"Chatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to work and soon made an impression on the blank iron wall. At first the American chatted of this and that, rehearsing his own aimless ramblings as men will, but presently he observed that Smith was painting away and paying no attention to his partner's chatter. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... lady had been asked down for her husband's sake, and he did not approve of this chatter about family. Mr. Stocks, who was about to explain the Haystoun pedigree, caught his host's eye and left the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... perturbed. She left her wheel and crossed the room to her son, and spoke with him for a moment in a low tone that none could overhear. But a moment later her voice was high-pitched and loud, so that all might benefit by her rebuke of the "heathen chatter" of one of the girls. Perhaps she essayed to silence thus her ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... for a moment. He stood there with darkening face, an obstinate, almost a threatening figure. Passers-by looked with a gleam of interest at the oddly assorted trio, whose conversation was obviously far removed from the ordinary chatter of the loungers about the place. One or two made an excuse to linger by—it seemed possible that there might be developments. Heneage, however, disappointed them. He turned suddenly upon his heel ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to o'erwhelm this terror of the plain. When suddenly (for such the will of Jove) A fowl enormous, sousing from above, The gallant chieftain clutched, and, soaring high, (Sad chance of battle!) bore him up the sky. The cranes pursue, and, clustering in a ring, Chatter triumphant round the captive king. But, ah! what pangs each pygmy bosom wrung, When, now to cranes a prey, on talons hung, High in the clouds they saw their helpless lord, His wriggling form still lessening as he soared! Lo! yet again, with unabated rage, In mortal strife the mingling hosts ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... suddenly, at sight of a laughing face at the window or the appearance of some boy who had gained the coveted permission to get a bucket of water, the little visitor would whisk away again like a flash and, with a warning chatter to his mate, would seek safety among the leaves and branches of the forest only to reappear once more when all was quiet until, at last, made bold by many trials, he would leap from the fence and scamper across the yard to take possession of the tallest stump ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... and supper, the Capet family were together; words were interchanged, hands could rest in one another, and they could delight in the pleasant chatter of the dauphin when the king told about the lessons he had given the boy, and ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... court-lyric are well represented—the torments and rewards of love, the charm of spring, the refinements of courtly breeding—and the sophisticated metrical forms are handled with great virtuosity. Schiller, it is true, compared them to the chatter of sparrows, and Goethe also paid his compliments to the "sing-song of the Minnesingers," but it was this same little book which first gave young Jakob Grimm the wish to become acquainted with these poets in their ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... for more. I guess it could eat a cord o' wood and wash it down with half a bucket o' castor oil in about five minutes. It snatches folks away to some place and drops 'em. I guess it must make their hair stand up and their teeth chatter." ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... so rapid the eye can scarcely accompany them. Their ordinary manner of travelling is very cheap and very convenient: they sail in covered boats drawn by horses; and in these you are sure to meet people of all nations. Here the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, and the English play at cards. Any man who likes company may have them to his taste. For my part I generally detached myself from all society, and was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country. Nothing ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... 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 still greater on those who visit them for the first time. Our parties, however, saw nothing ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... marry, nor have children, What takes that from him? Only the bare name Of being a father, or the weak delight To see the little wanton ride a-cock-horse Upon a painted stick, or hear him chatter ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... A mist of evil, fearful and loathsome, had descended upon my girlhood's life, sullying its ignorant innocence, saddening its brightness, as I felt, for ever. I lay there till my teeth began to chatter, and I realized that I was bitterly cold. To return to that accursed bed was impossible, so I pulled a rug which hung at one end of the sofa over me, and, utterly worn out in mind and body, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... prepared to keep one eye upon Buck Daniels and the other upon Kate Cumberland. But if he expected to learn through conversation at the table he was grievously disappointed, for Buck Daniels ate with an eye to strict business that allowed no chatter, and the girl sat with a forced smile and an absent eye. Now and again Buck would glance up at her, watch her for an instant, and then turn his attention back to his plate with a sort of gloomy resolution; ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... idea, that made me jump from my chair and walk the floor. I might know what the monkeys say when they chatter to each other! What discovery in all natural history could be so great as this? The thought that these little creatures, so nearly allied to man, might disclose to me their dispositions, their hopes, their ambitions, their ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... society of her canine favourites, whose company suited her better at certain hours than the noisier companionship of her grandchildren. She was a studious woman, loving the silent life of books better than the inane chatter of everyday humanity. She was a woman who thought much and read much, and who lived more in the past than the present. She lived also in the future, counting much upon the splendid career of her beautiful granddaughter, which ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... children. What would her friends in Paris have said to that? I spent all my leisure time in the women's house, whither I was unconsciously more and more strongly attracted, not less by the young American's conversation—which was a piquant mixture of animated controversy and unaffected chatter—than by her harp-playing and her clear alto voice. But this did not satisfy sister Clara, who at last hit upon the plan of marrying us. Our common 'foolishness'—that is, our social ideas—made us, she thought, mutually suitable; and though, in her opinion, we should make a pair entirely lacking ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... been overlooked, for he had stepped back and remained quiet during all the chatter and laughter of the meeting ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... burst of song had a wonderful effect upon the denizens of Clear Lake, as we named the sheet of water; for, after a brief momentary pause in their chatter—as if of incredulity and blazing surprise—they all arose at once in such myriads that the noise of their wings was not unlike what ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... of food, improvised a kind of table on the top of a flat rock, and having laid out the rations, including the small quantity of wine that formed part of the repast, sat down in comfort and began their meal amid a chatter of talk. One of the non-French soldiers, all of whom had finished their large supply of food before the French had begun eating, asked sardonically: "Why do you fellows make such a lot of fuss over the little bit of grub they give you to eat?" The Frenchman replied: "Well, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... 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 ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... external attitude of serious contemplation, which the spectacular delights of the intermezzi and the serious lyric drama had made at least tolerable, and to turn to the uses of pure amusement the materials of a clearly defined form of art. We shall find the dramatization of the chatter of the street and the apparition of types familiar to the farcical comedies and operas bouffes of later days. In the washerwomen of Striggio we are not far from Madame Angot, and some of the personages whom Vecchi humorously treated in his "Amfiparnaso" ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... before him with new interest. Out of her chatter he had at last garnered one important fact. His mind, trained to seize upon the vital and instantly discard the inconsequential, clutched the bit of information, and turned it over. From the first Carroll had scouted the idea that the dead man's fiancee might have been responsible for his death; ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... top of the wall Saxon watched the men grouped about the charcoal brazier, eating crusty Italian bread and a stew of meat and vegetables, washed down with long draughts of thin red wine. She envied them their freedom that advertised itself in the heartiness of their meal, in the tones of their chatter and laughter, in the very boat itself that was not tied always to one place and that carried them wherever they willed. Afterward, they dragged a seine across the mud-flats and up on the sand, selecting ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... engaging manner, for she was partial to artists, and regretted that they were generally so miserably poor. As Jory was smoking, she took his cigarette out of his mouth and set it in her own, but without pausing in her chatter, which suggested ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... chatter in the servants' hall, I make a sudden sally, And with the parlourmaid I brawl Or bicker with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... house and 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 ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... as usual. Here, Mary, stand beside me. As you came in I was puzzling myself to discover how those Mexican women across the street are employing themselves. They seem distressed, yet every now and then chatter with most perfect unconcern. There, they are both on their knees, with something like a picture hanging on the fence before them. They dart in and out of the house in a strange, excited manner. ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... to chatter," said Bart, with a wink. "Lor' bless you, sir, I've seen gentlemen as noble as yourself pawning things down there"—he nodded again towards the ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... objects of living in New York; and social life to ninety per cent of society people means nothing but eating one another's dinners. Men never pay calls or go to teas. The dinner, which has come to mean a heavy, elaborate meal, eaten amid noise, laughter and chatter, at great expense, is the expression of our highest social aspirations. Thus it would seem, though I had not thought of it before, that I work seven or eight hours every day in order to make myself rather miserable for the ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... was prodigious and there was so much plausibility in his glib chatter that, in spite of himself, Coquenil kept a last lingering wonder if Groener could be telling the truth. If not, what was his motive in this elaborate fooling? He must know that his hypocrisy and deceit ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... the door," 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
... clapping and stamping and shouting: handkerchiefs fluttered all over the house. When the curtain descended after the fifteenth recall and the lights went up and demonstration gave place to excited chatter, Madame Zattiany held out ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the children could see it and would repeat a cautionary formula, "I will give you gum!" This was a warning to them to make less noise, and was always heeded—for a time. After a little, however, the boys might forget and begin to chatter again, and presently the man, without further warning, would reach over and rap one of them on the head with the stick, when quiet would again be ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... needed no second bidding. They were up-stairs and back in the dining-room in a twinkling, and so eagerly did they chatter of their plans for the morrow that hungry though they were they almost ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... kept up an incessant chatter. They talked over their situation, but could as yet decide upon nothing. It grew dark at length. The sun went down. The usual rapid twilight ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... The desire and the questing came to him most compellingly in the long winter filled with its eternal starlight, when the maddening yap, yap, yap of the little white foxes, the barking of the dogs, and the Eskimo chatter oppressed him like the voices of haunting ghosts. In these long months, filled with the horror of the arctic night, the spirit of Tao whispered within him that somewhere there was light and sun, that somewhere there was warmth and flowers, and running streams, and ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... Indian nearly lured him to his death. It was in the dusk of the evening, when he heard the cries of two great wood owls near him. Listening attentively, he became convinced that all was not right. "The woo-woo call and the woo-woo answer were not well timed and toned, and the babel-chatter was a failure. More than this, they seemed to be on the ground." Creeping cautiously up, and peering through the brush, he saw something the height of a stump between two forked trees. It did not look natural; he aimed, pulled trigger, and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... sitting by the window and Wilhelmina Mercer, Maggie Henderson, Susette Cross and Georgie Hall were in a little group just before me. I wasn't listening to their chatter at all, but presently Georgie ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders to the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened indifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant princess, and stared fixedly at her ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hour after hour, there had been the shimmer of the spangles, the light chatter of coming balls and weddings, the merry voices of care-free girls—the youth, and ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... Spaniards style their own language in contradistinction to all others. "That fellow," continued the captain, "who is lying on the deck, can speak Christian too, when it serves his purpose, but he speaks others, which are by no means Christian: he can talk English, and I myself have heard him chatter in Gitano with the Gypsies of Triana; he is now going amongst the Moors, and when he arrives in their country, you will hear him, should he be there, converse as fluently in their gibberish as in Christiano, nay, better, for ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... I have learned this lesson before—that speech even to myself does harm. If I admit no conversation nor debate with myself, I certainly will not admit the chatter of outsiders. Mr. Maxwell called again to-day. "Not a syllable on that subject," said I when he began in the usual strain. He then suggested that as this house was too large for me, and must have what he called "melancholy associations," I should move. ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... one was the Gorla Mustelford debut, and the house settled itself down to yawn and fidget and chatter for ten or twelve minutes while a troupe of talented Japanese jugglers performed some artistic and quite uninteresting marvels with fans and butterflies and lacquer boxes. The interval of waiting was not destined, however, to be without its interest; in its way it provided the one really important ...
— When William Came • Saki
... her chatter, took the telegram and began feverishly to count the words. Then her tapping pencil slowed down and her brows contracted; she was assimilating their meaning. Then, with a blush, and a very becoming one, she looked at me with an expression of distress ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... upon some men actually engaged in gold-digging, the first we had ever seen. The place was called Weber Creek Diggings. There were several Chinamen in the group, who, with their broad bamboo hats and their incessant chatter, were certainly a great curiosity ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... if he found out that she had been with me, and had on her brother's clothes. As a well-tutored child in a Presbyterian family, I knew what becomes of liars when they leave off living and lying together. My teeth ceased to chatter and met with a snap. The loyal heart rallied to the help of the guilty tongue. I raised my eyes ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... from within the quadrangle say, quite loud, 'All up.' I crawled back to the wall. Two officers were walking up and down the other side jabbering Latin words, laughing and talking all manner of nonsense—amid which I caught my name. I risked a cough. One of the officers immediately began to chatter alone. The other said slowly and clearly, '... cannot get out. The sentry suspects. It's all up. Can you get back again?' But now all my fears fell from me at once. To go back was impossible. I could not hope to climb the wall unnoticed. Fate pointed onwards. Besides, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... laughter of a woman or the chatter of children could be heard, for the red Martians are a social, pleasure-loving people—in direct antithesis to the cold and morbid race of ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... respond to his light flow of chatter on the way home. She halted on the threshold of her home, and looked at him with despair in ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... 'Don't chatter such nonsense; it's strange times when children begin to pick their elders to pieces. You weren't asked for, Miss Betty; and Master Douglas is to ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... his "Baedeker" with underlinings and annotations as he had once done his "Prideaux's Commentaries." He had travelled up from Cairo with the party, and had contracted a friendship with Miss Adams and her niece. The young American girl, with her chatter, her audacity, and her constant flow of high spirits, amused and interested him, and she in turn felt a mixture of respect and of pity for his knowledge and his limitations. So they became good friends, and people ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... compared with that of those who lived idly amid luxuries in the palace. The wife bade him be careful, as he might be overheard in his complaints. The king, looking down on the market from a latticed window, and amusing himself with the chatter of the market people, heard the words of the couple, and ordered them to be ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... 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 seeing that ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... continued Richard. "I believe you have talked so much to-night that you haven't heard what a quiet night it is. You are smaller than a star, and yet you make more noise than all the stars together. You are not so cold as the moon, and yet your teeth chatter more loudly than hers. The heat of your wrath is less than the heat of the sun, and yet, while he is silent and departed, you fill the air with clamour, and—if I may say so—seem to be outstaying your welcome. Oh, dear policeman, listen.... Do you know, if there ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... of the Sigma Sigma literary society broke up with the usual confused mingling of chatter and laughter. There had been a lively debate, and Joyce and Cynthia, as two of the opponents, had just finished roundly and wordily belaboring each other. They entwined arms now, amiably enough, and strolled away to collect their books ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... much of interest. The men kept up a ceaseless chatter and discussion, and the sole topic of conversation was the arrival of Christopher Burley and the priest. The travelers, it appeared, had come together from Fort York—where all was quiet at the time of their departure—and by the same roundabout road our party had traversed some days before. Strange ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... between the 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, until, lacking support, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... Tuckey's day, when a "savage magnificence" showed itself in the display of lions' and leopards' skins; when no women were allowed to be present, and when the boys could only clap hands: now the verandah is surrounded by a squatting crowd and resounds with endless chatter and scream. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... and Billy had five inches of rain to his credit. (So far, eleven inches was the Territory record for one night). Also the fringe of birds was back at the billabong, having returned with as little warning as it had left, and once more its ceaseless chatter became the undertone of ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the laughter and chatter, the good nights and good-bys, that big Tom McGinniss moved over ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... by magic, the din ceased; "dead line" had been reached. One lone typewriter came to a chattering halt. Men and women rose from their machines, where they had been sitting tense. Cigarettes were lit; the workers relaxed. There began a subdued chatter. Chaff and banter ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... course, on the face of it, she was faithful to the old religion. This might have persuaded Ahuna to loosen up a little. Or she may have jolted fear into him; for she knew a lot of the line of chatter of the old Huni sorcerers, and she could make a noise like being on terms of utmost intimacy with Uli, who is the chiefest god of sorcery of all the sorcerers. She could skin the ordinary kahuna lapaau" ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... "drop this sort of chatter, and answer my question. How many of you are in for spending the summer vacation in a bicycle trip across ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... run, working the cattle, walking through the thick scrub of the backwater, driving young, half-broken horses in the high dog-cart to Cunjee—they were rarely apart. David Linton seldom made a plan that did not naturally include Norah. She was a wise little companion, too; ready enough to chatter like a magpie if her father were in the mood, but quick to note if he were not, and then quite content to be silently beside him, perhaps for hours. They understood each other perfectly. Norah never could make out the people who pitied her for having no ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... more easterly and half as wide, is straddled its entire width by the steely, long-legged skeleton of elevated traffic, so that its third-floor windows no sooner shudder into silence from the rushing shock of one train than they are shaken into chatter by the passage of another. Indeed, third-floor dwellers of Allen Street, reaching out, can almost touch the serrated edges of the elevated structure, and in summer the smell of its hot rails becomes an actual taste in the mouth. Passengers, in ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... oars, and rested them there while they panted and coughed, catching the breath again into their heaving bodies. Then one or two began to laugh and utter some poor drolleries; presently the sound spread, and within three minutes the whole pit was full of chatter and uproar. They seemed to forget their miseries even as they wiped ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... down by Darfur. I'm wondering if it would be too cowardly to wear it in the scrap that's coming. I don't know, though, but what I'll wear it, I get so scared. But it will be a frightful hot thing under my clothes, and it's hot enough without that, so I'm not sure. It depends how much my teeth chatter when I see "the dawn ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that Mona was in early, and was obliged to listen to the happy chatter of the girls as they discussed their plans with a zest and good-humour such as seldom prevails when a company of girls have under discussion a subject on which each has her individual and separate ideas, and is anxious to see ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... the East. And out of the East, said rumor, this new opera came. Surely it would bring with it a breath of that exquisite air which prevails where the sands lift their golden crests, the creaking rustle of palm trees, the silence of the naked spaces where God lives without man, the chatter, the cries, the tinkling stream voices ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... one thing about her that strikes you disagreeably in society. It is her want of conversation with ladies and married people. To a bachelor, to whom she has just been introduced, she will chatter away nineteen to the dozen; but, even in her own, house, she has no idea of the social duties. Marriage, in her opinion, is a Rubicon, which, once crossed, if it does not altogether debar from the pleasures of maiden and bachelorhood, at least makes it necessary for married ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... a view to impressing his hearers with a sense of the narrator's own important share therein. Once Mrs. Anderson met Jim's eye in a brief glance, and reflected the smile momentarily. Behind them, Norah, Wally, and the little doctor kept up a flow of chatter which Wally described as "quite idiotic and awfully comfortable!" The party arrived at the cricket ground on ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... scores will be in print. "Ha, der Verruchte!" ["Ah, the wretch!"] we can then say, as in "Tannhauser." Happily, however, no journey to Rome is necessary to obtain my absolution. We only wish to have done with so much outcry and tasteless chatter. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... 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, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... her with the 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 vacant idleness ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Jasper as wildly reminiscent now as the others, for hadn't he almost as good as lived at the little brown house, pray tell? So the Whitneys looked curiously on, without a chance to be heard in all the merry chatter; and then they drew up at the gate of the parsonage, where they ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... and the women were left alone. Then Edith began to chatter about nothing, in the most resolute fashion, in order that Lettice might have time ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... lay by the always interesting Tsavo River. Along the banks everything within reach of its moisture is delightfully fresh and green. Palms and other trees, festooned with brilliant flowering creepers, flourish along its course; all kinds of monkeys chatter and jabber in the shade overhead as they swing themselves from branch to branch, while birds of the most gorgeous plumage flutter about, giving a very tropical aspect to the scene. On the other hand, if one is tempted to stray away from the river, be it only for a few yards, ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... to the enemy; four women, three of whom are well enough in themselves, but who are not immensely flattered by my society; and the fourth, who, good as she is, is on the wrong side of forty; some two or three blacks; a talkative housekeeper, that does nothing but chatter about gold and despisables, and signs and omens; and poor George Singleton. Well, a comrade in suffering has a claim on a man,—so I'll make the best ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Their faces were broad at the cheekbones, but narrowed in sharply, both at the forehead and chin. The narrow and oblique eyes showed the relationship between the Burmese and their Chinese neighbours. They seemed to Stanley a light-hearted, merry people, going about their business with much chatter and laughter; and the sound of musical instruments could often be heard, inside the houses. Several men, in bright yellow garments, mingled with the crowds in the market. These were priests, the officer told him; and it would be a mortal ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... was the climax of the festa, did not begin till 11.30 P.M. and was not over till 3.30 the next morning. On returning to the albergo I found the professor still dozing on his chair, undisturbed by the constant chatter of all the servants and their friends. He had not gone to bed because the padrone, Peppino's father, with the key of my room in his pocket, had gone out early in the evening and got lost in the crowd, so there were both ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... they've decided to wait," said Specs, resignedly, settling back in his seat for another fifteen minutes of listening to the chatter of a Babel of tongues and merry laughter. "Good umpires are almost as scarce as hens' teeth; and that Mr. Merrywether is reckoned as fair and impartial as they make them. So the game will start half an hour ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... everything that was in it. How he would miss the stealthy blue linen nurses, and the expressionless doctors, and the odour of broths and soups, and the scent of roses, and the swish of petticoats, and the elevating presence of pretty women, and the fragrance of them, and the sweet chatter of them—Oh my, oh me-oh-my! If George would only get well ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... my little chatter-box?" the old man cried, boiling with rage and turning towards her; "don't you meddle with what don't concern you, but go down as quickly ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... climb the garden wall and get the stone. I walked quickly enough, and talked all the time to silence my own misgivings, but Elzevir hung back a little and said nothing, for it was sorely against his judgement that he came at all. But as we neared the place I ceased my chatter, and so we went on in silence, each busy with his own thoughts, We did not come in front of Aldobrand's house, but turned out of the main street down a side lane which we guessed would skirt the garden wall. There were few people moving even in the streets, ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... chatter between you two?" demanded Thirkle from the entrance to the crevice. I did not know how much he had overheard, but I determined to make one more effort to get ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... 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 ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... remain forever in Italy, trying to say something new, and that I began a definite task. I should send you my book (now that it is out and people are talking about it), but it would bore you, and you would feel that you must chatter about it. It is a good piece of journeyman work. I gathered enough notes for another volume, and then I grew restless. Business called me home for a few months, so I came back to Chicago. Of all places! you say. Yes, to Chicago, to see this brutal whirlpool as it spins and spins. It ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... adjourned to the dining-room and dinner proceeded in its usual leisurely fashion, although the gay chatter that generally accompanied it was absent. Everyone seemed conscious of ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the lady who wore it sat and listened to the strains of Wagner, Bizet, or Gounod, mixed in with the small-talk of Reggie Stockson, Tommie de Coupon, and other lights of the social firmament. In the first place, it caused the people sitting about me in the high seats of the opera- house to chatter about it and discuss its probable worth every time the lady made her appearance in it, and I had fled from the standee part of the house to the top gallery just to escape the talkers, and, if possible, to get my music straight, without interruptions of any ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... vicissitudes disenchanted him. A plan to invade England also helped to deflect his mind from establishing an outpost of his empire upon our continent. For us he had no love. Our principles were democratic, he was a colossal autocrat. He called us "the reign of chatter," and he would have liked dearly to put out our light. Addington was then the British Prime Minister. Robert R. Livingston was our minister in Paris. In the history of Henry Adams, in Volume II at pages 52 and 53, you may find ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... after leaving Malta, the steamer crept from under the Great Rock into the beautiful bay, and was promptly boarded by a few gentlemen of effusive manners who were greatly concerned about the health of Captain S——. The latter requested them to cease their chatter ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... they broke cover a vivid flash of lightning cleaved the black cloud that had almost reached the zenith by now, and the deep rumble of thunder changed to a sharp chatter; then followed a second flash ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... stood in her mind for the straight and simple things of life, and she had lost her way so often among the bewildering ramification of human motives. He had no trivial words, she knew. He was incapable of "making conversation"; and she, who had been bred in a community of ceaseless chatter, was mentally refreshed by the sincerity of his interest. It was as restful, she said to herself now, as a visit ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... "The serum is quite harmless, John." He maintained a professional diversionary chatter as he administered the drug. "A scopolamine derivative that's been ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... walked up by myself at a distance from which I could observe all that was going on. The girls were quite merry, appeared to be enchanted with their ride up the cone, enjoyed the novelty of the sensation, and I heard their lively chatter and their loud peals of ringing laughter, and longed more than ever to be able ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... made toward me, from that day forth, and 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 long ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... can depend on us," assured Mr. Adams. "We're probably in the biggest hurry of all, but we're not brutes. Let's see what's to be done." He spoke to Maria in Spanish, and Maria and Francisco began to chatter with the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... Bats emerge stealthily. Sensitive flowers, the scarlet pimpernel, the African mimosa, close their delicate petals, and a sense of hushed expectancy deepens with the darkness. An assembled crowd is awed into absolute silence almost invariably. Trivial chatter and senseless joking cease. Sometimes the shadow engulfs the observer smoothly, sometimes apparently with jerks; but all the world might well be dead and cold and turned to ashes. Often the very air seems to hold its breath for ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... advanced. Mrs. Harold, the captain and Dr. Llewellyn had reached the limit of their appetites and were now watching and listening to the merry chatter of the young people who sat sipping the cider—they had long since passed beyond the DRINKING point—and eating the black walnuts and hickory nuts which had been gathered upon the estate, for Severndale was ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... some reverend, all but sacred, personage before whom our tongue ceases to be loud and our step to be elastic? But were we once to see him stretch himself beneath the bed-clothes, yawn widely, and bury his face upon his pillow, we could chatter before him as glibly as before a doctor or a lawyer. From some such cause, doubtless, it arose that our archdeacon listened to the counsels of his wife, though he considered himself entitled to give counsel to every other being whom ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... wife, who continued to chatter and mow at us, and answered eagerly that there were; adding, with a trembling oath, that the robbers had beaten him, robbed him of his small store of meal, and when he would have protested, thrown ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... 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 ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... You can have nothing to say, so perhaps you had better leave the talking to me. You have behaved like a scoundrel. You have crippled my hands. Only a year ago I turned Thomson's girl off the estate, and gave her father notice to quit the cottage after her. I got some newspaper chatter aimed at me then, and now, by God, you've done worse than the fellow who ruined poor Thomson. Look up there, and you'll see your father's portrait. He was a merry lad in his day, but he wouldn't have intrigued with a washerwoman. ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... ordered the entranced girl to write answers to all questions of his after her waking. The command thus given had a persistent effect, and while the awakened Lucie continued to chatter as usual with other persons, her Unconscious Self wrote brief and scrawling responses to M. Janet's questions. This was the moment at which, in many cases, a new and invading ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... day told each other that the duke had named his price for his conversion. To be made high constable of France, it was said would melt the resolve of the stiff Huguenot. To any other inducement or blandishment he was adamant. Whatever truth may have been in such chatter, it is certain that the duke never gratified his master's ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
