"Murmuring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moccasins before him; and just over the latter the ball of light, which was now burning with such brilliancy that the luminous hemisphere around it formed a wide and lofty dome in the solid darkness of the cavern. For some moments past he had heard a murmuring sound, as of abundant waters rippling over a rocky bed; and filling all the air was a delectable perfume, as if flowery fields and fruitful groves must be blooming and waving not far off. By this time nothing amazed him. Nothing frightened him. He moved and felt and thought ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... forward. He imagined himself being led to an unknown Elysium by the angel of night. Rosario groped her way. At last her sweet voice sounded again, murmuring: ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... side, which now and then he had mechanically taken. Changeless as a sphinx, he had sat there in darkness and in light, whilst sunlight had changed to moonlight, and the songs of the birds had given place to the low murmuring of frogs from a lake ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fountains to gaze upon his own image reflected in the waters, it seeming to him the likeness of her he has lost. He is in pity transformed into a flower on the border of a stream, where, bending on his fragile stem, he seeks his image in the waters murmuring by, until he fades and dies. Has not God, the all loving Author who composed the sweet poem of Man and Nature, written at the close a reconciling Elysium wherein these pure lovers, the fond Narcissus and his echo mate, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... a sound broke the stillness save the remote murmuring, until a solitary sea-gull rose in the air and circled directly over the tower, uttering its mournful and unmusical cry. Automatically to my mind sprang the lines of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... loot—gas masks and bayonets, and such stuff from German dug-outs. Most of the crowd was interestedly fingering a grey steel helmet with a heavy steel shield or visor in front of the forehead, evidently meant to be bullet-proof when the wearer looked over the parapet. The prisoner was murmuring something like "Durchgeschossen," "Durchgeschossen." ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... into the room, the face of the Superior flushed, and there was a slight movement of surprise; then he seemed to recollect himself, and murmuring, "I expected this, but not so soon," appeared lost in mental prayer. To the agitated inquiries of his flock, he answered,—"No, brothers; the weapons of monks must be spiritual, not carnal." Then lifting on high a crucifix, he said,—"Come with me, and let us walk in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... at me standing there before them, as though Huayna-Capac himself had returned from the Mansions of the Sun to resume his sceptre and his crown. Then, with one accord, they sank on their knees before me, holding their torches above their bent heads and murmuring,— ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... the roaring town A-while may I return And while the west wind roams the down Lie still, lie still and learn: Here are green leagues of murmuring wheat With blue skies overhead, And, all around, the winds are sweet With May-bloom, white ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Elizabeth Ann didn't care if it was. It made her feel less ashamed, though she did not know why. She took another mouthful of pop-corn and stroked Eleanor's back. Uncle Henry got up and stretched. "It's time to go to bed, folks," he said. As he wound the clock Betsy heard him murmuring: ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... before me; they groaned, and rolled, and stretched their limbs, as though they were in agonies of pain, and incessantly called for water, which was readily supplied them. In the rear I heard the sound of murmuring voices, the breaking of boxes, and ripping of bales of cloth, as though a band of robbers were stealthily dividing their unlawfully-gotten spoils in ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... dreams, born out of my due time, Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme Beats with light wing against the ivory gate, Telling a tale not too importunate To those who in the sleepy region stay, Lulled by the singer of an empty day. —From "The ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... force of a verbal charm is increased by the rhythmic flow of its words; the solemn recitation or murmuring of mystic phrases. "Hence," said Jacob Grimm, "all that is strong in the speech wielded by priest, physician, or magician is allied to the forms of poetry."[44:1] In many a myth and fairy-tale, a cabalistic metrical verse pronounced by the ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... motions of the storm, Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form By silent sympathy. The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. And vital feelings of delight Shall rear her form to stately height, Her ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... Sussex men (of the dozen of us, two were with him at Eton and one at Oxford) composed the firing party, while the whole squadron, officers and men followed. About three-quarters of a mile from our present camp, in the garden of a Scotchman, named Jennings, by a murmuring, running stream, and beneath some willows, we laid him. By the side of the grave was a bush of Transvaal may, covered in white blossom, at the end were roses to come, and away back and front were the white-covered pear trees and pink-covered ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... the country, amid sweet, green fields, and clustering vines, and shady trees, and murmuring brooks. Her father was a good old farmer, as happy and contented with his few acres, as if he owned all Great Britain. Mary was his only child. Her mother died when she was a very little girl. Mary could ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... he said, "there are many of you who do not deserve to eat out of a broken pot; ye stubborn and stupid men! consider what you have heard, and obey without murmuring. Hearken! I command you, ye chiefs of the Matclhapees, Matclhoroos, Myrees, Barolongs, and Bamacootas, that ye proclaim through all your clans the proceedings of this day, and let none be ignorant. And again I say, ye warriors, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... to the king's palace and wait before it, and surely I will follow ye, and ye shall learn wherefore ye have incurred this punishment from the gods." Then the crowd rolled murmuring back, as a receding sea; and when it was gone from the place, Morven went alone to the house of Darvan, which was next his own. And Darvan was greatly terrified; for he was of a great age, and had no children, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rivers, stabled his grey, and delivered his despatches before ten o'clock that night. He was very tired, indeed, when he retired to rest, but this did not prevent the youthful brain from dreaming, and the youthful lips from murmuring: ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... with the query when he was made to realize that the murmuring rush of water under the catboat's forefoot had changed into a series of resounding thumps; that the wind was rising, and that the summer afternoon sky had become suddenly overcast. The pretty tiller maiden was pushing the helm down with her foot and hauling in briskly on ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Servian villages of low white houses, with pyramidal roofs of tiles or thatch, are very pretty and picturesquely built; and above them, green heights, wooded slopes, flocks and herds, and peasants in bright-coloured motley clothes following the plough. Small murmuring brooks dance in merry leaps down to the Morava, and the Morava itself flows to the Danube. We are still in the drainage basin of this river, and, when we have crossed the whole of Servia, passed over a flat mountain ridge and left Sofia, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... their botanist-in-chief cast a gloom upon the party, and utterly spoiled the festive intentions of young Aragon. Lorenzo was put to bed, from which retreat, at midnight, his fearful groans summoned the colonel to his side. The latter found him tossing and murmuring, but incapable of uttering a word. His faithful Eusebio, at the head of the bed, answered for him. The honest fellow feared lest his master might have caught again a touch of the old fever which had formerly attacked him in searching for cascarillas in the environs of Tipoani in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... who was sitting by the kitchen window, noticed Martha's white face when she came into the house and guessed the cause. Looking after Arthur as he walked rapidly down the road to his own house, Mr. Donald shook his head sadly, murmuring to himself: "Lord, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... whispered with at cardinal, who was plucking him by the sleeve, for the space of a paternoster, and the murmuring began to break out again. Then he turned, and lifted his hand once ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... is graffed on flower, so grief on grief Engraffed brings forth new blossoms of strange tears, Fresh buds and green fruits of an alien pain; For now flies rumour on a dark wide wing, Murmuring of woes more than ye knew, most like Hers whom ye hailed most wretched; for the twain Last left of all this house that wore last night A threefold crown of maidens, and to-day 1260 Should let but one fall dead out of the wreath, If mad with grief we know not and ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... are very apt to think of plain Aunt Polly, rough-hewed Uncle John, and the bullet-headed, uncombed, smock-frocked cousins, nephews, and nieces, at their rural homes, amid the fragrant meadows and umbrageous woods; the cool, silver streams and murmuring brooks of the glorious country. Then, the poetic sunbeams and moonshine of fancy bring to the eye and heart all or a part of the glories and beauties, uses and purposes in which God has invested ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... was going down the aisle again on her husband's arm that the daze lifted suddenly. Her husband! She looked up at him with a little gasp, and Philip, feeling her tremble, pressed her hand, murmuring, "Steady, dear," as he would have spoken to a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... descending from the mountains, they came down upon a beautiful plain enamelled with flowers, watered by murmuring streams, and shaded by fruit trees. In such a lovely landscape have the painters delighted to place some of the scenes of the Flight into Egypt. On another occasion, they entered a thick forest, a wilderness of trees, in which they must have lost their way, had they not been guided ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... were quite satisfied with each other. More than eight years had elapsed since their marriage, yet one of them was for ever offering his or her partner a piece of apple or a bonbon or a nut, while murmuring some tender something which voiced a whole-hearted affection. "Open your mouth, dearest"—thus ran the formula—"and let me pop into it this titbit." You may be sure that on such occasions the "dearest mouth" parted its lips most graciously! For their mutual birthdays the pair always contrived ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... more have come from Holland this spring. They report that many more of the same lot would follow, and then they would build here a synagogue. This causes among the congregation here a great deal of complaint and murmuring. These people have no other God than the Mammon of unrighteousness, and no other aim than to get possession of Christian property, and to overcome all other merchants by drawing all trade towards themselves. Therefore we request your Reverences to obtain from the Messrs. Directors, ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... camels as the loads were being placed on their backs. Gradually, as the hour approached for the assembly of the force, the noise grew less; even "Lamentations" ceased his protestations, and stalked off to the parade ground without further murmuring. ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... limpid and murmuring brook descends, with numerous tiny cascades and pools. Beside one of the latter, underneath a great beech-tree, and sitting on the root of it, APHRODITE, alone. Enter from below, concealed at first by the ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... He surveyed the intruder a moment in stubborn silence, then quietly retreated; probably aware, from former experience, that the gay young Catholic had not much veneration for his person or character. The boy hastily extinguished his torch, murmuring, in a ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... few seconds the young Englishmen were silent, lost in admiration at the spaciousness, the grandeur, and the tropical luxuriance and beauty of the scene upon which their gaze rested entranced; then Dick broke the silence by murmuring: ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... it has come in my way to speak of that strange murmuring of phantoms and their attendant seers, psychometers, and dactylomancers, which in these latter days has revived among us. And what I may have to say about what is called Spiritualism will reflect actual observations. I do not forget that to the advocacy of the "New Dispensation" are devoted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... glanced at the crowded, enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces, and her lips seemed to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud. Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her. Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, "Charming! charming!" ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... she was bold enough to take charge of him, and found him a safe berth in one of the closets where the pots and other cooking utensils belonged. It was rather rough and trying, but Miles felt that it was for liberty, and he must pass through the ordeal without murmuring, which he did, until success was achieved and he found himself in Philadelphia. Boston being the haven on which his hopes were fixed, after recruiting a short while in the city he steered for said ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... led so long, the life of London offices and streets, of the study and the committee-room, had become distasteful to him. As he thrust away from him the manuscript at which he had been busy, his lips were, half unconsciously, murmuring ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... opened again sharply. He could hear the two dealers' voices murmuring unctuous words, in which "honor," "gratitude," and many fine long noble titles played the chief parts. The voice of another person, more clear and refined than theirs, answered them curtly, and then, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... sad bereft, I pity wun, An' that's my lad—he's sadly left— My little John; He wander's up an' dahn all t'day, An' rarely hez a word to say, Save murmuring (an' weel he may), "Shoo's ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... well. He reserved his chaff for a future occasion, and only permitted himself one allusion to the state of affairs by taking Nell's hand and murmuring: "Beg pardon, Nell! Thought it ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... characterized by great joyousness and spirit. This leads to the number, "Rolling in foaming Billows," in which the music is employed to represent the effect of water, from the roaring billows of the "boisterous seas," and the rivers flowing in "serpent error," to "the limpid brook," whose murmuring ripple is set to one of the sweetest and most delicious of melodies. This leads the way to the well-known aria, "With Verdure clad," of which Haydn himself was very fond, and which he recast three times before he was satisfied with it. It is followed ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... from the forecastle, and passed among the crew, with every thought recalled from its excursive flight to the duty of the moment. Ludlow continued on the forecastle, alone. There was a low, whispering sound in the ship, like that which is made by the murmuring of a rising breeze,—and then all ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... manner of expensive debauchery. And when at last the screw of heavily increased taxation gave proof to these stories the first timid whispers of displeasure among the populace swelled to sullen and continuous murmuring. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... a few minutes, he went to the laboratory, and from a tin box marked homicidal lunatic, he took a plain, gold ring. With this he returned to Lady De Greene, murmuring on the way the prayer he had ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... him is to say enough; for every one has read at least a few pages of him, and a single page of Froissart, taken haphazard in his works, will cause him to be loved. The language glides on, clear, limpid, murmuring like spring water; and yet, in spite of its natural flow, art already appears. Froissart selects and chooses; the title of "historian," which he gives himself, is no mean one in his eyes, and he ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... years the fading traditions of the old salons. Through all the changes which tried her fortitude and revealed the latent heroism of her character, she seems to have kept her sweet serenity unbroken, bending to the passing storms with the grace of a facile nature, but never murmuring at the inevitable. One may find in this inflexible strength and gentleness of temper a clue to the subtle fascination which held the devoted friendship of so many gifted men and women, long after the fresh charm of ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... wine he lay back murmuring thanks and satisfaction, his eyes closed. Presently they opened. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wondered to see him eat so well, after viewing so many sorrowful scenes of ruined religious magnificence. 'Why,' said he, 'I am not sorry, after seeing these gentlemen; for they are not sorry.' Murison said, all sorrow was bad, as it was murmuring against the dispensations of Providence. JOHNSON. 'Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... contrary, they generally disown such claim when made in their behalf. Supposing the fact to be true to the fullest extent ever asserted, if it proves that American women ought to remain as they are, it proves exactly the same with respect to Asiatic women; for they, too, instead of murmuring at their seclusion and at the restraint imposed upon them, pride themselves on it, and are astonished at the effrontery of women who receive visits from male acquaintances, and are seen in the streets unveiled. Habits of submission make women, as well as men, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... wall lay before her now; this she crossed, heard the stream murmuring peace, and hastened, and presently stood beside it. Here were holy ground and water; here were peace and a place to pray in. Blue forget-me-nots looked wondering up, seeing eyes as blue as their ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... smooth and mirror'd sheet So gently steals along, The very ripples, murmuring sweet, Scarce drown the wild bee's song; The violet from the grassy side Dips its blue chalice in the tide; And, gliding o'er the leafy brink, The deer, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... shadow, That from the dreaming hill All down the broadening valley Liest so sharp and still? And thou, Oh murmuring brooklet, Whereby in the noonday gleam The loosestrife burns like ruby, And the branched asters dream? "We are born, we are reared, and we linger A various space and die; We dream and are very happy, ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... in the dark room beside the bed of the little child, who lay murmuring, sometimes moaning, in her sleep. She never did moan but in her sleep, poor innocent! The sound of music and dancing rose up from below, and ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Rome, with its splendid immorality, its classic art and pagan culture, made the same impression on him that it made on Luther. When his courtiers pointed to the Laocoon as the most illustrious monument of ancient sculpture, he turned away with horror, murmuring: 'Idols of the Pagans!' The Belvedere, which was fast becoming the first statue-gallery in Europe, he walled up and never entered. At the same time he set himself with earnest purpose, so far as his tied ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... to the mystery has at last been found in a secret arrangement between Kuhn and a certain financial group concerning the Banat. About this more will be said later. In one of my own cablegrams to the United States I wrote: "People are everywhere murmuring and whispering that beneath the surface of things powerful undercurrents are flowing which invisibly sway the policy of the secret council, and the public believes that this accounts for the sinister vacillation and delay of ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... her tent under the big murmuring pine tree washing handkerchiefs in her washbasin. "I haven't enough left to last any time at all now," she confided plaintively to Sahwah, "and I had three dozen when I came. They're all gone where the good handkerchiefs go, I guess. Somebody is forever getting cut and needing a bandage in a ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... Mandrake, &c.] Naturalists report, that if a male and female Mandrake lie near each other, there will often be heard a sort of murmuring noise. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... tribes who had deserted her, and turned them into trees. Some of the blacks were in groups a little way off; those, too, she cursed, and they were changed into forests of Belah, which look dark and funereal as you drive through them; and the murmuring sound, as the wind wails through their tops, has a very sad sound. She wanders through these forests and round the lake, the dead baby still in the goolay on her back, and sometimes her voice is heard mingling with the voices of the forest; and as the shadows fall, she may ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... . . Pray you, if you know, Where in the purlieus of this forest stands A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive trees? * * * * * The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream Left on your right hand, brings you to the place. But at this hour the house doth ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... such instances of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and pine away their days by looking upon the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of life, and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prison-house Stately and beautiful he bade them build, So that in all the earth no marvel was Like Vishramvan, the Prince's pleasure-place. Midway in those wide palace-grounds there rose A verdant hill whose base Rohini bathed, Murmuring adown from Himalay's broad feet, To bear its tribute into Gunga's waves. Southward a growth of tamarind trees and sal, Thick set with pale sky-coloured ganthi flowers, Shut out the world, save if the city's hum Came on the wind ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... time; walled in; here sunshiny spaces, there cool shadows of fruit-trees; broken by circles and squares of box; green with the grass and the leaves, red and purple and gold and white with the flowers; with birds singing, with the great silver river murmuring by without the wall at the foot of the terrace, with the voice of a man who sat beneath a cherry-tree reading aloud to himself,—such was the garden that she came upon, a young girl, and heavy ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... heart; but when those beauteous maids Spied Nala, from their cushions they uprose, Startled to see a man, yet startled more Because he showed so heavenly bright and fair. In wondering pleasure each saluted him, Uttering no sound, but murmuring to themselves:— "Aho! the grace of him: aho! the brilliance; Aho! what glorious strength lives in his limbs! What is he? Is he God, Gandharva, Yaksha?" But this unspoken, for they dared not breathe One syllable, all standing shyly there To see him, and to see his youth so sweet. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... what would be. His niece, meanwhile, did not thank him for what he had just done. She had hoped to have William all to herself the last morning. It would have been an unspeakable indulgence. But though her wishes were overthrown, there was no spirit of murmuring within her. On the contrary, she was so totally unused to have her pleasure consulted, or to have anything take place at all in the way she could desire, that she was more disposed to wonder and rejoice ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... good—much too good," Mrs. Wilkins kept on murmuring as they walked up and down the platform at Victoria, having arrived there an hour before they need have, "and that's why we feel as though we're doing wrong. We're brow-beaten—we're not any longer real human beings. Real human beings aren't ever as good as we've been. Oh"—she clenched ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... of the Sun in heaven's dome, The Voice of the Murmuring of Rome, The Voice of a Soul that goeth home, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... out of bed, moving about the room in his night clothing, searching on all sides, without knowing what he was looking for, murmuring loving ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... indifferent to the restfulness of the scene. Her eyes, gazing far away, seemed to gather in them the wandering rays of the moon; and when presently, scarce heeding, perhaps, what she did, she broke into a soft murmuring chant, which rose and fell with the cadence of our oars, I, at least, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... this, perhaps, more dangerous than many other sins, being far less tangible: unless we are in the constant habit of exercising strict watchfulness over our thoughts, it is almost insensibly that they acquire an habitual tendency to murmuring and repining. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... was a mountebank—but was he nothing more than a mountebank? Like most men of his age, Stephen Culpeper was inclined to swift impressions rather than hasty judgments of people; and he was conscious, while he listened in silence to the murmuring explanations of the girl, that the immediate effect was a sensation, not an idea. At first sight, the Governor appeared merely ordinary—a tall, rugged figure, built of good bone and muscle and sound to the core, with the look of arrested energy which was doubtless an inheritance ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... in her eyes as she led her son away. By and by they came to another edifice. In a niche in the stone wall near the entrance was the figure of Jesus on a cross. He paused and looked at it for several minutes, murmuring, "Strange! Strange!" ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... sent up a message to Miss Franceska Vanderkist, to come and speak to him, and he walked up and down the sitting-room where breakfast was being spread, like a panther, humming Prospero's songs, or murmuring vituperations, till Franceska appeared, a perfect picture of loveliness ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resinous pine needles, at the foot of the tall trees, and the trees looked down tenderly upon her and consulted in whispers with their heads bent together. The winds blew sweetness from the buckwheat fields in the valley about her, murmuring delicious music in the air above her, and even the birds hushed their loud voices and peeped curiously at the tired, sorrowful creature of another kind that had come ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... was so still that he thought he must have imagined the cry, but soon heard the murmuring sound of voices so low that he could not tell whether of men ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett
... In the pale sky floated a few dark clouds, with rims of fire caught from the sinking sun; sometimes the wood was all about him, with close undergrowth and grassy paths. Sometimes he saw a pile of rocks, all overgrown with moss, indistinct in the gloom. Sometimes he saw a dell where a stream went murmuring down, hidden in climbing plants; sometimes a little lawn would open in the heart of the chase, where a deer stood to graze, leaping lightly into the brake ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... very much: and especially to have had the translation of the speeches of a huge- breeched turbaned roaring infidel, who looked and spoke as if he would have liked to fling us all into the sea, which was hoarsely murmuring under our windows an ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dared ask no questions. Piles of newspapers lay on the table in wrappers addressed to the duke, apparently tossed there as useless. The Nabob opened one and tried to read; but a rapid, gliding step, a sing-song murmuring made him raise his eyes, and he saw a white-haired, stooping old man, decked out with finery like an altar, who was praying as he walked with long priest-like strides, his red cassock spread out like a train over the carpet. It was the Archbishop of Paris, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... timid steps. They spoke not at all, or only in low murmuring voices. They looked right and left, eagerly scanning the precipice on both sides. On each side of them towered the black cliffs, like prison walls, frowning and forbidding. No ledge of any size appeared on either; no terrace, no sloping ravine, that might afford them a path out of that dark valley. ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... eleven o'clock there was an unusual gathering in the parish church. The stillness round the marble sleepers on the monumental tombs was broken, not by the sound of prayer and praise, but by the low hush of murmuring voices and the tramp of eager feet. Pelle came quietly in and took his usual seat. He bowed his head, just from habit, then followed a silent petition, not for a blessing on the services of the sanctuary, but that the innocent might be defended and ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... under the administration of William Pitt, there was for several years such a scarcity of wheat that to make it hold out longer, a law was passed by Parliament that the army should be supplied with bread made of unbolted flour. This occasioned much murmuring on the part of the soldiers, but nevertheless the health of the army improved so greatly as to be a subject of surprise. The officers and the physicians at last publicly declared that the soldiers had never before been ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... life and of death; of hope and its slow, slow dying in the heart. Certain it is that the river had its humours not to be accounted for by outward things—seeming to be gay without reason, like any human heart, in dull weather, and murmuring dismally when the sun shone and the birds ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... known it will understand it. All felt it but the captain; who, claiming privilege, took a dozen gallons every day to bathe his feet in, and that water, when done with, was greedily sought for by the men. There was some murmuring about it, which came to the captain's ears, who only observed, with an apathy ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to seize him by one leg, drag him toward her, roll him up in the end of the blanket and with a silencing slap say, "There, lie still." This quieted him. He lay subdued save for a waving hand in which the flowers were still imbedded and with which he made passes at the two girls, murmuring with the thick utterance of rising sleep "Bu'full flowers." And in a moment he slept, curled against his mother, his face angelic ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... crowd of nonentities—the one man filling the exact position for which the Americans have invented the significant word 'Boss'? All liberty of thought or freedom of action is gone. The principle insisted upon is 'do whatever our leader tells us; go where he leads; give what he asks—all without murmuring or discontent. The man who murmurs must be drummed out of the ranks.' If we saw the French submitting to this system, no words that we could use would be strong enough to express our contempt for them. As we happen to be doing it ourselves, it must, of course, be good and wise. Granted ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... care that, sinking deep into his soul, seemed to have been present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little dreaming of the story that lay hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at least the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... still dark—for it wanted yet two hours to sunrise—and both the town and castle were wrapped in the most profound slumber. The only sounds heard distinctly were the continuous murmuring of the waves as they broke ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... for the Queen, from the moment she stepped off the yacht till she got into the train she went on smiling and bowing and murmuring 'Merci, oh merci bien?' I do not, of course, know what she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... could not reach them. Your hand touched nothing but clouds more nimble than your desires. Your radiant companion, crowned with white roses like a bride of Heaven, wept at your anguish. Perhaps she was murmuring melodious litanies to the Virgin, while the demoniacal cravings of the flesh were haunting you with their shameless clamor, and you disdained the divine fruits of that ecstasy in which I live, though ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... Mrs. Day, murmuring words of soothing, led her to the foot of the stairs, and watched the girl mounting slowly to her room, crying audibly, childish fashion, as she went. "You must try to have more self-control," ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... turned, to see Miss Armytage standing there, straight and stiff, her white face stamped with purpose; and beside her, still seated, clutching her arm in an agony of fear, Lady O'Moy, murmuring for all to ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... signs and intimations of something; for Lady Hunter made a circuit round the shop, on some pretence, and stared in at the door of the shoe-parlour, just at the right moment for perceiving, if she so pleased, the beautiful smallness of Hester's foot. Some low, murmuring, conversation then passed at Mrs Howell's counter, when the words "black ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... cared nothing for him, and had given her heart to the South Wind,—the most fickle and tormenting lover you can imagine. Sometimes he was perfectly charming, and wooed her in the most enchanting manner, murmuring soft things in her ear, and kissing and caressing her, till I almost fell in love with him myself. Then he would leave her alone,—oh! for days and days,—till she drooped, poor thing! and was perfectly miserable. And then perhaps he would come ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... shawl and stockings; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlour-door carefully behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he was recalled by ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... by night close beside the murmuring water, ate their supper beside a fire of boughs, slept on piled leaves beneath a tent of canvas stretched over a long ridge-pole. The two young men had ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... little subsided, and smiles, and murmuring ejaculations of happiness, had driven away the symbols of what is not always anguish, old Manuel approached, and appeared much pleased at the tokens of affection that we mutually lavished upon each other. And then, with my arm encircling Josephine's slender waist, and her ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... dark corner of the box, and she felt that he loathed her too. 'I love you!'—how pitifully the poor little make-believe words had quavered out and how much disgust they must have represented! 'Poor man—poor man!' Laura Wing suddenly found herself murmuring: compassion filled her mind at the sense of the way she had used him. At the same moment a flare of music broke out: the last act of the opera had begun and she had sprung up and ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... and by next day they were murmuring in the town, and their murmurs came to me. They thought it wasna richt for a Scotsman to be carrying off their flag—though he'd bought it and paid for it. And so at last they came to me, and wanted to be buying back the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... supported by some tree near the door; a cluster of embowering sycamores for summer shade; with a tall fir, through which the winds sing when other trees are leafless; the little rill or household spout murmuring in all seasons;—combine these incidents and images together, and you have the representative idea of a mountain-cottage in this country so beautifully formed in itself, and so richly adorned by ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... of the Indians, and the deriving of an abundant supply of provisions from their conquered towns—They had arrived within ten miles of the Ohio river, and could not witness the blasting of their expectations, without murmuring. A council of war was held—disappointment and indignation were expressed in every feature. A majority of the officers were in favor of proceeding to the Ohio river, under the expectation that they might fall in with some of the enemy—they marched to the river ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... with his own emotions, gazed eagerly at Miss Phoebe, who sat very erect, the tips of her fingers pressed together, her whole air that of a judge about to give sentence. Miss Vesta looked somewhat disturbed, yet she was the first to speak, murmuring softly, "The feeling is very genuine, I am sure, Cousin Homer!" But Miss Phoebe ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... people mounted the steps and went in with Jim. As the doors to the hall opened, a flare of smoky light struck him, and he pushed his way into the hall, where a restless, murmuring audience, some seated, others standing, was watching a number of men and ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... him as a mother might her child; Then, when his grief abated, took his hands,— So worn and white,—within her own soft palms, And chafed them gently with a loving care; Then pressed them to her lips, and lightly lay Her warm cheek next his own, while murmuring words Of tender, filial love in that old tongue Which once had rung in triumph on this spot, When poets of her race in glowing words Had ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... with people, that he had to combat, though they required the most consummate nautical skill, to be enabled to contend successfully against them; but the unfortunate situation, to which the party were exposed, rendered him subject to the almost daily murmuring and caprice of people less conscious than himself of their real danger. From the experience they had acquired at Tofoa of the savage disposition of the people against the defenceless boat's crew, a lesson was learned how little was to be trusted, ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... passing—Mrs. Lezzard. But he wouldn't; an' now they'll be turned for him. Wise though the man was, he set no store on the dark, hidden meaning of honey-bees at times of death. Now the creatures be masterless, same as you an' me; an' they'll knaw it; an' you'll see many an' many a-murmuring on his graave 'fore the grass graws green theer; for they see more 'n what ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... cell where they placed him, away from the gaping, murmuring, gesticulating knot of villagers that had marked his progress to the police-station—for news flies fast in the country, especially when there is a viper-tongue like Borkins's to wing it on its way—he was ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... sat down at the fireside, and she got nice things ready for him. She heated some wine and toasted a slice of bread, and it made a charming little meal before going to bed. She often took him on her knees and covered him with kisses, murmuring in his ear with passionate tenderness. She called him: "My little flower, my cherub, my adored angel, my divine jewel." He softly accepted her caresses, concealing his head on the old maid's shoulder. Although he was now nearly fifteen years old, he had remained small ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... over the bridge and out to the bold promontory of black rock at the mouth of the harbor. There was nobody about. This October morning was more like a summer day: the air was mild and still, the blue sky without a cloud; the shining sea plashed around the rocks with the soft murmuring noise of a July calm. It was on these rocks long ago that Wenna Rosewarne had pledged herself to become the wife of Mr. Roscorla; and at that time life had seemed to her, if not brilliant and beautiful, at least ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... calculating, controlled by considerations of self-interest alone. Heartless and merciless, it has no sentiments of pity, sympathy, or honor, to make it pause in its remorseless career; and it crushes down all that is of impediment in its way, as its keels of commerce crush under them the murmuring and unheeded waves. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... upon them: for among so many thousands there must have been many importunate dabblers in theology. (172) Hence the people got into the way of watching the acts of the Levites, who were but human; of accusing the whole body of the faults of one member, and continually murmuring. ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... in the newspaper—Jerome's story—"Like weary bones dragging slippers." And the old lady. Who was she? Why was everyone in this house pulled down to exhaustion—the words of the old lady, I could almost hear them; the dank air murmuring their recollection. "Now there are two. Now ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... a perverse tide on a windless day which drifted me over. The green mounds of water were flawless, with shadows of mysteries in their clear deeps. The boat and the tide were murmuring to each other secretly. The boat's thwarts were hot and dry in the sun. The serene immensity of the sky, the warmth and dryness of the boat's timbers, the deep and translucent waters, and the coast so low and indistinct that the silent flashing of the combers there might have ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... Cotherstone produce a decanter and glasses, watched him fetch fresh water from a filter in the corner of the room, watched him mix the drinks, and took his own with no more than a polite nod of thanks. And Cotherstone, murmuring an expression of good wishes, took a drink himself, and sat down with his ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... in, old Jim had not apparently moved. He was once more dipping the pungent liquor from the cup and murmuring words of endearment and coaxing, to the all-unhearing little patient. The eager woman took off her shawl and stood ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... breaking the surface, he imparted the steady, uniform motion desired. How silent it was! The ear seemed the only sense, and to hold dominion over lake and forest. Occasionally a lily-pad would brush along the bottom, and stooping low I could hear a faint murmuring of the water under the bow: else all was still. Then almost as by magic, we were encompassed by a huge black ring. The surface of the lake, when we had reached the center, was slightly luminous from the starlight, and the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... to him to go forth where he might see the fields clad in tender green, the waters murmuring in the acequias; the soft blue sky dotted with white, fleecy islets, the dark green hills where stood the windmills swinging their arms upon the summits, the abrupt sierras forming a rose-colored background to a landscape which everywhere smiled and whispered sweetly, as in the days when, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword, The General rode along us to form us to the fight; When a murmuring sound broke out, and swelled into a shout Among the godless ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... can attend your lays with indifference. But condescend, for once, to listen to advice, and postpone this music, in which you are so great a proficient, and suppress not only the song, but the sweet murmuring in your throat, prelusive to your singing, and shrink not up your graceful nostrils, nor extent the extremities of your jaws, lest you should have as much reason to repent of your singing as the faggot-maker had of his dancing." The ass demanding how that came to pass, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston |
