or chatter with the Washoe Indian squaws who have their baskets for sale, or enjoy the grassy and ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... girls," thought the little woman, as she finally shook the duster out of the open window and set herself to distribute the flowers she had bought the previous evening to the best advantage. "She has no dear friends, no acquaintances with whom she likes to stop and chatter; she never stays out, and I don't think she ever had the ghost of a lover. When I was her age I had had a dozen, and I was married. Poor Fred! Heigho! I wish he had left me a little money, and I am sure I should never dream of giving him a successor. But for ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... men met, but Brant was unable to decipher the meaning hidden within the gray eyes. Neither spoke, and Miss Spencer, never realizing what her chatter meant, rattled merrily on. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... the wife, 'and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,' and she tore open her dress; and all the while little Marleen sat in the corner and wept, and the plate on her knees ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... as senseless wood, And chatter in a mystic strain, Is a mere force on flesh and blood, And shows ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... for his kind, must have his Caucasus, whereon, blind scavangers of fate, batten harpy gorge, while not a kindly drop softens Olmypus' cold, drear scowl. No prayer moves those tense lips, but Caucasus groans with the voiceless petition, and Olympus' huge molars chatter with the prophetic beseeching. No uttered petition from bound victim, but unutterable longings of passionate, helpless hearts and blood lift 'void hands' of imperious need. Earth and sea abjure allegiance to blind force, affirming endless ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... among the reeds, And there'll be rain to follow; There is a murmur as of wind In every coign and hollow; The wrens do chatter of their fears While ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... love for pictures was by no means dead in Venice, and Longhi painted for the picture-loving Venetians their own lives in all their ordinary domestic and fashionable phases. In the hair-dressing scenes we hear the gossip of the periwigged barber; in the dressmaking scenes, the chatter of the maid; in the dancing-school, the pleasant music of the violin. There is no tragic note anywhere. Everybody dresses, dances, makes bows, takes coffee, as if there were nothing else in the world that wanted doing. A tone of high courtesy, of great refinement, coupled ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... beauty and her pretty, proud ways (and maybe because of her father's money too; though Miss Mildred didn't say that), she was getting to think too much of herself, and to care too much for fine dresses and sweetmeats and idle chatter about nothing at all." (How Hilda's cheeks burned as she remembered the long seances in her room, she on the sofa, and Madge in the arm-chair, with the box of Huyler's or Maillard's best always between them! Had they ever talked of anything "worth ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... the news came that Sandy, my youngest boy, was gone.... I'm reticent too, and I couldn't mention his name, or speak about my sorrow, and Jean seemed to understand. She used to garden beside me, and chatter about her baby affairs, and ask me questions, and I sometimes thought she ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... Chatter not, sublime reader, commonplaces of scoundrel moralists against ambition. In some cases ambition is a hopeful virtue; in others (as in the Rome of our resplendent Julius) ambition was the virtue by which ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... would, for no reason whatever, but from mere delight, burst into a loud bark, much to the consternation of Jacko, who would leap from his seat in an instant, and standing, at a little distance, on his hind legs, chatter with excessive alarm. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... The man Peasley should merely have said "Captain murdered." Also, he might have trusted to us to realize that when the captain dies the first mate takes charge. He need not have identified himself—the infernal chatter-box!" ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... with your young girl friends, when I look into your bright faces and listen to your merry laughter and your girlish chatter, I wonder if any one of you understands how much you are worth. Now you may say, "I haven't any money in the bank, I have no houses or land, I am worth nothing," but that would only be detailing what you possess. It is not what you possess ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... flecking with white the blue glitter of the sky, the busy gulls skimmed hither and thither, wheeling round in circles. On the shore the fisher-wives, with bent heads, were still too intent on their mending to raise their eyes for one moment, and the chatter of their own high-pitched voices dulled their ears to the despairing cries floating across the waters. So ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... the time and knew that in a moment his teeth would chatter. So a second time he turned his back on her, gathered up his horse's reins, and moved away, seeking a spot in the woods where he could get dry and sun his clothes. And since Packard rage comes swiftly and more often than not goes the same ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... passion of curiosity which takes possession of a child's mind, and to which my precocious melancholy gave a sort of sentimental intuition. My sisters were playing about and laughing; I heard their distant chatter like an accompaniment to my thoughts. After a while the noise ceased and darkness fell. My mother happened to notice my absence. To escape blame, our governess, a terrible Mademoiselle Caroline, worked upon my ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... other committees now. There is a general committee which no one has yet fathomed; a fuel committee; a sanitary committee; nothing but committees, all noisily talking and quite safe in the British Legation. Out of the noise and chatter the American missionary emerges, sometimes odorous and unpleasant to look upon, but whose excuse for not shouldering a rifle and volunteering for the front is written on his tired face. It is the selfsame Yankee missionary who is grinding the wheat and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... was over, Geraint turned to the Earl. 'Who is this Sparrow-hawk of whom all the townspeople chatter? Yet if he should be the knight of the white fortress, do not tell me his real name. That I must find out for myself.' And he told the Earl that he was Prince Geraint, and that he had come to punish the knight, ...
— Stories of King Arthur's Knights - Told to the Children by Mary MacGregor • Mary MacGregor
... He continued his chatter, bidding the Greeks persist in their homeward flight. Knowing that argument with such an one was vain, Odysseus laid his sceptre across his back with such heartiness that a fiery weal started up beneath the stroke. The host praised the act, the best ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... gasp from the tramp, he could hear his teeth chatter, not with cold, but from fright, and a moment later, with a half audible cry, the man turned and fled away in ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... pots full of tempered colours, so that he looked like the Devil of S. Macario with all those flasks of his; and when he worked with his spectacles on his nose, he would have made the very stones laugh, and particularly when he began to chatter, for then he babbled enough for twenty, saying the strangest things in the world, and his whole demeanour was a comedy. Certain it is that he never used to speak well of any person, however able or good, and however well dowered he saw him to be by Nature or ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... me 'sir'! Yes; when people are tiresome she often says she would like to shake them; and one has a mental vision of how their teeth would chatter. There is a certain little lady of our acquaintance whom we always call 'Mrs. Do-and-don't.' She isn't in our set; but she calls upon it; and sometimes it asks her to lunch, for fun. If you inquire whether she likes a thing, she says: 'Well, I do, and I ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... jacket and hat, from beneath which rolled his long black hair. He returned thus, formidable and implacable, advancing with his arms crossed on his breast, towards the general, who could not understand why he had disappeared, but who on seeing him again, and feeling his teeth chatter and his legs sink under him, drew back, and only stopped when he found a table to support his clinched hand. "Fernand," cried he, "of my hundred names I need only tell you one, to overwhelm you! But you guess ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cockles and their rhymes got their heads all together around the large table, for the eating and the reading. Mr. Geoffrey and Uncle Titus sat talking European politics together, a little aside. The sugar-plums lasted a good while, with the chatter over them; and then, before they quite knew what it was all for, they had got slips of paper and lead pencils before them, and there was to be a round of ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Spirits heare me, And yet I needes must curse. But they'll nor pinch, Fright me with Vrchyn-shewes, pitch me i'th mire, Nor lead me like a fire-brand, in the darke Out of my way, vnlesse he bid 'em; but For euery trifle, are they set vpon me, Sometime like Apes, that moe and chatter at me, And after bite me: then like Hedg-hogs, which Lye tumbling in my bare-foote way, and mount Their pricks at my foot-fall: sometime am I All wound with Adders, who with clouen tongues Doe hisse me into madnesse: Lo, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... just stood cowering, a chill of anguished horror racking her. All at once her teeth began to chatter, her body to shake ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... stood waiting. Ditte had not been able to manage them any longer. They were cold and in tears. Lars Peter took them up into the cart, and they gathered round him, each anxious to tell him all the news. He took no notice of their chatter. Ditte sat quietly, looking at him out of the corners of ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Uncle Larry could not have told her how much he liked it, but as he listened to her chatter he wondered how on earth Kate was going to make the tenants of the Washington ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... The tide was out now, and the moon glittered upon the distant ocean. A mist was creeping up, however, and even as she looked it drew its veil over the water. It was bitterly cold. She shivered and her teeth began to chatter. Stretching herself upon the bed once more, she wrapped the blankets round her, and, worn out with anxiety and fatigue, dropped into a ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... startle them all, and especially Lysander, with her dazzling loveliness. She stood in a shadow of the wings with her coat wrapped about her. Except for Jerry, waiting to do her humble part, she was alone. She listened to the ceaseless chatter in the dressing-room with a happy smile. She heard Mr. Oliver, the coach, giving sharp orders. There was some trouble with the curtain. She took a quick step forward to see what it was; the high heel of her satin slipper caught in a coil of rope from the staging and ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... in a similar condition—that Baxter sought. His goal was the genteel dining-room on the first floor, where a bald and shuffling waiter, own cousin to a tortoise, served luncheon to those desiring it. Lack of sleep had reduced Baxter to a condition where the presence and chatter of the house party were insupportable. It was his purpose to lunch at the Emsworth Arms and take a nap in an ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sweetness by the confusion. Mr. Gutermann-Seuss had truly, for the crisis, the putting down of his cards, a rare manner; he was perfect master of what not to say to such a personage as Mr. Verver while the particular importance that dispenses with chatter was diffused by his movements themselves, his repeated act of passage between a featureless mahogany meuble and a table so virtuously disinterested as to look fairly smug under a cotton cloth of faded maroon and indigo, all redolent of patriarchal teas. The Damascene tiles, successively, and ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... said, "behave this evening with propriety, like a well-bred girl; and from this day forth be more sedate. Do not chatter heedlessly, and never walk alone with Monsieur Giguet, or Monsieur Olivier Vinet, or the sub-prefect, or Monsieur Martener,—in fact, with any one, not even Achille Pigoult. You will not marry any ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the green, sunny fields with almost religious regularity, taking advantage of opportunities when father was very busy, to join our companions, oftenest to hear the birds sing and hunt their nests, glorying in the number we had discovered and called our own. A sample of our nest chatter was something like this: Willie Chisholm would proudly exclaim—"I ken (know) seventeen nests, and you, Johnnie, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... nephews do not love him well So run folks' tongues in Florence. I meant but that. Men say they envy your inheritance And look upon your vineyards with fierce eyes As Ahab looked on Naboth's goodly field. But that is but the chatter of a town Where ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... truthfulness, no eloquence, no concentrated thought and permanent achievement. With, you, dear Margaret, such has already been the effect. You shrink from the ordinary enjoyments of society. Their bald chat distresses you, as the chatter of so many jays. You prefer the solitude which feeds the serious mood which you love, and enables your imagination, unrepressed by the presence of shallow witlings, to evoke its agents from storm and shadow—from deep forest and lonesome ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... were not the less disappointed, all the three ladies; indeed, they were so much disappointed that they did not speak of the thing to each other, as people chatter over and thereby evaporate a trifling ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... to ride," he reflected; "but it can't be helped now. She will never be such a goose as to stay there long." And he felt more sorry thinking of how the string would be lying slack until his return than for treating Hetty so inconsiderately. Trying to put the whole thing out of his head he began to chatter to his father about something that had happened at school, and thought no more about the matter till he had returned home an ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... further and further back into the past, and it seemed altogether impossible for her to return to the present and chatter with ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... they drew near to the mountain that blocked their path and which was the furthermost edge of the Kingdom of Ev, the way grew dark and gloomy for the reason that the high peaks on either side shut out the sunshine. And it was very silent, too, as there were no birds to sing or squirrels to chatter, the trees being left far behind them and only the ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... still inclined to saving. In cookery she must excel, To this there's no exception, And serve a frugal meal as well As manage a reception. Untidyness she must abhor, In every household matter; And resolutely close the door To any gossip's chatter. She must love children, for a home Ne'er seems like home without 'em. And women seldom care to roam, Who love their babes about 'em, Should she have wealth, she must not boast Or tell of what she brought me; Content that I should rule the roost,— ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... and you reproach me for my errors! But what are they? Seriously, I do not see them! We lived in a noisy world; where we enjoyed the liberty which English manners allow to young people. Your aunt found no fault with the charming chatter which the English call flirtation. I told you I loved you; you allowed me to think that I was not displeasing to you. We, thanks to that delightful agreement, spent a most agreeable summer, and now you do not wish to put an ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... where is manifest The diff'rence 'twixt the coward and the brave; (The coward's colour changes, nor his soul Within his breast its even balance keeps, But changing still, from foot to foot he shifts, And in his bosom loudly beats his heart, Expecting death; and chatter all his teeth: The brave man's colour changes not; no fear He knows, the ambush ent'ring; all his pray'r Is that the hour of battle soon may come) E'en there, thy courage none might call in doubt. Shouldst ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Vavasour, hastily offering his arm, while Bertie who had hesitated an instant, gave his to Cecil. The momentary reluctance was not lost upon her, she become rather silent, ditto Captain Du Meresq; but their opposite neighbours were in a full flow of chatter. ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... chatter in the servants' hall, I make a sudden sally, And with the parlourmaid I brawl Or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... before going it would be as well to find out for certain all about Elizabeth; and his landlady seemed as likely a person to be able to satisfy him as any one. He remembered well that sharp, bright-eyed little woman, and knew that she was a regular magpie for chatter, and for repeating the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... wonder and admiration. Nor is their wonder diminished by what they see and hear close at hand. Little did they expect to find parrots and humming-birds in that high southern latitude; yet a flock of the former chatter above their heads, feeding on the berries of the Winter's-bark; while numbers of the latter are seen, flitting to and fro, or poised on whirring wings before the bell-shaped blossoms of the fuchsias. [Note 3.] From the deeper recesses of the ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... me out of court one of these days, squire," muttered Potts, "and so will you too, Master James Device.—A day of reckoning will come for both—heavy reckoning. Ugh! ugh!" he added, shivering, "how my teeth chatter!" ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... kept up their thoughtless chatter; but every word was as a stab to poor Aunt Hettie. She had Baby Girl on her lap and was giving the children their supper, but I noticed that she ate nothing. It was easy to see that she was not strong. Baby Girl is four years old and is the fattest ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... was unabashed. With no trace of forwardness, but with due belief in his security of position as a guest, he continued to chatter to Ruth, and rarely addressed any ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... her visit, and told her experience, and presented the card, her mother said she had never known nor heard of such a man. The stranger had evidently sat within hearing distance of the girl and her schoolmate, and listening to their merry chatter all the way from Boston to Springfield, had given him the clue to names and localities that enabled him to play his sinister game. Only the faithfulness of the wise conductor saved her from possibilities too painful to be recorded ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the opportunity of examining into for myself, was as gross an imposture as ever came under my notice. But supposing the phenomena to be genuine—they do not interest me. If anybody would endow me with the faculty of listening to the chatter of old women and curates in the nearest cathedral town, I should decline the privilege, having ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Suvaroff whispered. His teeth began to chatter. "Nevertheless, I shall sleep to-night," he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... scoop net at the rapids of Sault Ste. Marie in two hours were no longer questioned. The size of the red-fleshed land-locked trout (the quail-of-the-water), of pickerel and bass, astounded him. His travels had broadened his views. The chatter of his Iroquois and Algonquin friends was now easier of interpretation. The riddles of the wilderness were more easily read. He now realized how possible it was, in this continent of unsurveyed immensity, to ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... straits of Madagascar; near the sobbing oceans' roar, A ghostly shape glides nightly, by the beady, kelp-strewn shore.— As the Cubic monkeys chatter; as the Bulbul lizards hiss, Comes a clear and quiet murmur, like a Zulu lover's kiss. The flying-fishes scatter; the chattering magpies scream, The topaz hummers dart and dip; their jewelled feathers gleam. The mud-grimed hippos bellow; the ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... by the persistence with which he sought my society. I thought he seemed to wish for some companion whose ideas had not been developed exclusively in barrack atmosphere; and I, on my side, was not unwilling to listen to the chatter of a lively, good-natured young fellow, at intervals, during my ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... came with a gasp almost like pain from Berrington's lips. The laughter and chatter of the dinner-table gave these two a sense of personal isolation. "That is remarkable. I am looking for a grey lady, and I trace her to this hotel—quite by accident, and simply because I am dining here to-night. And you saw her in ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... of health and food, recriminations and wrangling, there came to be laughter and good-humored chatter all the day long, each sister striving with all her strength to preserve the new-found harmony of the Home. There were musical evenings, when Miss Abigail opened the melodeon and played "Old Hundred," and Abraham was encouraged to pick out with one stiff forefinger ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... over stony ways In little sharps and trebles; I bubble into eddying bays; I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow. And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... are speaking, the woman approaches the little shrine, opens it, arranges the objects in it, lights the tiny lamp, and with joined hands and bowed head begins to pray. Totally unembarrassed by our presence and our chatter she seems, as one accustomed to do what is right and beautiful heedless of human opinion; praying with that brave, true frankness which belongs to the poor only of this world—those simple souls who never have any secret to hide, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... doubts of my intentions towards her. "Are you going to whack Jicks?" asked the curious little creature, shrinking into her corner. I sat down by her, and soon recovered my place in her confidence. She began to chatter again as fast as usual. I listened to her as I could have listened to no grown-up person at that moment. In some mysterious way that I cannot explain, the child comforted me. Little by little, I learnt what she had wanted with me, when she had attempted to drag me out of the room. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... husband and to the Princess herself. He danced, nevertheless, for some minutes with her; but, suddenly, she feigned to be seized with a sharp pain in the spleen, and was conducted to a sofa. The young Comte de Vermandois came and sat there near her. They were both exhibiting signs of gaiety; their chatter amused them, and they were seen to laugh with great freedom. Although Monsieur le Dauphin was assuredly not in their thoughts, he thought they were making merry at his expense. He came and sat at the right of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... stick, and went to the hive to cut us out some honey-comb. We had a draught of spring water after the warm transparent honey, and then dropped asleep to the sound of the monotonous humming of the bees and the rustling chatter of the leaves. A slight gust of wind awakened me.... I opened my eyes and saw Kalinitch: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-opened door, carving a spoon with his knife. I gazed a long time admiring his face, as sweet and clear as an evening sky. Mr. Polutikin too woke ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... quarter of the city there were skirmishes between yunkers and Red Guards, battles between armoured cars.... Volleys, single shots and the shrill chatter of machine-guns could be heard, far and near. The iron shutters of the shops were drawn, but business still went on. Even the moving-picture shows, all outside lights dark, played to crowded houses. The street-cars ran. The telephones were all working; ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... brightest blue. Maraton watched them, at first idly and then with interest. Lady Elisabeth, in her cool muslin gown and simple hat, seemed to be moving in a world of her own, into which her companion's chatter but rarely penetrated. She walked with a slow and delicate grace, not without a characteristic touch of languor. Once or twice she looked around her—one might almost have imagined that she was seeking escape from her ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... happened once that a girl in the village had run away with a strolling player and had gone on the stage,— an incident which had caused a great sensation in the tiny wood- encircled hamlet, and had brought all the old women of the place out to their doorsteps to croak and chatter, and prognosticate terrible things in the future for the eloping damsel. Innocent alone ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... a compact together as to the various times and tones of their song. The crowing of the cock is a sound should wake men from their beds, the horned-owl groans, the screech-owl shrieks, the night-owl cries 'tuwhit, tuwhoo', the cicalas chatter, and the swallows twitter shrill. But the wisdom and eloquence of the philosopher are ready at all times, waken awe in them that hear, are profitable to the understanding, and their ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... what help she could in saddling and bridling him, the other two men standing a little way off in silence. She kept up an incessant chatter, repeating her thanks to Cadmus for his kindness, and binding him more completely ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... the village there was no one so lonely as Aunt Judith. She missed the merry chatter of happy, cheery Rose. Bright, and merry she had been, even although there were many things that she longed for, and could not have, most of all, some one ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... to-morrow you will be fairly fit. Copperhead? Oh, never mind Copperhead. I assure you he is safe enough. Hardly fit to travel yet. What happened to him? Looks as if a tree had fallen upon him." To which chatter of Dr. Martin's Cameron could only make feeble answer, "For God's sake don't let ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... which the Yahoos sought for with much eagerness, and would suck it with great delight; it produced in them the same effects that wine has upon us. It would make them sometimes hug, and sometimes tear one another; they would howl, and grin, and chatter, and reel, and tumble, and then fall asleep ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... chatter of the members of a large "Personally Conducted" party, who were having their late lunch in the field just outside the picket-fence, grated upon Mrs. Pitt's nerves. Even more than in a cathedral with solid walls and a roof, here in this open-air, ruined temple, dating from unknown ages, ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... clouds of white smoke. The very ground seemed to shake with the thunder of heavy guns, mingled with which came the sharper sound of some of the smaller artillery in the forts and the long rattle of the machine-guns in the tops of the men-of-war. So terrible was the din that the Egyptians ceased their chatter and sat in awed silence. The shell from the Egyptian guns could be seen bursting over the vessels, while jets of water spurting out far to seaward in all directions marked the course of the ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... as the water had never made them chatter. I believe I should have fallen but for Tom, who reached out from the ranks. I stumbled forward in a daze to where the Colonel stood, and the cheering from the ranks was a thing beyond me. The Colonel's hand on my head brought me to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... impressiveness to the utterances of Jochanaan which are paralleled only by the imposing instrumental apparatus employed in proclaiming the phrase invented to clothe his pronouncements. Six horns, used as Strauss knows how to use them, are a good substratum for the arch-colorist. The nervous staccato chatter of Herod is certainly characteristic of this neurasthenic. This specimen from the pathological museum of Messrs. Wilde and Strauss appears in a state which causes alarm lest his internal mechanism fly asunder and scatter his corporeal parts ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... get on, so does discretion; to get off, ditto discretion. Men without stirrups look fine, ride bold, tire soon: men without discretion cut dash, but knock up all of a crack. Stirrups—but what sinnifies? Could say much more, your honour, but don't love chatter." ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were?" And Paul laughed until the tears came into his eyes, now that the tension was off. Tom joined him until both of them staggered and bumped together, causing Grandpa to set up an excited chatter of inquiry. ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... way Tommy Fox could keep his temper. No matter what people said to him he could still smile if it would help him to have his way. And now he kept up a never-ending chatter, without saying anything ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... artists—the "boys," as they would have called themselves—were circulating busily with teacups and petits fours, and the chatter of voices bore testimony to the preponderance of the Bohemian element. It is only the dwellers on the confines who lose their voices in the Temple of Art—a goddess who, to judge by her votaries, is not wont to take pleasure ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... rest is nothing but ... chatter and chin music.... Anybody can give advice. When it comes to bread, though, not a sign ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... poised by a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom see them actually perch on anything less airy than some telegraphic wire; but, when they do alight, each will make chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing hurry of the wings had passed into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... of rose-leaves; [51] or Vatinius, darting forward to speak, his eyes starting from his head, his neck swollen, and his muscles rigid; [52] or the Gaulish and Greek witnesses, of whom the former swagger erect across the forum, [53] the latter chatter and gesticulate without ever looking up; [54] we see in each case the master's powerful hand. Other descriptions are longer and more ambitious; the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators after detection; [55] the character of Catiline; [56] the debauchery of Antony in ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... etiquette of the table as though we were served by footmen in livery; and in our poorest days, when cups and saucers were scant and spoons still more so, we were obliged to observe the utmost decorum till we were helped; and any laughing or chatter among the younger ones was immediately quelled by the emphatic descent of father's fork upon the coverless table, with ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... morning passed quietly. The chatter of many voices showed that a portion, at any rate, of the assailants were beyond the stockade; but it was not until nine o'clock that numerous parties were seen coming from ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... from the stranger you met once. Ah, Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds; People on a lawn—quite a crowd of them. Yes, And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads; And they say, "Hurrah!" To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless, Who ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out the afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating now as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would allow even to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had dared so much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expected gratis, she would simply have ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Douaille," he exclaimed, patting the other's shoulder in friendly fashion, "to-night we merely chatter. To-night we are here to make friends, to gain each the confidence of the other. To ourselves let us pretend that we are little boys, playing the game of our nation—France, Germany, and Russia. Germany and Russia, to be frank with you, are waiting for one last word from Germany's father, ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... round, nor, if he had, would he have known the retreating gentleman for the most eminent of living playwrights; but he knew the reason for his sudden retreat. A hush had fallen, and some one had whispered, "They're coming!" The light-hearted chatter had died away on the word; perhaps it was not so light-hearted after all. But the alarm was false, there was no sign of the jury, and the talk rose again, as the ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... superfluousness of words, perhaps he confounded them all in the same category, placing the same estimate on a thought nobly expressed as on a sally of coarse wit. One would have thought so, to see the indifference with which he treated alike the chatter of the most decided mediocrities and the conversation of the noblest minds of the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... rousing fire. The place was a stony side-hill, as it would be called in New England, where such things abound; but we were not disposed to be fastidious, so we ate our salt ham and toasted our bread, and lent a pleased ear to the chatter of our Frenchmen, who could not sufficiently admire the heroism of "Madame John" amid the vicissitudes that ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... especially as she walked very gracefully. After a while Felix began to distinguish; but even then he would often wish, suddenly, that they were not all so sad. Even Lizzie Acton, in spite of her fine little chatter and laughter, appeared sad. Even Clifford Wentworth, who had extreme youth in his favor, and kept a buggy with enormous wheels and a little sorrel mare with the prettiest legs in the world—even ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere. You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind (The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind). And every one will say, As you walk your mystic way, "If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for ME, Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... a cloudless sky, an air like wine, and the chatter of birds; and by the time that Maggie went to look at the crocuses immediately before breakfast, she was all but at her ease again. Enough, however, of anxiety remained to make her hurry out to the stable-yard when she heard the postman on his way ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... leagues to Felipe. Aunt Ri's drawling tones, as she chatted volubly with young Merrill, chafed him. How could she chatter! But when he thought this, it would chance that in a few moments more he would see her clandestinely wiping away tears, and his heart would ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Calvert," was Molly's retort. "You seem to have no regard for my condition after my long journey here. I needed rest, but you kept me awake all night with your constant chatter, telling me things that ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... fast, all but the tall one, who, though she talked also, did not chatter as the others did, but spoke slowly, in a low tone which must be listened to, or it could not be heard. The four laughed a good deal, and when the tall woman smiled she lost something of her fascination, for she had large, slightly prominent eye-teeth ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... National Gallery in the shade looking southwards, across the fountains and the lions, towards the green trees under the distant tower. Once a swallow sang in passing on the wing, garrulous still as in the time of old Rome and Augustan Virgil. From the high pediments dropped the occasional chatter of sparrows and the chirp of their young in the roofs. The second brood, they were late; they would not be in time for the harvest and the fields of stubble. A flight of blue pigeons rose from the central pavement to the level line of the parapet of the western houses. A starling shot across the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... had heard Hugh sing the song before, hummed a soft accompaniment. When he began the second verse several more began to hum; they had caught the melody. The couples on the veranda moved quietly to the porch railing, their chatter silent, their attention focused on a group of dim figures standing in the shadow of an elm. Hugh was singing well, better than he ever had before. Neither he nor his audience knew that the lyric was immortal, but its tender, passionate beauty ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... said. 'Do you mean to tell me that my friendship with Mr. Done has been the subject of the usual idle chatter ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... the hollow stood the church, with its three steeples and its clock; and, a little higher, the village square, where a spring, fashioned into a fountain, gurgled from one basin into another, under a wide arched roof. I could hear from my window the chatter of the women washing their clothes, the strokes of their beaters, the rasping of the pots scoured with sand and vinegar. Sprinkled over the slopes are little houses with their garden patches in terraces banked up by tottering walls, which bulge ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... tables. It was late, and the majority of those who had been dining had departed to the theatres. Those who remained were lingering over their coffee, and were smoking; their voices were lowered to a polite monotone; the rush of the waiters had ceased, and the previous chatter had sunk to a subdued murmur. Into this, the quivering sigh of Edouard's violin penetrated like a sunbeam feeling its way into a darkened room, and, at the sound, the voices, one by one, detached themselves from the general chorus, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... tried By ring of shields, as now by ring of words; But while the gods are left, and hearts of men, And wide-doored ocean, still the days are good. Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her. Be not abroad, nor deaf with household cares 100 That chatter loudest as they mean the least; Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means nevermore; Impatient is her foot, nor turns again.' He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard Sadly, as one who oft had seen her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the body and the intellect, found no one more to his liking and more congenial to his humour than was Indaco." Nothing is recorded concerning their friendship, except that Buonarroti frequently invited Indaco to meals; and one day, growing tired of the man's incessant chatter, sent him out to buy figs, and then locked the house-door, so that he could not enter when he had discharged his errand. A boon-companion of the same type was Menighella, whom Vasari describes as "a mediocre and stupid painter ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... can't gossip. It's all in the family, as the Ericsons say when they divide up little Hilda's patrimony amongst them. Besides, we'll give them something to talk about when we hit the trail. Lord, it will be a godsend to them! They haven't had anything so interesting to chatter about since the grasshopper year. It'll give them a new lease of life. And Olaf won't lose the Bohemian vote, either. They'll have the laugh on him so that they'll vote two apiece. They'll send him to Congress. They'll never forget his barn party, or us. They'll ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... troll the bowl to you, then let it go round, My heels are so light they can stand on no ground; My tongue it doth chatter, and goes pitter patter, Here's good beer and strong beer, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... stately Court of Versailles. Again we see the scornful critics, bunched with glistening ribbons, shaking back their cascades of blonde hair, lolling contemptuously on the foremost benches, and "looking big through their curls." There from "Fop's Corner" rises the tipsy laugh, the prattle, and the chatter, as the dukes and lords, the wits and courtiers, practise what Dryden calls "the diving bow," or "the toss and the new French wallow"—the diving bow being especially admired, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... angry scream and chatter at the approach of an enemy, darts the "ousel cock so black of hue, with orange-tawny bill." How dull a lawn would be without his pert movements when he comes down alternately with his russet wife. One blackbird with a ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... on, and I kept the running chatter up through the mike in the helmet, relaying to the ship's transmitter. The scene in ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... persons when the door was thrust ajar, followed by the scrape of chairs on a stone floor, as if pushed back by their occupiers in rising from a table. The door was closed again, and nothing could now be heard from within, save a lively chatter and the rattle ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... platform under the cottonwood-bough pavilion in the evening. It was a riotous day, and Bob and Molly being lovers of long acceptance assumed a paternal attitude to John and Jane that was charming in the main, but sometimes embarrassing. And of all the chatter he only remembered that Jane said: "Think how many years these old woods have been here—how many hundred years—maybe when the mound-builders were here! Don't you suppose that they are used to—to young people—oh, maybe Indian lovers, and all ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... door I locks it behind him. Followin' which, Doris uses the powder-puff under her eyes a little and we adjourns to the Plutoria palm-room, where we had a perfectly good dinner, all the humility Westy could buy with a two-dollar tip, and no folksy chatter on the side. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... friendliness for a prig. But her life-long loyalty refused this incipient rivalry; once more she decided that Miriam must have what she wanted, and she lay with clenched hands and a tranquil brow while she listened to the chatter ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... swiftly passing autumn fields, his gaze was listless. Once he muttered several times, as though he were out of his head; and when they drove into the yard, his face was turning blue at the lips and his teeth began to chatter. Close behind ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... fellow who has just been under instruction; let him chatter freely, ask questions, and talk at his ease, and you will be surprised to find the strange forms your arguments have assumed in his mind; he confuses everything, and turns everything topsy-turvy; you are vexed and grieved by his unforeseen objections; he reduces you to be silent yourself or to ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... unborn baby passionately, and she knew already the colour of his eyes and the shape of his hands and how he laughed. She liked to talk of his upbringing, and since the best man on earth was Vladimir, all her ideas were reduced to making the boy as charming as his father. There was no end to her chatter, and everything she talked about filled her with a lively joy. Sometimes I, too, rejoiced, though I ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... chatter of such a small matter As Ladies Magnetic, with mystical forces, Whose billiard-cue business strikes with sheer dizziness Muscular Miloes who're game to lift horses. As MITCHELL the bulky was made ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... of the deep vault overhead, scores of swift-darting birds were wheeling about in the still air, uttering sharp clear cries, as though calling one another to rest below, women stood at their house-doors gossiping with their neighbours; peals of laughter and the incessant chatter of feminine voices mingled with the din of horses' hoofs on the hard road and with the never-ending jingle of the harness-bells. Gazing lazily down into the street, my attention was suddenly arrested by the singular appearance and behavior of an odd-looking brown dog, which seemed to be seeking ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... managing affairs, was an object of romantic interest. The girls surmised that Cherry must be making friends; that everyone must admire her; that Martin would be rich some day, without doubt. When her letters came, there was always animated chatter about the fire. ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... long ago deserting the garden neighborhood, feed at eventide in flocks upon the bloody berries of the sumac; and the soft-eyed pigeons dispute possession of the feast. The squirrels chatter at sunrise, and gnaw off the full-grown burrs of the chestnuts. The lazy blackbirds skip after the loitering cow, watchful of the crickets that her slow steps start to danger. The crows in companies caw aloft, and hang high over the carcass of some slaughtered ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... is not fear of hurt as hurt. It is an infinitely intensified dislike of suspense and uncertainty, sudden noise and shock. It belongs wholly to the physical organism, and the only cure that I know is to make an act of personal dissociation from the behaviour of one's flesh. Your teeth may chatter and your knees quake, but as long as the real you disapproves and derides this absurdity of the flesh, the composite you can carry on. Closely allied to the sensation of nameless dread caused by high explosives is that caused by gas. No one can carry out a relief in the trenches ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... make hay while the sun of my nature shone upon him and delicately to inquire into my spiritual condition. He didn't. He just let the wind blow into my empty spaces and kept his eyes and thoughts on the road ahead of him. Charlotte's chatter with father was blown back from me and I was happy in a kind of aloneness I had never ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... flew out of the hedges, with a whirring sound, to settle further on, while an incessant chatter was kept up on ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... is beautiful, marvellously beautiful, only unfortunately I am not allowed even to attempt its description. That must ever remain a mystery to the living because—but that is no matter, and evil would befall me if I were to chatter." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with a singular delight in her comprehension of his idle, irresponsible chatter, she from sheer pleasure in listening and looking at this man who was so different from anybody she had ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... at once so droll and so sad about this child, with her precocious knowledge and ignorant simplicity, that the lad's honest tender heart was touched with a sudden pity as he listened to her artless chatter. He was almost glad when her confidences drifted away to more childlike subjects of interest, and she told him about her toys, and books, and pictures, and songs; she could sing a great many songs, she said, but Horace could not persuade her ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... energy in his soul that communicated themselves to all concerned. Then everybody would talk at once, and everybody insist upon showing everybody else what had been done since morning, and there was more hanging of pictures and changing of furniture, and so much chatter and laughter that it was a ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... with tiresome detail, the eminent persons whom he had met and who had treated him like a valued friend. The vein on the little doctor's high forehead swelled with wrath as he listened to this boastful chatter, which did not cease until the first dish was served. To brave him, Eberbach turned the conversation to humanism, its redeeming power over minds, and its despicable foes. His scornful jests buzzed around ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his own reasons for withdrawing from the contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of Lord Palmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of his prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous apprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatter of irresponsible clubmen and M.P.'s was an insupportable affliction; so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, and departed on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himself off as completely as possible from his usual environment, he left no address at his lodgings, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... bedroom on that side of the house so that even times of hair-brushing may not be entirely lost, and the young woman who attends to such matters has been taught to fulfil her duties about a mistress recumbent in an easychair before an open window, and not to profane with chatter that sweet and solemn time. This girl is grieved at my habit of living almost in the garden, and all her ideas as to the sort of life a respectable German lady should lead have got into a sad muddle since she came to me. ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... all this chatter about my amiable friends, I find myself in danger of forgetting the purpose of our visit. We lost no time in preparation, since whaling of whatever sort is conducted in these ships on precisely similar lines, but on Monday morning, at daybreak, after a hurried breakfast, lowered ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil; To din thine ears with unharmonious clack, And haunt thy holy walls in white and black. What else are those thou seest in bishop's gear, Who crop the nurseries of learning here; Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate, Devour the church, and chatter to the state? As you grew more degenerate and base, I sent you millions of the croaking race; Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn Through all thy land, in armour, fur, and lawn; A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls, And in the chambers of your viceroy crawls! See, where that ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... herself the next day be delighted with the very same shaped bonnet if brought her by a French milliner and told it was all the fashion, and in a week's time will become quite familiar with the maid, and chatter with her (upon equal terms) about caps and ribbons and lace by the hour together. There is no difference between them but that of situation in the kitchen or in the parlour: let circumstances bring them together, and they fit like hand and glove. It is like mistress, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... one small detail of Sada's story. When I was fastening her simple white gown for the dance her chatter was like that of a sunny-hearted child. Indeed, she liked to dance. Susan did not think it harmful. She said if your heart was right your feet would follow. When Miss West could spare her she always went to parties with Billy, and ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... in familiarly among the rest, so did one or two eldest sons; shy, mute young men tricked out in gorgeous jewelry, and highly honored by an invitation to this literary solemnity, the boldest men among them so far shook off the weight of awe as to chatter a good deal with Mlle. de la Haye. The women solemnly arranged themselves in a circle, and the men stood behind them. It was a quaint assemblage of wrinkled countenances and heterogeneous costumes, but none the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... to the interior were narrow and much obstructed; one fine stream was crossed. Many buffaloes were observed wallowing in the mire, and the woods swarmed with monkeys and numbers of birds, among them the horn-bills; these kept up a continued chatter, and made a variety of loud noises. The forests here are entirely different from any we had seen elsewhere; and the stories of their being the abode of large boas and poisonous snakes, make the effect ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... court! Tonet, of all men! The people in the Cabanal are donkeys, idiots, rotters, that's all! Tonet, God save us! Why, Tonet ... he worships Dolores, like a mother.... But no, my house has simply got to be a brothel, for those chatter-boxes.... Tonet! God!" And the Rector laughed one of those hearty laughs of pitying superiority at the stupidity of people, the kind of laugh the Spanish peasant gives when he hears some benighted ignoramus questioning the authenticity ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... some lingering charm in it, some curiously potent suggestion of personal interest which stirred his pulses. He looked up and met her eyes. For a moment the world of tennis fields, of pleasant chatter and of holiday-makings, passed away. He rose abruptly to his feet. This time he avoided ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
