"Rattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hillsides! And how keenly does the ear listen for this infinite silence! Or we hear of the immensities of night where nothing remains except light and flame: far off, the smouldering of fires; far up, the sparkle of stars, the shapes of constellations, the august order of the universe. Very soon the rattle of machine-guns, the thunder of explosives, the clamour of attack will begin anew; there will again be killing and dying. What a contrast of human fury and eternal serenity! More or less vaguely, and for a brief moment, there comes into passing life ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... silence that is full of the night noises of a great city. A stringed instrument of some kind is just, and only just, audible. High overhead some one throws open a window, and the rattle of the wood-work echoes down the empty street. On one of the roofs, a hookah is in full blast; and the men are talking softly as the pipe gutters. A little farther on, the noise of conversation is more distinct. A slit of light shows itself between the sliding shutters of a shop. Inside, a stubble-bearded, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... a city of the Zunis, came Estevan, the black man who had been with Cabeza de Vaca, with a rattle in his hand and very black behavior. Him the Indians killed, and the priest who was with him they frightened away. Then came Coronado, with an army from Mexico, riding up the west coast and turning east from the ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... consist of mashkikiwab[-u][n], or medicine broth, this being the prescription of the Mid[-e] in the capacity of mashkikikewin[)i]n[)i], or herbalist, during which medication he resorts to incantation and exorcism, accompanying his song by liberal use of the rattle. As an illustration of the songs used at this period of the illness, the following is presented, the mnemonic characters being reproduced on Pl. XVI, C. The singing is monotonous and doleful, though at times it ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... by these assurances. No voice like that of Godfrey had power to sooth his mind to serenity. But though he sought to restrain himself, he listened to every noise. He started at the sound of every foot, and the rattle of a carriage in the street agitated ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... the critters. Ef ye could think of anything to git the best o' them cow-boys 'twould suit pretty well. Them boys are gettin' to be a reg'lar nuisance. They go 'long drawin' of their sticks on people's fences jist as if there was solid comfort in that eternal rattle, rattle, rattle. What makes boys think they can't never enjoy themselves unless they're a-makin' a noise? But I've had the best of them for two or three years. They had to stop in front of my place. But now the cows is gittin' to be wus ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... playing with a gun. You see, I had graduated on Lewis Wentz's steamer and a twenty-mile clip didn't feaze me any, though there were times when I'd forget which things to pull, and this always seemed to rattle his little nerves. It was strange, however, what a coward I was when I first went out by myself. There was no devil left in me at all, and I was certainly the crawly-crawliest bubbler you ever saw, and I teetered at street-car crossings till everybody went ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... to idleness until we go to New Orleans. I have one article already finished, but somehow it doesn't seem as proper a chapter to close with as the one already in your hands. I hope to get in a mood and rattle off a good one to finish with—but just now all my moods ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... known as one of the best housekeepers in Brewster, and no one had ever seen her looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's untidy appearance was a real trouble ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... my dear sister; though to ME, as a mother, it is highly flattering. He is so extremely attached to my daughter that he could not exist longer without seeing her. Sir James is a young man of an amiable disposition and excellent character; a little too much of the rattle, perhaps, but a year or two will rectify THAT: and he is in other respects so very eligible a match for Frederica, that I have always observed his attachment with the greatest pleasure; and am persuaded that you and my brother will give the alliance your hearty ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... ship-money; but during the whole of the war not a shot was fired within hearing of the county capital. There was a question of safeguarding the powdermills at Chilworth, and these were secured for the Parliamentary Army. Otherwise, Guildford heard nothing more of the war than the rattle of accoutrements; there were a few levies stationed in the town, and a troop or two of horse rode through it. Perhaps Guildford's unhappiest memory of war is an echo of Sedgmoor, forty years later. The Duke of Monmouth, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... took away the cloth, and turned the pot upside down upon her hearthstone. What was her surprise to find that, instead of the deadly snake which she expected to see fall out of it, there fell out with a rattle and a clang a most magnificent ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... Circus-Day parade! How the bugles played and played! And how the glossy horses tossed their flossy manes, and neighed, As the rattle and the rhyme of the tenor-drummer's time Filled all the hungry hearts of us ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... [1201]houses, which the Italians call foliots, most part innoxious, [1202]Cardan holds; "They will make strange noises in the night, howl sometimes pitifully, and then laugh again, cause great flame and sudden lights, fling stones, rattle chains, shave men, open doors and shut them, fling down platters, stools, chests, sometimes appear in the likeness of hares, crows, black dogs," &c. of which read [1203]Pet Thyraeus the Jesuit, in his ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... it, quotha! Ay, truly, but how? By rapine, taxation, wars, plunder! Therefore why shall not others use like means? If it be fair for them, I say it is fair for us!" Wulf brought down his fist upon the table with a blow that made the cups rattle. "Therefore now is our chance, say I! All is confusion; the lords fight amongst themselves; we are slowly gaining the ground they lose—let us also ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... there came a picture of the silver fox and a thought of his dream, when for a few miles he had explored the mysteries of this strange, sunless world shut in by rock walls. Again he saw the dancing skeletons, heard the rattle of their bones, and watched the wonderful dream-battle that had led him to the birch-bark map. Wabigoon, his eyes gleaming in the gathering darkness, thought of their flight from the ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... toast wuz read, there wuz a clap uv thunder heard, wich shook the buildin, and made not only the windows rattle, but the glasses to dance on the table, and the gost uv Androo Jaxson hisself, in the uniform uv 1812, come down through the ceelin. There wuz a frown on his countenance, terrible to behold. Turnin to the company, he remarked that the gate-keeper uv hell must hev ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... forth blowing a call which, as it dies away, is answered by a skirl of pipes and tapping of drums from a remote corner of the barracks. The guests fall back as the sound swells on the night, drawing nearer. Pipes are shrieking now; the rattle of drums shakes the windows. Two folding doors fall wide, and through them stalks a ghostly guard headed by the ghost of Sergeant Hugh McQuarters, in kilt and tartan and cross-belt yet spotted ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... impatient strides. "Pierre Philibert!" exclaimed he, "where is the poor lad? He must be sought for and saved yet. What demons have assailed him now? Was it the serpent of strong drink, that bites men mad, or the legion of fiends that rattle the dice-box in their ears? Or was it the last temptation, which never fails when all else has ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and again the somber tragedy reenacts itself in my consciousness—over and over I lay the plan, I suffer the confirmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is blank; and afterward the rains beat against the grimy window-panes, or the snows fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the squalid streets where my life lies in poverty and mean employment. If there is ever sunshine I do not recall it; if there are birds ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... lost the sharp rattle of musketry continued some time, but practically the fight had been already won by Hooker's men, the enemy only holding on with a rear-guard to assure his retreat across Chattanooga Valley to Missionary Ridge. Later we heard very heavy cannonading, and fearing ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... middle of the night the hapless Bega was aroused by the sharp rattle of the curtain rings pulled violently along the rods. He sat up in bed, in the mechanical trepidation which we all feel on waking with such a start. He saw standing before him a Spaniard wrapped in a cloak, who fixed on him the same burning gaze ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... indeed!" cried Mrs. Macallister. "Is that the way you let your brother make game of people, Miss Halleck?" She directed a good deal of her rattle at Olive; she scarcely spoke to Marcia, but she was nevertheless furtively observant of her. Mr. Macallister had his rattle too, which, after trying it unsatisfactorily upon Marcia, he plied almost exclusively for Olive. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... sister, thanks! the men have bled, Their wives and their children faint for bread. I stood in a swampy field of battle; With bones and skulls I made a rattle, To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow And the homeless dog—but they would not go. So off I flew: for how could I bear To see them gorge their dainty fare? I heard a groan and a peevish squall, And through the chink of a cottage-wall— Can you guess ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... to thunder, You will hear it all around!' And we waited—till in wonder Soon we heard the awful sound: Crashing cannon, rifle-rattle, Bowing many a traitor-head: On, McClellan, with the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a stone rattle up above, somewhere, and a sick horror rushed over me, because of the gipsy men coming back with ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... am rather like your father," she said. "I don't understand;" and in the silence which followed upon her words Feversham heard something whirr and rattle upon the table. He looked and saw that she had slipped her engagement ring off her finger. It lay upon the table, the stones ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude instinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated into the room. Above the hoarse loud hum, arose, from time to time, a boisterous laugh; or a scrap of some jingling song, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... that we had a taste of real war in all its horrors. It was a sort of a floating panorama that passed before me, a hideous dream. There was a roaring and crashing of artillery, bursting of shells and the rattle of muskets, with hissing and whistling of minie balls and battle-smoke lowering down upon us. There were men dropping here and there and all the horrid experiences of war. Still we kept on; there was a short turn to the right and in ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... shall the traitor rest, He, the deceiver, Who would win maiden's breast, Ruin, and leave her? In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying; Eleu loro There shall ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... a third nest of steerages, labelled 4 and 5. The second cabin, to return, is thus a modified oasis in the very heart of the steerages. Through the thin partition you can hear the steerage passengers being sick, the rattle of tin dishes as they sit at meals, the varied accents in which they converse, the crying of their children terrified by this new experience, or the clean flat smack of the parental hand ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him warily, and descending to feed at a more ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... coming from the bunk-house, wiped his hands on his apron, rolled a cigarette, and squatted in the shade. From within came the clatter of knives and forks and the rattle of dishes. The riders of the Concho were about through dinner. Wingle, gazing down the road, suddenly cast his cigarette away and rose. The road seemed empty save for a lean brown shape that raced toward ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... directed against Fort Sanders; but several shots struck the Powell House, in rear of Battery Noble. Roemer immediately responded from College Hill. In about twenty minutes the enemy's fire slackened, and in its stead rose the well-known Rebel yell, in the direction of the fort. Then followed the rattle of musketry, the roar of cannon, and the bursting of shells. The yells died away, and then rose again. Now the roar of musketry and artillery was redoubled. It was a moment of the deepest anxiety. Our ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... said, and stepped in front of the white horse. There was a moment's pause, and then the sergeant's arms were raised, and down came the sticks with a rolling rattle on the leather. They sent a shiver of feeling through the village, and turned the meek white horse into a charger of war. No man laughed at the drama performed in Pontiac that day, not even the little coterie who were present, not even Monsieur De la Riviere, whose brow was black with hatred, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as that we must have heard the report, we should have thought they had been firing volleys.[99] After we had looked at them attentively some time, without taking any notice of their flashing and vociferation, we fired some muskets over their heads: Upon hearing the balls rattle among the trees, they walked leisurely away, and we returned to the ship. Upon examining the weapons they had thrown at us, we found them to be light darts, about four feet long, very ill made, of a reed or bamboo cane, and pointed with hard wood, in which there were many barbs. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... a little but she was plainly anxious that he should not notice it. He stood a moment silent, holding her hand. From the direction of the jungle-road there came the sounds of the approaching party—the rattle of hoofs and jingle of bells mingling with laughing voices and gay shouts. It seemed incredible that a bare ten minutes had elapsed since their own ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... three o'clock. The rain has ceased falling, but the sky is still gray and threatening. The wind howls dismally among the old trees that surround John Burrill's shallow grave, and its weird wail, combined with the rattle and creak of the branches, and the drip, drip of water, dropping from the many crevices into the old cellar, unite to form a fitting requiem for an occasion so ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine breaking softly into it through leafy greenness, was a delightful thing to Miss Fox-Seton, who was accustomed to opening her eyes upon four walls covered with cheap paper, to the sound of outside hammerings, and the rattle and heavy roll of wheels. In a building at the back of her bed-sitting-room there lived a man whose occupation, beginning early in the morning, involved banging of ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of an entirely different type. Big, husky, happy-go-lucky—a poor student but a right jolly companion; a fellow who could pitch into any kind of sport and play an uncommonly good game at almost anything. More than that, he could rattle off ragtime untiringly and his nimble fingers could catch up on the piano any tune he heard whistled. What wonder he speedily became the idol of Colversham? He was a born leader, tactfully marshaling at will the boys who were his own age, and ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... word was spoken until, above the swish of the water and the rattle of the rowlocks, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... in their comfortably-arranged trenches with but a thin outpost in their fire trenches, they had watched day succeed day and night succeed night without the least variation from the monotony of trench warfare, the intermittent bark of the machine guns—rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—and the perpetual rattle of rifle fire, with here and there a bomb, and now and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... thinking deeply about the dinner you will have at the next stage; when, down at the end of the long avenue of trees through which you are travelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... tall, dark, neither handsome nor plain, remarkable for his unparalleled facility in speaking. He owed his universal popularity to the fact that at students' Parties he could at any time stand up and rattle off at a furious rate an apparently unprepared speech, a sort of stump speech in which humorous perversions, distortions, lyric remarks, clever back-handed blows to right and left, astonishing incursions and rapid sorties, were woven into ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... An ocean Ishmaelite, he wanders forever aimlessly, homelessly; now unheard of for months, now careening his boat on some lonely uninhabited shore, now appearing suddenly to swoop down on some merchant vessel with rattle of musketry, shouting, yells, and a hell of unbridled passions let loose to rend and tear. What a Carlislean hero! What a setting of blood and lust and flame and rapine ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... rather a Levite than a Samaritan. In mere self-defence, I would have been constrained to keep up a series of general and impersonal reflections till the swagman lost his individuality—say, five or six hours—but I was rescued from this tyranny by the faint rattle of a buggy on the other side of the river. Idly turning my glass on the two occupants of the vehicle, I recognised one of them as a familiar and valued friend—a farmer, residing five or six miles down the river, on the Victorian side. I rose and walked to the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... hear the cry of "Vive la Republique," then came a sharp rattle of musketry, some of the bullets pinging against the walls ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... do with this crazy old rattle-trap?" inquired young Hinman plaintively. "Would one of you boys accept a dollar to drive this over to Fenton, and put the horse up in my father's barn? The trip can be made in two ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... spasm distorted the livid face; the eye-balls rolled, the death-rattle sounded. With a smothered cry of terror Lady Kingsland lifted the agonized ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... the machinery in its inward parts a shake, and makes one more effort to crawl. A queer rattle, shiver, and groan run through it from tip to tail. But the effort is too much for it. It immediately subsides on a lame and impotent stomach, and hour after hour passes with no other diversion except ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... scolding and crying at a fearful rate, and on going out saw the bluebirds in possession of the box. The poor wrens were in despair; they wrung their hands and tore their hair, after the wren fashion, but chiefly did they rattle out their disgust and wrath at the intruders. I have no doubt that, if it could have been interpreted, it would have proven the rankest and most voluble Billingsgate ever uttered. For the wren is saucy, and he has a tongue in his head that can outwag any ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... gone Lady Ingleton took up "The Liverpool Mercury" and tried to read the news of the day. The March wind roared outside and made the windows rattle. She listened to it and forgot the chronicle of the passing hour. She was a women who cared to know the big things that were happening in the big world. She had always lived among men who were helping to make history, and she was intelligent enough to understand their efforts and to join ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... beyond every sky-line. And I can't help envying you, Dinkie, for being a part of that world which is so much more heroic than mine. I live where a very shabby line of horse-cars used to run; and you live where the buffaloes used to run. I hear the rattle of the ash-cans in the morning; and you hear the song of the wind playing on the harp of summer. I pay five hundred dollars a year to wander about a smoky club no bigger than your corral; you wander about a Big Outdoors that rambles off up to the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... outside the gate is still to be seen a grotesque metal profile, riddled with the bullets of French conscripts, who made a target of it in sport or insult, when a halt was called. Now the place is sleepy and quiet enough: there are no diligences to rattle and lumber over the stones, and the most warlike spectacle there is provided by the Swiss militiamen as they march in periodically from the neighbouring villages to have their arms inspected, singing choruses all the way. There is a railway, it is true, on the Klein Laufingen bank, but a railway ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... while a conversation took place on various subjects. Presently, taking out his watch, the pirate turned to the younger lady, observing that it was nearing teatime. Mrs. Pease No. 2, laying down her sewing, went to the cabin, from which the rattle of teacups and the hiss of a boiling kettle were soon heard. Tea being announced as ready, the party entered the cabin, Mrs. Pease senior taking the place at the head of the table and pouring out the tea while the younger Mrs. Pease very prettily handed round ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... and the whale-line was gone. Only one rope now held them to the land, and prevented them being swept into the turmoil of ice, and wind, and water, from which the rocky ledge protected them. The hawser was a good one—a new ten-inch rope. It sung like the deep tones of an organ, loud above the rattle of the rigging and the shrouds, but that was its death-song. It gave way with the noise of a cannon, and in the smoke that followed its recoil, they were dragged out by the wild ice and driven hither ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... A raised quarter-deck at the stern held more soldiers, the sunlight flashing merrily upon their armor and their gun-barrels; as they neared, the English could hear plainly the cracks of the whips, and the yells as of wild beasts which answered them; the roll and rattle of oars, and the loud "Ha!" of the slaves which accompanied every stroke, and the oaths and curses of the drivers; while a sickening musky smell, as of a pack of kennelled hounds, came down the wind from off those dens ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... There was a rattle and a rush, and a five-plough cultivator, blades in air like so many teeth, trundled itself at us round the edge of the timber, fuming and ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... addressed to the evil ones is performed in the following manner. The assistants assemble in the hut or tent of the wizard, who is concealed in a corner of the tent, where he has a drum, one or two round calabashes with a few small sea shells in them to make a noise, like the maraca or rattle of the Brazilian sorcerers, and some square bags of painted hide in which he keeps his spells. He begins the ceremony by making a strange noise with his drum and rattle, after which he feigns to fall into a fit, which is supposed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... and called us and our dinner guests from the beginning of a meal. Another paid us an early morning call. Then for nearly three weeks we enjoyed undisturbed rest at night. Not once did the "alerte" send us shivering to damp cellars; not once did we hear the deep "boom" followed by a savage jar and rattle which differentiates the falling bomb or torpedo from the cannon. We said, fatuously, that we believed all the airplanes were engaged up on the English front, and that at last our mastery of the air must be ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... triumph. As soon as Lashly got on to the Barrier, Scott took his party away and they returned to Cape Evans. It would have been a disappointment to them if they had known that we shortly afterwards heard an ominous rattle, which turned out to be the big end brass of one of the connecting rods churning up—due to a ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... beautifully-brushed hair, who was some thousands of miles away in the baking plains of Hindostan, amid deserted bungalows, seething bazaars, and riotous barrack squares, listening to the throbbing of tom-toms and the distant rattle of musketry. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... parallel lines of willows of the same size, shape, and dimensions; then for 3 hours more did we proceed at a foot pace over a common; this brought us to Breda just in time for the gates, through which we trotted to the usual rattle of drawbridges, chains, &c. By the bright light of the moon at night and earliest dawn of the following morning we rambled through the streets. Breda was one of the last towns which got rid of its French garrison without a siege; it departed one night without beat of drum, and the Cossacks ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... but to offer marriage and make a lady of her. I proposed: she accepted me, and here I am, eternally tied to this accurst insignia, if I'm to keep my promise! Isn't that a sacrifice, friend H.? There's no course open to me. The poor girl is madly in love. She called me a "rattle!" As ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... homely wits. Having no experience of the rumble and rattle of traffic they ascribe to thunder a mysterious origin, and indicate though with reserve, the very place where it is made. The swirl of a creek in the mainland has excavated a circular water hole in a soft rock, brick red in colour. This hole is the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... green gou'd on de sunny shed Was mighty proud of his pethy head, So he nuver pondered or studied or trained, An' now he's ol' an' rattle-brained. An' he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— An' he ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Figure with a rattle-stick in the right hand. From near Alvarado, Vera Cruz, Mexico. Totonacan ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the judgment? I weary of these dogmatizers. I tire of these hacks of routine, who deny the dogmas. I neither affirm nor deny. I stand here to try the case. I am here to consider,—to consider how it is. I will try to keep the balance true. Of what use to take the chair, and glibly rattle off theories of societies, religion, and nature, when I know that practical objections lie in the way, insurmountable by me and by my mates? Why so talkative in public, when each of my neighbors can pin me to my seat by arguments I cannot refute? Why pretend that life ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... before, but the shrill wail of the curlew is never sounded from knoll to knoll now. The horn lantern is not seen by the roadsides, nor the quick flashlight that signalled the coast was clear; and the rattle of the horses' hoofs on the stones during the mystic night is never now heard. There is nothing to indicate, in fact, that this lonely, superb piece of England was once (not so long ago) a great centre of illicit trading. The smuggler ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... in their places. All the old whitewash had to be washed off the ceilings and all the old paper had to be scraped off the walls preparatory to the house being repainted and decorated. The air was full of the sounds of hammering and sawing, the ringing of trowels, the rattle of pails, the splashing of water brushes, and the scraping of the stripping knives used by those who were removing the old wallpaper. Besides being full of these the air was heavily laden with dust and disease germs, powdered mortar, lime, plaster, and the dirt that ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... while denser banks on either flank marked the position of the whirling guns. Wearied and spent with a hundred miles' ride the dusty riders and the panting, dripping horses took fresh heart as they saw the broad city before them, and swept with martial rattle and jingle towards the cheering crowds. Amid shouts and tears French rode into Kimberley while his troopers encamped ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the reality of the sense of something gliding over me in the night. The hunger of the reptile had steered him straight to the cage of the mice, whose cry of agony at the presence of the great enemy of mouse-kind had fortunately roused me from my lethargy,—for the rattle of the snake is but a drowsy sound, and will not awaken the sleeper. How the Mangouste came to appear on the scene at the nick of time, I know not. He might have come in at the open window, or possibly had been sleeping, since ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of our hotel, the rattle of drums gave note of some display of war; an event of daily occurrence during this season of the year throughout these northern States, where playing at soldiers is one of the choicest amusements. Captain B——n asked a stander-by what volunteer ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... no chance, if she sought it. He courted her profusely. Behind his rattle he must have brains. It ran in all directions to entertain ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a formidable thickness, and he dreaded lest the time that would elapse till the next visit of his jailer, should be insufficient for him to overcome the obstacle. To his unspeakable delight, however, his first effort caused the grating to shake and rattle. The stone into which the extremities of the bars were riveted was of no very hard description; the iron was corroded by the rust of centuries, and Paco at once saw, that what he had looked forward to as a task of severe difficulty, would be accomplished with the utmost ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... pealing down from the skipper's lofty perch, succeeded instantly by the rattle of the patent blocks as the falls flew through them, while the 20 four beautiful craft took the water with an almost simultaneous splash. The ship keepers had trimmed the yards to the wind and hauled up the courses, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Civil-Service examination, and that afternoon a lesson was due, so I went over to let him see how little I knew. I was in pain and was so blue that I could hardly speak without weeping, so I told the Reverend Father how tired I was of the rattle and bang, of the glare and the soot, the smells and the hurry. I told him what I longed for was the sweet, free open, and that I would like to homestead. That was Saturday evening. He advised me to go straight uptown and put an "ad" in the paper, so as to get it into the Sunday ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... footsteps crunch the gravel as he walked away. A minute later the front door shut, and there was a rattle. Mr Kay had put the chain up and retired ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... flag against attack. Large numbers of insects thus coloured are nauseous and inedible; others, like wasps and bees, have stings; others are too hard to be eaten by small birds; while snakes with poisonous fangs often have some characteristic either of rattle, hood, or unusual colour, which indicates that they ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... is by our compass and bearings, and the fires which lighten up the clouds in spots right over them. One, two, and three o'clock have passed; no sail or sound yet, and the night so dark we cannot see a ship's length away. Half past three, and we begin to heave anchor. The rattle of the chains is just enough to drown the sound of paddle wheels should a steamer approach, and the sound of her own wheels would in turn drown our noise; so if one does run in to land, it may be over us, for any warning we should have ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the enemy's Maxim-Nordenfelts had loosed off a group of the gaily-painted little shells. With the reduplicated rattle of the detonation, they passed over the laager, bursting as they went, sending their fan-shaped showers of splinters broadcast. Slatternly women and scared children bolted for their burrows. Rasu the Sweeper dived frantically between the fore and hind wheels of a waggon, praying to all ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... have a flagrant example of what is nothing less than spiritual miscegenation—that's it!—why didn't I think of that phrase before—spiritual miscegenation. A rattle-brained boy, with the connivance of a common magistrate, effects a certain kind of alliance with a person inferior to him in every point of view—birth, breeding, station, culture, wealth—a person, moreover, who will doubtless be glad to relinquish ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... as gathered from long hoards Stored up with cruel care, to be discharged With sudden blaze of pyrotechnic art On the devoted, gentle, shrinking head O' the right incomparable gentleman! [Laughter.] But were my humble, solemn, sad oration [Laughter.] Indeed such rattle as he rated it, Is it not strange, and passing precedent, That the illustrious chief of Government Should have uprisen with such indecent speed And strenuously replied? He, sir, knows well That vast and luminous talents like ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... about this gay store world with a sense of kingly superiority. He listened indulgently to the idle chatter of the shop girls, the rattle of the cash boxes, and smiled at the seriousness with which this business of selling was pressed. What a tremendous ado they made of living, with year after year, month after month, day after day, ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... banging tampani and the crash of cymbals, rattle of tambourines and beating of tomtoms, the barbaric Ethiopians of the dancing orchestra began their syncopated outrages against every known law of harmony—swinging weirdly into the bewitching, tickling, tingling rhythm ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... serious disaster. The bearer of the intelligence was little Jennet, who said she had been caught in the ruins by the storm, and after being dreadfully frightened by the lightning, had seen a bolt strike the steeple, and heard some stones rattle down, after which she ran away. No one thought of inquiring what she had been doing there at the time, but room was made for her at the supper-table next to Sampson Harrop, while the good steward, patting her on ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that settled upon his face, for she had turned half away from him, and was gazing vacantly across the river. There was an unpleasant pause, which was broken by the noise of voices in alarm near the house, the trampling of hoofs, and the rattle of wheels. ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... on his lips. He hadn't got any further than a b-ish sound, when the handle of the door began to twist and rattle. He sprang from the bed, and for an instant stood looking exactly like a picture my Aunt Agatha has in her dining-room—The Stag at Bay—Landseer. Then he made a dive for the cupboard and was inside it before one really got on to ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... was not mistaken. In spite of the two partitions which separated us from the scene of this angry interview, we distinctly heard the furious accents of passion. All at once a violent shock made the wall—thin enough, it is true—creak and rattle; then, a moment afterward, we heard the fall as of a body, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a rush of footsteps and a jangle of voices outside in the hall; and as the four rose up from table, looking at one another, there was a rattle at the handle outside, the door flew open, and a ruddy strongly-built man stood there, with a slightly apprehensive air, and holding a loaded cane a little ostentatiously in his hand; the faces of several men looked ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... often reigns at the beginning of a dinner the wheezing of his unsound lungs was painfully noticeable. The rich Chueta pursed his lips, rounding them like the mouth of a trumpet, and drew in the air with a disagreeable rattle. Like all sick people he was eager to talk, and his sentences were long drawn out from a combination of stammering and pauses which left him with palpitating chest and eyes aloft, as if he were about to die of asphyxia. An atmosphere of uneasiness ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... reply, it was drowned id the rattle and clank of the massive bars, and is hopelessly lost to posterity. The huge door swung back; but nothing was visible but a sort of black velvet pall, and effluvia much stronger than sweet. Involuntarily ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... in this unsatisfactory manner for about ten minutes, when suddenly the dash and rattle of oars was heard alongside, immediately followed by a ringing British cheer. In another instant a ghastly blue glare of light illumined the decks; and we saw Douglas, at the head of the pinnace's crew, fling himself in over the bulwarks, with a lighted port-fire held aloft in one hand, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... comes the bursting of a shell immediately overhead, and the rattle of its fragments on the roof of the bomb-proof dug-out. Think what it must have meant to this eager, ardent, pleasure-loving spirit to sit out, day after day, in a chill, sodden, verminous trench, a grand orchestral concert of this music of ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... upon his knees. He clutched at the edge of his coat and raised it to his lips, wherefrom blood was gushing forth. Max stooped eagerly, for as the Greek had collapsed upon the floor, he had heard the rattle of keys. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... streets. In Dublin a man leaves the city behind him when he enters the college, passes completely out of the atmosphere of the University when he steps on to the pavement. The physical contrast is striking enough, appealing to the ear and the eye. The rattle of the traffic, the jangling of cart bells, the inarticulate babel of voices, suddenly cease when the archway of the great ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... proposed negotiations, they became less ardent and were all disposed to recede. At last, after much discussion, the matter was settled, and before nightfall a drummer was set upon the external parapet of the Porcupine, who forthwith began to beat vigorously for a parley. The rattle was a welcome sound in the ears of the weary besiegers, just drawn up in column for a desperate assault, and the tidings were at once communicated to the archduke in Fort St. Albert. The prince manifested at first some unwillingness to forego the glory of the attack, from which he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dislodged at any price, but they can form no definite ideas; they merely grip their rifles and go on mechanically. The word is given—the dark lines dash forward; the firing from the wood breaks out in a crash of fury—there is a long harsh rattle, then a chance crack like a thunder-clap, and then a whirring like the spinning of some demoniac mill. Curses ring out amid a low sound of hard breathing; the ranks are gapped here and there as a man wriggles ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... centurion, don't you?" said Beetle, listening to the crash and rattle of grounded ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... at the window. The dark form was still visible, moving slowly through the snow. At that moment a terrific storm of wind struck the house; it made every window and timber rattle; great clouds of snow were swept up from the ground to mingle with those coming from above, and the two were thrown into a whirling eddy that struck the poor traveller and took him from his feet, covering him from sight. Mandy rushed to the door and opened it. ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you, it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, who had kept quiet ever since the Imperial Guard had been established, think that HE is dead, and hatch a conspiracy. They set to work in the Home Office to overturn the Emperor. These things come ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... to where he lay. Ay, it seemed as if he were dead, for he had a great gash across his forehead, and he lay still in a huddled heap on the floor. I dropped on my knees beside him, and leant my ear down to hear if he breathed. But before I could there was a loud rattle from the outside. I knew the sound: the drawbridge was being pushed out. A moment later it rang home against the wall on my side of the moat. I should be caught in a trap and the King with me, if he yet lived. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... majesty. The king looked after him long and musingly, and, folding his hands behind him, paced his room. A profound silence reigned around him; the storm of the cold January night swept dense masses of snow against the windows, making them rattle as if spectral hands were tapping at the panes: the wax- tapers on the silver candelabra, standing on the king's desk, had burned low, and their flickering light flashed on the noble portrait of the queen. The king ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... in a delirious way and descended to the sitting-room, where she sat sobbing for a long time, declaring that she was a dead woman. She had heard his chain rattle. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... "I am God Almighty," "The Father and the Son are one, and I am both of 'em put together," and "Oh, Dylks, save us!" "Don't leave us, Dylks!" "Make the Devil jump, Joseph! Make him rattle his scales for us!" "Fetch on your miracle!" The believing women turned away; some of the younger tittered hysterically at a droll profanation of their idol's name, and then one of the ruffians applauded. "That's ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... to look whether his arrow strikes the target. These mechanical words, these conventional petitions, these syllables winged by no real desire, inspired by no faith, these expressions of devotion, far too wide for their real contents, which rattle in them like a dried kernel in a nut, are these prayers? Is there any wonder that they have been dispersed in empty air, and that we have been put to shame before our enemies? Brethren in the ministry, do we need to be surprised at our fruitless work, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... of the engines had not stopped the momentum of the ship when Alan reached the open deck. She was fighting, but still swept slowly ahead against the force struggling to hold her back. He heard running feet, voices, and the rattle of davit blocks, and came up as the starboard boat aft began swinging over the smooth sea. Captain Rifle was ahead of him, half-dressed, and the second officer was giving swift commands. A dozen passengers had come from the smoking-room. There was only one woman. She stood ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... he hath, so he blesseth their path, And away they high-spirited rattle; Grim winter comes chiding—of them there's no tiding; Says Budrys: ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... it must have been a black-snake, for it was black, and didn't rattle its tail when it poked out its head to ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... gone, and his quick step resounded on the stairs as he ran down, leaving Lucia at the door above, to catch the last good-bye he called up to her when he reached the bottom. His fresh voice came up to her mingled with the rattle of the lumbering carts in the street. She answered ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... he seemed to be dragging out like words in an anthem; but Syme, who was watching, saw his long fingers rattle quickly on the edge of the crazy table. He read the message, "You must go on. This devil has sucked ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... toy and a rattle." said De Aquila. "Put back the parchment, and rake over the ashes. If Fulke is given my Pevensey which is England's gate, what will he do with it? He is Norman at heart, and his heart is in Normandy, where he can kill peasants ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... said I, "I am in this charming land which I entered for the first time to the noise of the drum and the rattle of musket shots." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ever quarrelling with Euphrasie, and was pleased to have her caught in a misdeed; so she allowed her to rattle on. And it thereupon became necessary for Beauchene to intervene. He habitually evinced great severity in the women's workshop, for he had hitherto held the view that an employer who jested with his workgirls was a lost man. Thus, in spite of the low ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... reckon they've got a pretty good hold on the court house. I understand that they daresn't open a Bible in the public schools of Chicago; and they also tell me that the children there have to learn Dutch. Zounds, ain't that enough to make old Andy Jackson rattle his bones in his grave? I wish I had my way for a few weeks. I'd show the world that this is America. I'd catch low-browed wretches carrying all sorts of spotted and grid-ironed flags through the streets. Dutch! Now, I'd just like to hear a ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... Uncle Pascal, in 1874." But it was his own name that he sought wearily and confusedly. When he at last found it his hand grew firmer, and he finished his note, in upright and bold characters: "Died of heart disease, November 7, 1873." This was the supreme effort, the rattle in his throat increased, everything was fading into nothingness, when he perceived the blank leaf above Clotilde's name. His vision grew dark, his fingers could no longer hold the pencil, but he was still able to add, in unsteady ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... Mouton, punctuating each of his sentences by a blow with his fist which made the jugs and glasses on the table rattle again. "Well, I come across the papers. What do I see? One which says black when the other says white, and so on and so on. What is all that to me? I am the father of a family who goes ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... nor quits us when we die. Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age. Pleased with this bauble still, as that ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... real bear a fictitious bull account. To give the reader a conception of this, and of the practices as well as the interior of the Stock Exchange, the following attempted delineation is submitted:—The doors open before ten, and at the minute of ten the spirit-stirring rattle grates to action. Consols are, suppose, 69 to 69-1/8—that is, buyers at the lower and sellers at the higher price. Trifling manoeuvres and puffing up till twelve, as neither party wish the Government ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Sabbath evening; the click of the pick, the rattle of the cradle, the splashing of the water-buckets—all were still. Outwardly the day had been kept strictly as a day of rest by all. Beneath a tall tree stood, in the dress of a minister of the gospel, a middle-aged but grey-headed ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... to a trot; they climbed a hill, and just as the rain broke on them with a rattling gust they swung into the valley of the Old Crow. Above them in the sky the thunder rode; the rain whipped against the rocks like the rattle of a thousand flying hoofs; and now and again the lightning flashed across ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... one thing to pray under the rose-colored windows of a college chapel, and another thing to pray under the yellow, brazen Desert sky. There was only the dreadful Desert silence, with the rattle from the laboured breathing of the unconscious man. If there was no God, then the fight for Right was the futility of fools: Right was only the Right of the strong to prey upon the weak, till the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... 44-calibre Remington revolver for the purpose. When I pulled the trigger I was positively startled by the violence of the report, a deafening shock like a thousand thunder-claps in one; then dead silence. Next, from far away there was a rattle as of musketry, and peal after peal of the echoing shot came back to us. The interval of silence was timed on another trial and was found to be exactly twenty seconds.* The result was always the same, and from this unusual echo we named the place ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... outer wall. But the night was full of wilder sounds, and in the house the furniture and the boards creaked and sprung between the yawling of the wind among the chimneys, the rattle of the thunder and the pelting of the rain. It was a time to quicken the steadiest pulse, and when the crucial moment came, when a pebble suddenly rang against the pane with a sound that the tense waiting magnified into a shivering crash, Hollyer ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... pauses quietly to take out and put on his spectacles, which have gold rims]: "Dearest: they have all gone to the Alhambra for the afternoon. I have shammed headache and have the garden all to myself. Jump into Jack's motor: Straker will rattle you here in a jiffy. Quick, quick, quick. Your loving Violet." [He looks at her; but by this time she has recovered herself, and meets his spectacles with perfect composure. He continues slowly] Now I don't know on what terms young people associate in English society; but in America that ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... its strength. One little specimen will reveal the secrets of the whole species. So one sample of civilization will show the hidden springs of all. Go with me to the public square of any modern city and there you will behold the qualities that build all civilization. From the hum and rattle and roar that rises from the sea of humanity come a thousand various voices, but all speak of one theme—industry. There in the center of the throng and press a slender monument rises, crowned perhaps with a figure of Liberty or Justice. It tells you a simple story of Idealism. Yonder stands ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... you to be still!" he cried with vehement rudeness. "I can't drive straight if you rattle me. I am taking you to ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... time. A single leap carried him into his saddle and he was off over the sand with a sharp rattle of the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... so soon, only to laugh at my last letter. What a dupe was I! at my years to be dazzled with glory! to be charmed with the rattle of drums and trumpets, till I fancied myself at Cressy or Poictiers! In the middle of all this dream of conquest, just when I had settled in what room of my castle I would lodge the Duke of Alen'con or Montpensier, or whatever ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... return late; but before it was dark I was strangely drawn to my house—by what I could not say—I felt they were all waiting, and that I should delay no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and startling the dark, shady, desolate path with the rattle of my carriage, I reached the vast silent palace standing on the gloomy skirts ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... out of the window. It was raining—a chilly spring shower—but there was a stir in the air, a rattle in the town, a sense of something that was going to happen; summer was not far off, and in the summer, at the end of the season, they would go down to the Green Gate, the lovely country house with the dream garden as Valentia ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... the dishes and placing them away on the shelf behind Borg's back, dropped a heavy tin cup. The cabin was very still, and the sharp rattle came without warning. On the instant, with a brute roar, the chair was overturned and Borg was on his feet, eyes blazing and face convulsed. Bella gave an inarticulate, animal-like cry of fear and cowered at his feet. ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London |
