"Incoherently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lightkeeper's wrath was interfering with his utterance. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sputtered incoherently. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... shook like a boneless thing, and all but fell. His head flopped towards Jean-Christophe; he looked at him and babbled incoherently and irritably. When Jean-Christophe's eyes met those clouded eyes he was seized with panic terror. He ran away to the other end of the room, and threw himself on his knees by the bed, and buried his face in the clothes. He remained so for some time. Melchior swung ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... was still babbling incoherently but earnestly, impressing upon Peter the undeniable virtues of the golden wine. He was not prepared, although the nickeled revolver still flashed in his unoccupied hand, for the tumultuous event which was being shaped for the two of them around ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... up to do anything but lie in his blanket and feed. Kefalla is laying down the law with great detail and unction. Cook who has been very low in his mind all day, is now weirdly cheerful, and sings incoherently. The other boys, who want to go to sleep, threaten to "burst him" if he "no finish." It's no good—cook carols on, and soon succumbing to the irresistible charm of music, the other men have to join in the choruses. The performance goes on for an hour, growing woollier and woollier in tone, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... preceded them by a few seconds; she was standing in front of the desk sputtering incoherently. Mallin, starting to rise from his chair, froze, hunched forward over the desk. Juan Jimenez, standing in the middle of the room, seemed to have seen them first; he was looking about wildly as though ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... was a few minutes to 12. I was alone in my private office, all in a fidget, as if the meeting I was expecting were a love-tryst. Reminiscences and reflections were flitting incoherently through my mind. Some of the events of the day which I was about to celebrate loomed up like a ship seen in the distance. My eye swept the expensive furniture of my office. I thought of the way my career had begun. I thought of the ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... say not a word of their discovery on their heads, he ordered Snofru and his companions to make a litter of cloaks and lances, to throw away Glaucon's tell-tale Spartan armour, and bear him speedily to Artazostra's tents. The stricken man was groaning feebly, moving his limbs, muttering incoherently. The sight of Xerxes driving in person to inspect the battle-field made Mardonius hasten the litter away, while he remained to parley ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and clenched his fists and rubbed his head from front to back in his old indecisive way, and began to swear incoherently ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... is complete," he cried incoherently in reply, seizing the truth of her thought, and setting her upon the ground; "it includes even this. It is a part of ... the Name ... correctly uttered ... for it ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... their presence in the lane, incoherently, for there was something frightening about the silent, composed figure and the intentness with which those shadowed eyes scrutinized her. While Robin talked, Beryl swiftly surveyed the room and its occupants, not least of which was a great St. Bernard dog, that, after ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... alone, sobbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... after Mr. Claridge's arrival at ten o'clock—the cameo was gone. Mr. Claridge, utterly confounded at his loss, explained incoherently, and with curses on his own carelessness, that he had locked the precious article in his desk on relinquishing work on it the previous evening, feeling rather tired, and not taking the trouble to carry it as far as the safe in another ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... jailer tried to shake him awake so that he could have his breakfast and the morning paper, but Johnny swore incoherently and turned over with his face to ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Mrs Veneering incoherently communicates, how that Veneering has been offered Pocket-Breaches; how that it is the time for rallying round; how that Veneering has said 'We must work'; how that she is here, as a wife and mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... and estranged as a man who has looked on a spectre, he mutely Sank to the place at my side, nor while we returned to the city Uttered a word of explaining, or comment, or comfort, but only, With his good-night, incoherently craved my forgiveness and patience, Parted, and left me to spend the night in hysterical vigils, Tending to Annie's supreme dismay, and postponing our journey One day longer at least; for I went to bed in the morning, Firmly rejecting the pity of friends, and the pleasures of travel, Fixed in ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... friend, if I wrote incoherently, for I have been interrupted many times since I began this letter. I am this day overwhelmed by a multiplicity of affairs, which, in consequence of Olivia's urgency to leave England immediately, must be settled with an expedition for which my head is not ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... against the stupefying action of the liquor, he was rendered by it incapable of calm reflection. In certain nervous conditions our mere physical powers are proof against the action of alcohol, and though ten times more drunk than the toper, who, incoherently stammering, reels into the gutter, we can walk erect and talk with fluency. Indeed, in this artificial exaltation of the sensibilities, men often display a brilliant wit, and an acuteness of comprehension, calculated to delight their friends, and terrify their physicians. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... and started running, blindly. Each gasping breath was an agony as the blistering gas dug deeper and deeper into his lungs. Reason departed from him; he was screaming incoherently as he stumbled up a stony ramp, crashed into a wall, spun around and smashed blindly into another. Then something caught at ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... out of the cannery, he was interviewed by his fellow workmen, who were very angry and incoherently slangy. He failed to comprehend the motive behind their action. The action itself was strenuous. When he refused to ease down his pace and bleated about freedom of contract, independent Americanism, and the dignity of toil, they proceeded to spoil his pace-making ability. It was a fierce ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... happy, is the dearest, the sole aspiration of my heart!" Steadfast stared and staggered, then suddenly exclaiming gutturally, "Amen!" reeled from the stage, quickly followed by Henry Moreland, amid the derision and hisses of the spectators. "Treat you cruelly!" said Steadfast, incoherently in the wings. "Nothing of the sort. You quite confounded me with your correctness. You told me you didn't know your words, and I'll be hanged if you were not 'letter perfect.' It went off capitally, my dear boy, so now let's go over our next scene." But the manager deemed it ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... his face was red, and he was trying to shake off the two women who were clinging to him, while he was pulling Rosa's skirt with all his might and stammering incoherently. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... recover without medicine and a doctor. They ministered to him as well as they could, but they could do nothing to check the fever, which was now constant and very high. Sam knew hardly anything, and rarely ever spoke at all except to talk incoherently in fits of delirium. ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... Incoherently, she rambled on and the man's countenance took on an expression of such rage that Helen Young uttered a cry of dismay. She had never seen Ebenezer in one of his savage moods. Before she could draw him away, he had lifted his riding whip and a sudden ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... in fact till noon and something after, her sleep had been queerly haunted and unhappy, she could not remember how or why, and she had awakened already ennuye, with a mind incoherently oppressed, without relish for the promise of the day—in a mood altogether as drear as the daylight that ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... It's awful cold. My feet hurt awfully. Carl dear, oh, pleassssse take me home now. I want my mamma. Maybe she won't whip me now. It's so dark and—ohhhhhh——" She muttered, incoherently: "There! By the road! He's waiting for us!" She sank down, her arm over her face, groaning, "Don't ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... make a book[3] of this, Bosambo," he said, almost incoherently. "You shall speak slowly, telling me all things, for I must write ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... and have a room prepared," Miss de Lisle said; "and then I'll get you, Mr. Harry, to help me bundle them up and carry them over. We mustn't leave them in this place a minute longer than we can help. That lovely fat Michael!" murmured Miss de Lisle incoherently. ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... from Ella caused her to look at her child more intently than she had done for half an hour. She was alarmed to find that her face had become like scarlet, and was considerably swollen. On speaking to her, she seemed quite stupid, and answered incoherently, frequently putting her hand to her throat, as if in pain there. This confirmed the mother's worst fears for her child, especially as she was in a raging fever. Soon after, Henry came in from school, and she dispatched him for Doctor R—, who returned with the boy. He ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... agony, Bruce saw the paper, and struck his forehead with his hand. The sudden blow of shameful detection with all its train of consequences utterly unmanned him, and falling on his knees, he cried incoherently— ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... she sang with a wavering cadence, incoherently sometimes, but always with tender pleading, something about "where the stream was a-flowin', the gentle kine lowin', and over my grave keep the green ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... "Thus incoherently she began; but the first step taken, and secure of sympathy in her hearer, she went on, and you will believe me when I tell you we talked till midnight, and that then Mary sunk, like a weary child, into my arms ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... were compelled to see that from various causes the huge numbers brought upon the field lapsed into confusion, and that battle, however well planned in large outline, resolved itself into a mere mass of warring units incoherently struggling one with another. There was lack of proportion between effort exerted and effect achieved. A period of systematization and organization set in. Unwieldy numbers were reduced to more manageable dimensions by excluding ships whose size and ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... repeated a hundred times amid an unintelligible murmur. The boat, and Loftus, and her own name—and Crack. Who was Crack? She remembered the little dog which had been drowned. And the lips which were so soon to be silent talked on incoherently while Rachel's ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... incoherently she related what had occurred, and Fritz was no less warm in his praise for the actions ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged her by saying that he did understand, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... incoherently. "I shall die soon. God is merciful. Wait a little, wait a little. He will kill us both soon. My poor lamb, my poor Daniel! Thou shalt not ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sympathetic face made the poor woman almost break down; she pushed hastily on, and, saying something incoherently about leading the way, ushered us through a kitchen and up a short flight of stairs. I would have given a great deal to have been allowed to stay behind. But Arthur walked simply ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... inclined to regard him with sympathy, is being dragged back again to the Charleston jail. The loathsome wreck of a once respectable man, he staggers into the corridor, utters a wild shriek as the iron gate closes upon him, and falls headlong upon the floor of the vestibule, muttering, incoherently, "there is no hope for one like me." And the ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... stitches of the sacking. Hanaud unstrapped her hands and feet. They helped her to sit up. She shook her hands in the air as though they tortured her, and then, in a piteous, whimpering voice, like a child's, she babbled incoherently and whispered prayers. Suddenly the prayers ceased. She sat stiff, with eyes fixed and staring. She was watching Lemerre, and she was watching him fascinated with terror. He was holding in his hand the large, bright aluminium flask. He poured a little of the contents very carefully on ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... he began to mutter incoherently, and Lady Royland leaned back to reach a feather-fan from a side-table, and then softly wafted the air to and fro till the words began to grow more broken, and at last ceased, as the boy uttered a low, weary sigh, his breath grew more ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... upon Mr. Harker was revolutionary. He must be helped on board his own waggon, where he proceeded to display a spirit entirely given over to mirth and music, alternately hooting with laughter, to which the sergeant hastened to bear chorus, and incoherently tootling on the pipe. The man of war, meantime, unostentatiously possessed himself of the reins. It was plain he had a taste for the secluded beauties of an English landscape; for the cart, although it wandered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... broke the silence. It was the littlest girl turning over in her sleep, murmuring incoherently ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... son to his heart, with a cry of joy and a sudden rush of tears. He babbled incoherently, and gasped for breath. Dick supported the faltering steps to the chair by the desk. Then, he closed the window silently, and flinging his cap upon the table, slowly divested himself of ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... thirst for freedom,—freedom of speech,—freedom of action. He had tacitly submitted to a certain ministry because he had been assured that the said ministry was popular,—but latterly, rumours of discontent and grievance had reached him,—albeit indistinctly and incoherently,—and he began to be doubtful as to whether it might not be the Press which supported the existing state of policy, rather than the People. The Press! He began to consider of what material this great power in his country was composed. Originally, the Press ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... More or less incoherently these thoughts flitted through Guida's mind. As yet her experiences were too new for her to fasten securely upon their meaning. In a day or two she would write to Philip freely and warmly of her love and of her hopes; for, maybe, by that time ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her nature and accentuated, with acid and fire, every elementary instinct. Animal powers and spiritual tendencies alike were concentrated into one absorbing passion which reasoned only in delirium, incoherently, without issue. She was wretched in Orange's company because every moment so spent showed her that his heart was fixed far indeed from her. But the wretchedness suffered that way was stifled in the torments she endured when she wondered, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... its topmost spray a robin was pouring forth an ecstatic song—a song so out of proportion to his tiny body that he was fairly shaken by his own tumult—trills and whistles, calls and chuckles, all incoherently mingled and shouted forth in glorious hysteria. Miss Gordon looked up at the mad little musician and her face grew sad. She had recognized the cause of her renewed longing for home. At the little gate of her Edinburgh garden there grew just such a hawthorn, and the ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... accordingly left his patient, and was just crossing the room, when his progress was arrested by the General's springing up with a kind of convulsive start, and jumping out of bed, declaring wildly and incoherently that something must be wrong, and that he himself would go and bring Zillah. The doctor had to turn again to his patient. The effort was a spasmodic one, and the General was soon put back again to bed, where he lay groaning ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... useless, he ran to thank the stranger who had served him. Extravagantly, but with real feeling, he wrung both of Roddy's hands. In the native fashion he embraced him, shook him by the shoulders, patted him affectionately on the back. Eloquently but incoherently in Spanish, French and English he poured forth his thanks. He hailed Roddy as his preserver, his bon amigo, his brav camarad. In expressing their gratitude his friends were equally voluble and ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... a snort, opened his eyes, and muttered sleepily: "This is what I call a A No. 1 spree. Naow, ter-morrer—" But mumbling incoherently he relapsed into slumber, puffing his lips out into ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... read the grim meaning in my face, for he fell back against the log, muttering incoherently, his dark eyes wells of hate, his face a picture of malignancy, but utterly helpless—the lurking coward in him, unable to face my threat. I left him and ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... start—a lie was so foreign to my nature—and I fear I made rather a mess of it. What words I used I cannot recall, but I incoherently told the factor that I wished to leave the fort at once and go down country, pleading as an excuse that I was tired of the lonely life of the wilderness and had taken a fancy to carve a future for ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... not an idea that he was to be killed, or even hurt," he said to himself more than once. Paul was unwearied in following the surgeon's directions. Devereux, however, was totally unconscious, and unaware who was attending on him. He spoke now and then, but incoherently, generally about the home he had lately left. Once Paul heard him utter the ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... was just words. No weapon remained in his hands. "I'll get you yet, you devil!" he screamed, almost incoherently. "I'll lay in wait and kill you—you can't get away! The wolves have got your grizzly meat—you can't ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... formally charged with the delinquency, and questioned about it, Wilton, in particular, urging him in almost a bullying tone to surrender and confess. The poor child was overwhelmed with terror—cried, blushed, answered incoherently, and lost his head, but would not for a moment confess that he had done it, and protested his innocence ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... priceless lace of her cashmere night-attire as she lay quite still, trying to find a way out through the jungle of pain and grief which seemed to spread round and about so many she loved; whilst Dekko, puffed out with sleepiness, sat on the back of a chair, muttering incoherently to some fanciful image of his ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... one and then another began to mutter incoherently before sinking into a heavy sleep, the mate, who was the most vigorous man present, having the hardest fight of all, and when he did cease babbling as he lay there in the darkness there was a coldness of hand and weakness of pulse ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... true that Happy Jack endeavored to expostulate, but Irish glared at him in a way to make Happy squirm and stammer incoherently. ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... from his drowsy muttering state, in which he had been incoherently piercing together his imaginary or real adventures, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... having no medicines at hand, she did the best thing that could have been done. She continually moistened the parched tongue with water, and wiped the hot skin with wet cloths. While she was doing this, tears fell on her dear young mistress, lying there so broken and helpless, talking incoherently about her father and Floracita, about being a slave and being sold. This continued eight or ten days, during which she never seemed to recognize Tulee's presence, or to be conscious where she was. She was never wild or troublesome, but there were frequent restless ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... specialisation of function, as I have outlined, just as other organs arose, so arose sex-differentiation. Previous to that time there was no sex. A single organism realised all potentialities, fulfilled all functions. Male and female, the creative factors, were incoherently commingled. Such an individual was both male and female. It was complete in itself,—mark this, Dane, for here ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... descended;" recurring also again to the idea which he had before introduced of Christ benefiting those who were in captivity. A passage which affixes to the words commented upon, a different interpretation from one already given in the same paragraph; and which forces itself abruptly and incoherently in the middle of a brief comment, must offer itself to our examination under strong grounds of suspicion, that it has been interpolated. But when we examine the substance of the passage, its sentiments, the ideas conveyed, and the associations suggested, and then think of the author ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... raised and the outer door was barred so that none might intrude, while Chou-hu had already carefully examined the walls to ensure that no crevices remained unsealed. As he entered he was seeking, somewhat incoherently, to justify himself by assuring the deities that he had almost changed his mind until he remembered the many impious acts on Yan's part in the past, to avenge which he felt himself to be their duly appointed instrument. Furthermore, to convince them of the excellence of his motive (and also ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... it was sobbed out, incoherently enough, on his hitherto immaculate shirt-front. "You don't mind," she whispered, "if I cry down your neck, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... in a frenzy of mingled hope and fear. He gabbled half incoherently his allegiance to his captor, his love for him, his willingness to do this, that, anything—only, not the Deep Place—prease! He was a pitiable object, could Martin have found pity for him in his heart. He was no longer the suave, dapper Japanese gentleman. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... wearily certain that regardless of what he asks or how he asks it, he will hear for answers only the clumsy asininities behind which the personalities, leaders and sacred white cows pompously attitudinize, gets so that he mumbles a bit incoherently. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... there. She kicked, fought, so that though once my prick touched her cunt-wig, I could not keep on the saddle. She forgot all propriety in her fuddled excitement, and whilst screaching from my tickling, repeated incoherently baudy words as I uttered them. "Let me fuck you." "You shan't fuck me." "Let's put it just to your cunt." "You shan't,—you're a blackguard,—oh! don't,—leave me alone,—wee I will feel it, if you'll ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... made a mistake, have I?" he asked, bending his luminous face closer to hers, eager to read a welcome there. "I have found you—at last? If you knew—if I could tell you—But first tell me that you are glad to see me," he concluded, somewhat incoherently. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... dispersed without formality. Mrs. Artemas vanished bodily, Mrs. Standish in the car with her brother to see him off; Bob and Babs murmured incoherently about a boat, and disappeared forthwith; and Lyttleton, pleading overdue correspondence, Trego was snapped up for auction bridge by Mrs. Gosnold and Miss Pride, Sally being elected to fourth place as one whose ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... would have me believe in you——No, no, not that," says she, a little incoherently, her voice rendering her meaning with difficulty. Dysart, astonished, stands back from her, waiting for something more; but nothing comes, except two large tears, that steal heavily, ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... his knees, an arm overturning the bottle of beer; and, his sleeve dabbled in it, he pressed his head against the cold edge of the table, praying wordlessly for faith, incoherently ravished by the marvel of salvation, the knowledge ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... his head and cried; Margaret could not speak for tears; and Mary was incoherently protesting against any ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Spider had come to El Paso to find out if the money had been delivered—risking his life for the sake of a few thousand dollars! Pete turned and glanced at the other cot. The doctor was bending over The Spider, who mumbled incoherently. Presently brisk footsteps sounded in the hallway, and two men entered the room and stepped to where The Spider lay. They spoke in low tones to the doctor, who moved back. One of the men—a heavy-shouldered, red-faced ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... sum and substance of Mrs Maitland's somewhat incoherently told story, and when Dick had heard it through to the end he had no reason to doubt its truth; but manifestly it was not at all the sort of story to be taken upon trust, it must be fully and completely investigated, if only for the purpose of ascertaining ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... pressed themselves upon him in a vague and unreal sort of way. No one, not even Mary Standish, could understand how his mind and nerves were fighting to recover themselves. His senses were swimming back one by one to a vital point from which they had been swept by an unexpected sea, gripping rather incoherently at unimportant realities as they assembled themselves. In the edge of the tundra beyond the cottonwoods he noticed three saddle-deer grazing at the ends of ropes which were fastened to cotton-tufted nigger-heads. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... of divergent discussion, that intercourse by misunderstanding which had grown so clumsy now. This familiar pleasantry seemed to desire to show it could yield, on occasion, to any clear trouble; though it was also sensibly, and just incoherently, in the air that no trouble was at present to ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... permanent effect, for the sleeper usually contrived to turn himself, and to roll again into the spot where the fire glowed the brightest. His torpor was generally profound, but he would sometimes discourse incoherently for a long while in his sleep. At six he would suddenly compose himself, even in the midst of an animated narrative or of earnest discussion, and he would lie buried in entire forgetfulness, in a sweet and mighty oblivion, until ten, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... just before daylight, Father Damon was still sleeping, but tossing restlessly and muttering incoherently; and he did not arouse ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... dreadfully—I mean I was," cried Ruth incoherently, "and I don't know what I should have done if Ellen hadn't comforted me, and Arthur hadn't come down to dinner. But it's all right now, for my cablegram says 'sound,' and ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... so. I warned her; I told her it would come. But she would do it," cried the doctor incoherently, as he tried to feel her pulse with one hand while he tore at the fastenings of her dress with the other. He set Paul at work chafing the hands of the unconscious woman, while Miss Ludington sprinkled her face and chest ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... had "killed him," that she was "wicked, wicked!" and that, even saying so, staggered, and fell beside her late burden. And all that Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub his beard, and say to himself vaguely and incoherently, that "Jinny had ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... door was open. His hand darted to his holstered furnace beamer and unlocked the safety. It was almost pitch dark in the room but he heard the room's occupant turning over on the bunk and mumble low, incoherently, in his sleep. Nelson waited a minute but the ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... They were full of the Spirit, and mocking bystanders said, "These men are full of new wine;" for they found themselves elevated into the ecstasy of a life higher than their own, possessed of powers which they could not control; they spoke incoherently and irregularly; to the most part ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... of PROPHET, signifieth in Scripture sometimes Prolocutor; that is, he that speaketh from God to Man, or from man to God: And sometimes Praedictor, or a foreteller of things to come; And sometimes one that speaketh incoherently, as men that are distracted. It is most frequently used in the sense of speaking from God to the People. So Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others were Prophets. And in this sense the High Priest was a Prophet, for ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... chance, though at the same time with a sort of notifying firmness. The odd thing, as she was afterwards to recall, was that her wonder for what had brought him was not immediate, but had come at the end of five minutes; and also, quite incoherently, that she felt almost as glad to see him, and almost as forgiving of his interruption of her solitude, as if he had already been in her thought or acting at her suggestion. He was some-how, at the best, the end of a respite; one might like him very ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... and in a small way succeeded; but the effect upon him was scarcely beneficial, it appeared to us. His fever increased, and when we started out once more under our burden, the motion inseparable from our progress affected his head, and he began to talk incoherently ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... uttered a cry with such terror in it that she shuddered and was still. Then he began to mutter incoherently, and she heard her own name repeated ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... hastily, his manner wild, his face white and haggard. Genevieve, distressed and heart-broken, followed close behind him. She closed the door. The man began speaking at once, incoherently, in a harsh, strident whisper that signified ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... find in the sleeve of his Magian's robe. The landlord found this document and, being able to read, confirmed the statement of the sick youth; he was, however, soon seized by a fresh attack of fever, and began to speak incoherently." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... It was the alarum. First of all I was chased by a bull, and then—" Mr. Fogo told his story incoherently. The angry red left Tamsin's cheek, and a look of ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Dide had another of those nervous attacks which came upon her at intervals. At these times she would often talk aloud and ramble incoherently, as though she was suffering from nightmare. That evening, while Silvere held her down on her bed, he heard her stammer in a panting voice such words as "custom-house officer," "fire," and "murder." And she struggled, and begged for mercy, and dreamed aloud of vengeance. At last, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... be built to handle the ore, a town would spring up—his town, named in his honor as the discoverer of the lead! He mumbled of these things as he worked. Sometimes he paused, looking abstractedly at the peaks above, without apparently seeing them at all. He babbled incoherently of leads, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had not been for the dark glare in his sunken eyes. Billy smelled the odor of whisky; he smelled food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces turned toward him, but he advanced upon them, mumbling incoherently. And then the spark, the fighting spark in him, gave out, and he crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice which came to him from a great distance, and which said, "Who the hell is this?" and then, after what seemed to be a long time, he heard that same voice say, ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... to her feet. Mingled pain and terror looked from her eyes. She began to speak wildly, incoherently. She wondered afterward just what she would have said if Aunt Hannah had not come into the room at that moment and announced that Bertram was at the door to take her for a sleigh-ride if she cared ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... were inclined to push the old creature away, but when they understood, from her grief, what relation the quiet forms bore to her, and heard snatches of their pitiful history fall, incoherently, from her lips, they drew back, and let her pour out her deep grief over them. With sympathizing hearts, at length they made a sign, and the convicts took up the bodies and ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... the refectory, madam. That was the nearest to the gate, where it happened. It happened just outside the south gate, madam. They took off a leaf of the gate, and laid him on it and brought him in," answered the trembling little novice, rather incoherently. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... don't want to, Jasper, and I wanted Adela to take it, and don't let her hear us, she may come back from the other room;"—for Adela had disappeared with the kodak; "and it's all right, Jasper," she finished up incoherently. ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... much excited way the colonel incoherently told of the burglary. He ordered the men to gather up the scattered plunder. Then he turned his attention to ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... throw his books out a bit," continued the owner, deftly avoiding the gaze of the injured clerk. "You see, Simmons' book-keeping is of the old-fashioned kind, cap'n, star-fishes and all that kind of thing," he continued, incoherently, as the gaze of Simmons, refusing to be longer avoided, broke the thread of his discourse. "So I think we'll put the paper on the fire, cap'n, and do business in the old way. Have you got the ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs |
