"Lisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he opened the door. Significant as was his first hasty look round the room, he recovered at sight of me all his habitual SANG-FROID. He saluted me, and spoke coolly, though rapidly. But he panted, and I noticed in a moment that he had lost his lisp. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... what a weary race my feet have run, Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned, And thought my way was all through fairy ground, Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun, Where first my Muse to lisp her notes begun! While pensive Memory traces back the round, Which fills the varied interval between; Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene. Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure No more return, to cheer ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... speak plain. Grandma couldn't speak plain. They lisp. They talk fast. Sound so funny. Mama and auntie speak well. Plain as I do now. They was up wid Mars White's childern more. Mars White sent his childern to pay school. It was a log house and they had a lady teacher. They had a accordion. Mars Marion's neighbor had ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... many another was but a student of the letter, not of the life; many another was but a spiritual swashbuckler, pompous in his demeanour and cryptic in his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered along the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a formula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into Heaven. But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant idleness and of corruption, the a rebours of a spiritual outpouring, there was a real mysticism ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... the southwest. But there it stood, and there it stands as yet,—though its obituary was long ago written after one of the terrible storms that tore its branches,—leafing out hopefully in April as if it were trying in its dumb language to lisp "Our Father," and dropping its slender burden of foliage in October as softly as if it were ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in an excited lisp spoke up little Tod Smith, the youngest pupil in the school. "He broke the desk, but—say, teacher! he did it—yes, sir, Andy did the double somersault, just like a real circus actor, and ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... more the blazing hearth shall burn Or busy housewife ply her evening care: No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... thing, weak and sickly; she loved it when it grew a pretty lively baby, and would set its little feet on her knees, and crow and caper before her face; she loved it when it began to play around her as she sat at work, to lisp out the word "Ganny," for she taught it to call her grandmother; she loved it when it would follow her into her nice garden, and pick a flower and carry it to her, as she sat in the little arbor; and she, holding the flower, would talk to ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... insipid," said I, "as that mock literary air which it is so much the fashion to assume. 'Tis but a wearisome relief to conversation to have interludes of songs about Strephon and Sylvia, recited with a lisp by a gentleman with fringed ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... glory fill the skies, The world be free! Let all adore Thy name, And children lisp Thy fame— Let earth ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... your infant life Strange welcome found, Jeanne, in this time of strife. Like wild-bee humming through the woods your play, And baby smiles have dared a world at bay: Your tiny accents lisp their gentle charms To mighty Paris clashing mighty arms. Ah! when I see you, child, and when I hear You sing, or try, with low voice whispering near, And touch of fingers soft, my grief to cheer, I dream ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... in dalliance with the flaunting world, Play but soft airs, sing but sweet-tempered songs? Veer lightly from the stress of all great wrongs, And lisp of peace ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Affectation, with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen, Practis'd to lisp, and hang the head aside. Faints into airs, and languishes with pride, On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, 35 Wrapt in a gown, for sickness, and for show. The fair ones feel such maladies as these, When each new night-dress gives a ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... can't wait for my ivory fan?' 'My bandanna hanky!' My two ounces of snuff!' My guitar!' My clogs!' 'My satin dancing-shoes!' My onion-seed!' My new spindle!' My fiddle-bow!' 'My powder-puff!' And some little 'un would lisp, 'I'm sure you've forgotten my blue balloon!' And then they'd cry, one-and-all, in a breath, George! what's the news?' And he'd say, 'Give a body elbow-room!' and handing the packages right and left would allus have something to tell. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... driven there! You've got to stop, to pause. There must be silence like the silence of the dead! You've got to imagine yourself wiped out of existence for the moment, Kaeferstein. And then—out with your best trumpeting chest-notes! Hold on! Don't lisp, for God's sake. "For ..." Go ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... herself by drinking three elacos (halfpence) worth of pulque from a jarrito (little earthen jar); the portly and well-looking padre prior del Carden (the Carmelite friar), sauntering up the lane at a leisurely pace, all the little ragged boys, down to the merest urchin that can hardly lisp, dragging off their large, well-holed hats, with a "Buenos das, padrecito!" (Good-morning, little father!)—the father replying with a benevolent smile, and a slight sound in his throat intended for a Benedicite; and all that might be dull in any other climate brightened and made light ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... And for my strange petition I will make Amends hereafter by some gaudy-day, When your fair child shall wear your costly gift Beside your own warm hearth, with, on her knees, Who knows? another gift of the high God, Which, maybe, shall have learned to lisp you thanks.' ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... crescent moon. The shining waters with pale currents strewn, The quiet fishing smacks, the Eastern cove, The semi-circle of its dark, green grove. The luminous grasses, and the merry sun In the grave sky; the sparkle far and wide, Laughter of unseen children, cheerful chirp Of crickets, and low lisp of rippling tide, Light summer clouds fantastical as sleep Changing unnoted while I gazed thereon. All these fair sounds and sights I ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... a small stout man, with a black cap of dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic measures. Let them put their trust in Cultur! To talk Hebrew—therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once again lisp in the language of Isaiah ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... much with trying to pronounce foreign languages," said Dick. "I just wrestle with the words the best I can in plain American. But now—I always thought it rude to mention it before—I understand why you Spaniards seem to lisp, and hiss out your last syllables like secrets. As for the place we're going ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... be right. It is also believed that some of easy consciences have two sets of them, but we cannot affirm the fact. As to the corn measure, the Company itself has always been suspected, but who dare lisp it? The payment in zeewant, which is the currency here, has never been placed upon a good footing, although the commonalty requested it, and showed how it should be regulated, assigning numerous reasons therefor. But there is always ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... dialogue, and the pure, sweet flow of his language, place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child. There is a grace beyond the reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his nonsense, and an insinuating eloquence in his lisp. We know of no other writer who makes such interest for himself and his book in the heart of the reader. He has written an incomparable book. He has written something better, perhaps, than the best history; but he ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... then, but, ah me! I remember it as if it was but yesterday. And then father struck him with his cane. John fell as if he were dead. I was looking in at the window, not thinking any harm, and saw it all. I thought he had killed John, and ran away, determined not to tell. I never breathed a lisp of it before, son, and nobody ever knew of that quarrel, only your grandfather and me. I know it troubled him greatly after John died. Oh, I can see that awful paper, as John held it up to the light, as plain as this one in ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... by the sobriquet of "glass-eye"; and it was wonderful how this dandy chap who was so particular in his dress and would mince his words in conversation with his brother officers in the wardroom, speaking with a lisp of affectation and a languid air as if it were too much trouble to articulate distinctly, would, when the occasion arose, roar out his orders in a voice that could be heard from one end of the ship to the other and make the men skip about, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... was at his job. A more curiously incompetent person I never met. He was a long, thin man, with a grizzled moustache and a mild sleepy eye-not an impressive figure, except on a horse; and he had an odd lisp which made even a shrewd remark sound foolish. He was the most industrious creature in the world, and a model of official decorum. His papers were always in order, his despatches always neat and correct, and I don't believe any one ever caught ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... to say, with his inimitable lisp—"no, thuh, you can't keep a good man down. 'Tain't no use a-talkin', you jeth can't. It don't do me no harm to go back to rubbin' now an' then. It jeth nachully keepth me on good termth ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... bright, rosy girls, fair as ever an earl's, And the wealth of their curls is our gold; Oh, their lisp and their laugh, they are sweeter by half Than the wine that you quaff red and old! We have love-lighted looks, we have work, we have books, Our boys have grown manly and bold, And they never shall blush, when their proud cousins brush From the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... about a quarter of a yard or more. They wear them as we do a waistcoat, so that they can be seen by everyone, not as we wear them in England, tucked away out of sight. Here young and old, even little boys who can only just walk and lisp their prayers, wear them, and, what is more, take a real pleasure in wearing them. I asked some of them why they wore them so openly, and they answered: 'Because when we look at them we always remember that our chief duty ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... sharply. She had a heavy voice and a slight lisp, which seemed to make it more impressive and more distinctively her own. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Ubiquity. Hence 'tis they live as Rovers, and defie This or that Place, Rags of Geography. They're Citizens o' th' World, they're all in all; Scotland's a Nation Epidemical. And yet they ramble not to learn the Mode, How to be drest, or how to lisp abroad; To return knowing in the Spanish Shrug, Or which of the Dutch States a double Jug Resembles most in Belly or in Beard; The Card by which the Mariners are Steer'd. No! The Scots-Errant fight, and fight to eat; Their Ostrich Stomachs make their Swords their Meat. Nature with ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... much attention to them, the playlet writer must give peculiar individuality to every word spoken by the chief characters. By this I do not mean that, merely to show that a character is different, a hero or heroine should be made to talk with a lisp or to use some catch-word—though this is sometimes done with admirable effect. What I mean is that the words given to the chief characters must possess an individuality rising from their inner differences; their ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... could weep for thee! and yet not tears Of hopelessness, but triumph, and sit down And weave for thee wet wild-flowers for a crown— Then up, and sound rich music in thine ears; And teach thee, that sweet lips, in coming years, Shall lisp the songs which cold dull hearts disown,— That all which hope could pant for is thine own,— Dimmed, for a moment's space, with human fears. Then watch the new-born glories in thine eye, Glancing like lightning ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... Red Cloud and his acorn song skinned to death. Listen! This is the song of the little East-sider, on her first trip to the country under the auspices of her Sunday School. She's quite young. Pay particular attention to her lisp." ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... had not so much as dreamt of poetry: indeed I scarce knew it by name; and, whatever may be said of the force of nature, I certainly never "lisp'd in numbers." I recollect the occasion of my first attempt: it is, like all the rest of my non-adventures, of so unimportant a nature, that I should blush to call the attention of the idlest reader to it, but for the reason ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's, now, with the confiding and grateful air of a waif who has been longing for a friend, and a sympathetic ear, and a chance to lisp once more the sweet accents of the mother-tongue—and then he limbered up the muscles of his mouth and turned himself loose—and with such a relish! Some of his words were not Sunday-school words, so I am obliged to put blanks where ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... last indeed Of these five little ones of whom you read— Was baby Lizzie, with her velvet lisp,— As though her Elfin lips had caught some wisp Of floss between them as they strove with speech, Which ever seemed just in yet out of reach— Though what her lips missed, her dark eyes could say With looks that made ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... good and pious man, An honest man by honest parents bred, And I believe that, soon as I began To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed, And in his hearing there my prayers I said: And afterwards, by my good father taught, I read, and loved the books in which I read; For books in every neighbouring house I sought, And nothing to my mind a sweeter ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... since we have no better term, we must employ these. For, as I have said, this article is so far above the power of the human mind to grasp, or the tongue to express, that God, as the Father of his children, will pardon us when we stammer and lisp as best we can, if only our faith be pure and right. By this term, however, we would say that we believe the divine majesty to be three distinct persons ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... did not ask from thee, Though that were much—oh, more than earth hath given; None live to bear that gentle name for me, Though one may lisp it now, perchance, in Heaven. I know not even, for I never felt, The quiet yearnings of such love as this; Thou should'st have known a deeper feeling dwelt In the rapt glow of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... about a dozen people, men and ladies, young and old, sitting at tea at the end of a long table. A group of men was dimly visible behind their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers, talking loudly, with a lisp, in English. Through a door beyond the group could be seen a light room with pale ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... devout, ("Christ's lore and his apostles twelve he taught, and first he followed it himself")—the summoner with his fiery face—the pardoner with his wallet "bretfull of pardons, come from Rome all hot"—the lively prioress with her courtly French lisp, her soft little red mouth, and "Amor vincit omnia" graven on her brooch. Learning is there in the portly person of the doctor of physic, rich with the profits of the pestilence—the busy serjeant-of-law, "that ever seemed ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... two of their productions were alike. I saw smiling Davids, frowning Davids, mild Davids, and ferocious Davids,—Davids with oblique eyes, red noses, and cavernous mouths,—and Davids as blind as bats, or with great goggle-orbs, aquiline nasal organs, blue at the tips, and lips made for a lisp. One David had a brown Welsh wig on his head, and was anachronistically attired in a snuff-colored coat, black small-clothes, gray, coarse, worsted stockings, high-low boots, with buckles, and he wore on his head a three-cornered hat, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... farewell, a short farewell! We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes.—That strain again! Full fain it would delay me!—My dear Babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, And bid us listen! And I deem it wise To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well The evening star: and once when he awoke In most distressful mood (some inward pain ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... smile illuminates my way, And one by one the gathered clouds depart, Till not a shadow lies upon my path. Night, with its long and sombre shadows, treads Upon the steps that morn and noon have trod; And, as our children gather round my knee, And lisp those evening prayers thy lips have taught, I cannot but believe that thou art near. But when they speak of "mother," when they say "'T is a long time since she hath left our side," And when they ask, in their soft infant tones, When they ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... more like a little white rat than a man, and swears more than he converses—which would be very shocking if it were not for his lisp, which makes it very funny—needless to say, my diary dear, your Molly is not in love ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... dream which had all night long haunted his slumbers. The captain rose hurriedly, dressed himself and inquired for the child, who had been resigned to the care of the cook. She was brought to him, a bright, cheerful little thing, just beginning to lisp unintelligible words. For a few days she missed her mother and wore a look of expectation on her infantile face, occasionally crying out; but anon this passed away, and she became cheerful and happy. The captain spent as much of his time with her as ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... it rolls, Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals Was Carnival: Parini's depths enshrine Secrets unsuited to that opaline Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. There throng the people: how they come and go, Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb,—see,— On Piazza, Calle, under Portico And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy, Be honoured! Thou that did'st love Venice so, Venice, and we who love her, all ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... been, you know; what I now am, and through what agency I have been rendered what I now am, you know also. Not more fixed is fate than my purpose. Your brother dies even on the spot on which my nephew died; and you, Clara, shall be my bride; and the first thing your children shall be taught to lisp shall be curses on the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... The lisp of children's voices, The chance of happy choices, The bugle sounds of hope and faith, through fogs and mists that call; The heaven that stretches o'er us, The better days before us, They all combine to make this earth a good ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... persons who came within the sphere of her observation, her little tongue was as active as her hands. She learned to talk very early, and so speedy was her improvement in the art of prattling, that, before she was three years old, she could lisp out a tale in very intelligible language. Her parents were so unwise as to encourage her in this mischievous kind of ingenuity, not only from the pleasure they took in hearing how fast she learned to speak, but because ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... Bonaparte, peeping round into his face, speaking with a lisp, as though to a very little ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... Monsieur Traveller. Look you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... heard and to translate into the terms of modern speech what he has received in confidence, as it were, he almost blushes, as if he had been guilty of spying on Adam and Eve in their nuptial bower. Alas, if one could but muffle his speech with the unconscious lisp of infancy, or veil and tone his picture to correspond to the perspective of antiquity, he might feel at least that, like Watteau, he had dealt worthily, if not truly, with that ideal age which we ever think of as the ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... handsome he was then! With his deep, dark, lustrous eyes, that you saw yourself in, and the merry mouth wreathed with laughter, and the luxuriant mass of dark hair that he wore in a sort of stack over his lofty forehead! He had a slight lisp in his pleasant voice, and ran on in rapid talk for an hour, with a shy reluctance to talk about his own works, but with the most superabounding vivacity I have ever met with in any man. His two daughters, one of whom afterward married the younger Collins, a brother novelist, ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... known that Mary Morgan carried into the recitation-room notes of the lesson, written upon bits of paper, and tucked up her sleeve, or hidden in the folds of her dress, popular indignation arose to a bubbling boil. A tale-bearer would have been drummed out of school, and not a lisp of the shameful truth was carried to the teacher, the second Miss Nunham, who was near-sighted and unsuspicious. The geography lesson was the most exciting event of the day,—a prize-ring, in which the two at the head of ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... always delight the imagination. His adventures have given a rich coloring to fable, and have stimulated its performances. The language of song and story has been employed to do them honor, and our children are taught, in lessons that they love, to lisp the deeds and the patriotism of his band. "Marion"—"Marion's Brigade" and "Marion's men", have passed into household words, which the young utter with an enthusiasm much more confiding than that which they yield to the wondrous performances of Greece and ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... him, sympathize with man. Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a wall; Answer ye rather to my call, Strong poets of a more unconscious day, When Nature spake nor sought nice reasons why, Too much for softer arts forgotten since That teach our forthright tongue to lisp and mince, 70 And drown in music the heart's bitter cry! Lead me some steps in your directer way, Teach me those words that strike a solid root Within the ears of men; Ye chiefly, virile both to think and feel, Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed Ben, For he ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink; Whether thro' wimplin' worms thou jink, Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink, In glorious faem, Inspire me, till I lisp an' wink, To ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... not know them, but for a reason which she did not analyze she hesitated to ask him who they were. They had rather a rude manner of staring —especially the men—and the air of deriving infinite amusement from that which went on about them. One of them, a young man with a lisp who was addressed by the singular name of "Toots," she had overheard demanding as she passed: who the deuce was the tall girl with the dark hair and the colour? Wherever she went, she was aware of them. It was foolish, she knew, but their presence seemed—in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... records exact statements of truth? Not always. The primitive human mind could only lisp its wonderful glimpses of truth in legend and myth. And so in fable and allegory the early Israelites sought to show the power of good over evil, and thereby stimulate a desire for right conduct, based, of course, on right-thinking. And thus it is that the most significant thing in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... with the thickish lisp and slurring of the consonants that distinguished his utterance when he sought to appear more simple ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... expression, by which in former days one could recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families, 'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in our open, half-wild country parts,—a hesitating gait, a voice with a lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly, freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,—there you have the whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a fair amount of knowledge. Fresh he had remained, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... tedious ride for the young man. The woodsmen sat jammed so closely about him that he could see only the frosty stars glimmering wanly in the moonlight. When the songs and the roaring conversations were stilled for a moment, he could hear the lisp of the runners on the smooth surface and the slashing grind of the ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... Oh, those purposeless lives! They exist simply because they are in the world and cannot help it. With the girls especially, marriage is the chief aim, and what should be the holy relation is entered upon almost in childhood. As soon as they begin to lisp they are talking of their lovers. A little wee girl came to a teacher's home, and after answering in monosyllables the common questions as to schools and Sunday-schools, there was a lull in the conversation, when she spoke up: "I hain't got no sweetheart." For all marriage is the chief aim, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... Deacon asked the children if they were ready with their verses. They all raised their hands. The Deacon then repeated a short piece of poetry, his wife followed, and then all the children one after another, even down to Bob—a little three-year-old, who just managed to lisp out, with a charming mixture ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... are sitting after a full meal, and inquiring in their cups, 'What news from the divine world of poesy?' Hereupon a personage with a hyacinth-coloured mantle over his shoulders brings out some mawkish trash or other, with a snuffle and a lisp, something about Phyllises or Hypsipyles, or any of the many heroines over whom poets have snivelled, filtering out his tones and tripping up the words against the roof of his delicate ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... presently come stealing back on tiptoe. I used to listen for her footsteps on the stairs, then the knock, the door flung back or opened quietly—you never could tell which; and her voice, with a little lisp, 'Are you better today, Mr. Brune? What funny things you say when you're delirious! Father says you've been ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... whose rich mine of wit we here behold As porcelain earth, more precious, 'cause more old; Who, like an aged oak, so long hath stood, And art religion now as well as food: Though thy grey Muse grew up with elder times, And our deceased grandsires lisp'd thy rhymes; Yet we can sing thee too, and make the lays Which deck thy brow look fresher with thy praise. * * * * * Though these, your happy births, have silent past More years than some abortive wits shall last; He still writes new, who once so well hath sung: That Muse can ne'er be old, which ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... comrades and his superior officers. On arriving at twelve o'clock from the station at his flat, Vronsky saw, at the outer door, a hired carriage familiar to him. While still outside his own door, as he rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a feminine voice, and Petritsky's voice. "If that's one of the villains, don't let him in!" Vronsky told the servant not to announce him, and slipped quietly into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxen ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... my clergyman of to-day failed utterly," said Mrs. Evelyn;—"he aimed at strengthening that feeling and driving it down as hard as he could into everybody's mind—not a single lisp of anything to do it away or lessen the gloom with which we are, naturally as you say, ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... the stranger, and who remembers and babbles at last—ere the silver cord of memory is utterly and finally loosed—one language only, and that some few words merely, in the long unspoken tongue which he first learned to lisp in ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... blouse and a plain skirt a l'Anglais, and three daughters, who were spoken of, not by their names, but as the eldest, the middle, and the youngest; they all had ugly, sharp chins, and they were short-sighted, high-shouldered, dressed in the same style as their mother, had an unpleasant lisp, and yet they always took part in every play and were always doing something for charity—acting, reciting, singing. They were very serious and never smiled, and even in burlesque operettas they acted without gaiety and with a businesslike ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... pride in his German ancestry, and having been present when, in seasons of swollen pride, he had reflected invidiously in Andrea's presence on Mexico and all things Mexican, the artist, in a wicked moment, taught her to lisp "Hoch der Kaiser!" lese-majeste that almost caused ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... gates stand open, the transit is free For the human to mix with divine; from himself to the Highest to flee. Lo on its knees by the bedside the babe:—and the song that we hear Has been heard already in Heaven! the low-lisp'd music is clear:— For, fresh from the hand of the Maker, the child still breathes the light air Of the House Angelic, the meadow where souls yet unbodied repair, Lucid with love, translucent with bliss, and know not the doom In the Marah valley of life laid up for the sons of the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... those who won it as to those who lost it. For Napoleon it was a panic;[10] Blucher sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington understands nothing in regard to it. Look at the reports. The bulletins are confused, the commentaries involved. Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it up into three changes; Charras alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points, seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... man. The saying of Euripides, that all beauties have a beautiful autumn of their charms, is not universally true, but it was so in the case of Alkibiades and of a few other persons because of the symmetry and vigour of their frames. Even his lisp is said to have added a charm to his speech, and to have made his talk more persuasive. His lisp is mentioned by Aristophanes in the verses in which he satirises Theorus, in which Alkibiades calls him Theolus, for he pronounced the letter r like l. Archippus also gives a sneering account of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... pompous betrothals between infant parties the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries can show! Poor little puppets, in whose persons national interests were supposed to be centred, were made to lisp out their roles in international dramas whose final acts rarely were consistent with the promise of ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... knew that they must depend on a thinning wind to cuff them into port. One after the other, barnacled anchors splashed from catheads, dragging rusty chains from hawse-holes, and old, patched sails came sprawling down with chuckle of sheaves and lisp of running rigging. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... he'd stand and drink in every word that flowed from the mouth of that great divine. No Negro woman or man could lisp the name of "Brother Banks" with sweeter accent than George Howe, and no one could sing his praises more earnestly. Who can forget those early days of revivals and religious enthusiasm in Wilmington, and the three great divines who filled ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... impossible to see more than a yard or two ahead, but the same dense obscurity would prevent any further range of vision from the other boat, and, if it was still at its work, the sound of its oars or of voices, Michael reflected, might guide him to it. From the lisp of little wavelets lapping on the shore below the woods, he knew he was quite close in to the bank, and close also to the place where the invisible boat had been ten minutes before. Then, in the bewildering, unlocalised manner in ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... tongue! If you lisp another word I will have you sent to the overseer as sure as you are a living darkey. Now take those things out of the carriage and put them in my room; and when you have done that, go off somewhere and spend an hour or two every day telling the truth, so that you will get used to it. Come ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... Story./ ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: Look, you lisp, and wear/ Strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love/ with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance/ you are; or I will scarce think that you have swam in a GONDOLA./ AS YOU LIKE IT, Act ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... gave Parr such a severe rebuke as sent him from the room in ill-humor. The rest walked on the lawn, amusing the Americans with sketches of the Doctor. There was a dark cloud overhead, and from that cloud presently came a voice which called Tham (Parr-lisp for Sam). The company were astonished for a moment, but thought the Doctor was calling his servant in the house, and that the apparent direction was an illusion arising out of inattention. But presently the sound was repeated, certainly ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... particular. Ellen loved, when she could, to get alone with her, and hear her talk of her mother's young days: and she loved furthermore, and almost as much, to talk to Mrs. Allen of her own. Ellen could to no one else lisp a word on the subject; and without dwelling directly on those that she loved, she delighted to tell over to an interested listener the things she had done, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... days of the dandies, who were generally sour and spiteful) of a man combining brilliant wit and repartee with the most perfect good-nature. His manner, above all, was irresistible; and the slight lisp, which might have been considered as a blemish, only added piquancy and ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Stammering — N. inarticulateness; stammering &c v.; hesitation &c v.; impediment in one's speech; titubancy^, traulism^; whisper &c (faint sound) 405; lisp, drawl, tardiloquence^; nasal tone, nasal accent; twang; falsetto &c (want of voice) 581; broken voice, broken accents, broken sentences. brogue &c 563; slip of the tongue, lapsus linouae [Lat.]. V. stammer, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that she had no children—could she live to be shamed by them, scorned by them? And yet—how sweet it would have been to feel clinging arms about her neck; to hear little voices lisp the sweetest word on earth to a mother's ear, if only she might have been as other mothers—as other wives! Never, never once had she breathed or hinted a wish that Philip should marry her; she had ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... straight and crisp, Shone like a wheat-field in the sun, Its swift voice deafened to a lisp, Fell, ere the war was well begun, And waned and withered ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shake Far down within some shadowy lake, To me a painted paroquet Hath been—a most familiar bird— Taught me my alphabet to say— To lisp my very earliest word While in the wild wood I did lie, A child—with ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... talk things over with the pal when he comes," said another voice that was very smooth, and had a lisp. Clo deduced that it was the ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... such natural inclinations the body will retain a certain bent, without our knowledge or consent. It was an affectation conformable with his beauty that made Alexander carry his head on one side, and caused Alcibiades to lisp; Julius Caesar scratched his head with one finger, which is the fashion of a man full of troublesome thoughts; and Cicero, as I remember, was wont to pucker up his nose, a sign of a man given to scoffing; such motions as these may imperceptibly happen in us. There are other artificial ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the hotel for this stranger. That he knew French was not strange. He had been well educated as a boy and had had his hour with the classics. His godmother, who had been in the household of Prince Joseph Bonaparte, taught him French from the time he could lisp, and, what was dangerous in his father's eyes, filled him with bits of poetry and fine language, so that he knew Heine, Racine and Beranger and many another. But this was made endurable to the father by the fact that, by nature, the boy was a warrior and a scapegrace, could use his fists as well ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... ivied wand, "The sword in myrtles drest," Each legend of the shadowy strand Now wakes a vision blest; As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven, So thoughts beyond their thought to those ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... sorrow warmly by the hand, his bronzed face brightens with an air of satisfaction, and like pure water gushing from the rude rock his eyes fill with tears. How honest, how touching, how pure the friendly lisp-good bye! "Keep up a strong heart, Tom,—never mind me. I don't know by what right I'm kept here, and starved; but I expect to get out one of these days; and when I do you may reckon on me as your friend. Keep the craft in good trim till then; don't let the devil get master. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Lisbeth, "to see my darling, the count's sweet child, and press him to my heart. Certainly he must long to see me, too, the young count; no doubt he thinks of me and loves me, as in those days when he would fling his angel-arms round my neck, and lisp 'Anne Liz.' It was music to my ears. Yes, I must make an effort to see him again." She drove across the country in a grazier's cart, and then got out, and continued her journey on foot, and thus reached the count's castle. ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... communicate the message may be separately understood, and yet the meaning of the message wholly missed. Knowing only the one makes a charlatan; knowing the other makes a savan. The sciences based upon this objective study of Nature are denominated Natural Sciences; and because they lisp the first syllables of Nature's message to man, they should be his primary teachers. It is by their aid that the universal message of God to man must be read. They form, as it were, a public highway leading from Nature to God. But the difficulty is that observing men become so absorbed in admiring ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... been on the stage for nothing," I assured him. "I'll change my voice very little, not enough to make it difficult to keep up—throw in a lisp or something of that kind. You can trust me to ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... dome, its sea a shimmering shield of opalescence, its lawns and terraces argentine shadowed with deepest violet. There was never a definite sound, only the sibilance of a stillness made of many interwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet below, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vast serenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... thine heart; As if the ministring stars kept not apart, 50 Waiting for silver-footed messages. O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees Feel palpitations when thou lookest in: O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din The while they feel thine airy fellowship. Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine, Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine: Innumerable mountains rise, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... of Adalaisa asleep at the feet of naked Christ. Arnold goes pacing a dark path; there is silence among the mountains; in front of him the rustling lisp of a river, a pool.... Then it is lost and soundless. Arnold ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... completely dark, the sky was faintly marbled by a moon behind the clouds. On both sides of the road rose the tall grey skeletons of poplars. When the sound of his footsteps stopped, he heard a faint lisp of running water. Standing still in the middle of the road, he felt his feelings gradually relax. He said aloud in a low voice several times: "You are a damn fool, John Andrews," and started walking slowly and ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... two. Here was a little fortune on the cotton he had in store at any rate, and, if he really had in his grasp all the news of the rise, he might make by it a plump ten thousand dollars out of Captain Grant's "Orion." But to this end he must be sure that not a lisp of the rise would be published in the morning papers, and he must see Captain Grant and close his bargain for the "Orion's" cargo before the wires should begin to furnish additional news by the "Africa" to the evening papers. They would not, after obtaining such news, lose a moment ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... hour's fancy; fresh and cold As winter's shadow, with his eye-lids seal'd, Like violet-lips at eve, he lies enrobed An offering to the grave! but, pure as when It wing'd from heaven, his spirit hath return'd, To lisp his hallelujahs with the choirs Of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... story he could readily shape it into verse, extempore, too, upon occasion; and many were the jokes that rebounded from his theme, whether in hall or kitchen. It was pleasant to watch his little grey eye, and the twinkling lashes, as they rose and fell, varying the expression of his lips. A slight lisp gave an air of simplicity to his ditties, which never failed to charm his auditors. He could throw the simplest expression over his features, which made the keen edge of his rebukes infinitely more cutting and effective. But the prevailing tone of feeling in him was sad and oppressive. These ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... be wrong to form the idea that there is bitterness in the disdain of this custodian. On the contrary, he is one of the best-natured men in the world. He is a mighty mass of pinguid bronze, with a fat lisp, and a broad, sunflower smile, and he lectures us with a vast and genial breadth of manner on the ruins, contradicting all our guesses at things with a sweet "Perdoni, signori! ma——." At the end, we find that he has some medallions ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... it down the precipice; For who would lose his temper and his breath To keep a brute alive that's bent on death? Yet one thing more: your fate may be to teach In some suburban school the parts of speech, And, maundering over grammar day by day, Lisp, prattle, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... no being in the world that he reverenced as he had reverenced this aged lady. In his childhood she had taught him to lisp the measures of psalm and paraphrase; in his youth she had advised him with shrewdest wisdom; in his ministerial life she had been to him a friend, always holding before him a greater spiritual height to be ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... gave a feeling of freshness to the air and raised a little wave of surf, that broke on the beach with a rippling splash far astern; the cooing of the doves in the distance chiming in musically with the lisp ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... hour of dissolution! How pleasing the contemplation. How inspiring to think of our noble ancestors; our holy ministers and teachers; our fathers and mothers who led us by the hand to the house of God on the Sabbath, who early taught us to lisp the ever precious name of Jesus; who are to-day singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Let us thank God at this solemn hour, even amid blinding tears, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... into the world in imbecility, in the midst of anguish and cries; to be the toy of ignorance, of error, of necessity, of sickness, of malice, of all passions; to return step by step to that imbecility whence one sprang; from the moment when we lisp our first words, down to the moment when we mumble the words of our dotage, to live among rascals and charlatans of every kind; to lie expiring between a man who feels your pulse, and another man who frets and wearies your head; not to know whence one comes, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... in a silver mist, In silver silence all the day, Save for the low, soft kiss of spray, And the lisp of sands by waters kissed, As the tide draws ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... I be otherwise," said she, speaking French with a most adorable lisp, "when one of my poor countrymen is a prisoner in your hands? I saw him between two of your Hussars as you rode into ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... what a dear good lady I had? A thousand blessings on her beloved memory! Were I to live to see my children's children, they should be all taught to lisp her praises before they could speak. My gratitude should always be renewed in their mouths; and God, and my dear father and mother, my lady, and my master that was, my best friend that is, but principally, as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... little white whiskers. And his grey eyes, compressed mouth and square and obstinate chin lent an expression of great austerity to his long face. The grief of his life was that, being afflicted with a somewhat childish lisp, he had never been able to make his full merits known when a public prosecutor, for he esteemed himself to be a great orator. And this secret worry rendered him morose. In him appeared an incarnation of that old royalist France which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... genii, sorcerers, demons, ghouls, enchanted caves and castles, and monsters and monstrosities of every name. The exceedingly impressible and poetical nature of children (for all children are poets and talk poetry as soon as they can lisp) appropriates and absorbs with intense relish these fanciful myths, and for years they believe more firmly in their truth than in the realities of the actual world. And I more than suspect that this child-credulity rather slumbers in the grown ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... with a charming affectation of a little lisp. 'I'm so glad I've caught you. I thought I should. What a lovely ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... fellow," said he with the slight lisp which he affected, "Valentine is determined to put on a new gown. So we must be patient; we shall ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... language for such a being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to the most forcible reasoning and the most brilliant wit an infantine air, generally delightful, but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludicrous. Heroes and statesmen seem to lisp when they use it. It becomes Nicias incomparably, and renders all his silliness infinitely more silly. We may add, that the verses with which the Mandragola is interspersed, appear to us to be the most spirited and correct of all that Machiavelli ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... blood of her children. They led the trembling sons and daughters of faith, barefoot and blindfolded, over burning plowshares, stretched them on wheel and rack, tore them limb from limb, sparing not for the groan of age, the lisp of childhood, or the piteous cry of ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... not sit down in—dressed like a grasshopper. This human cricket came up to the clerk's desk just as I entered, adjusted his unseeing eye-glass, and spake in this wise to the clerk. You see, he thought it was "Hinglish, you know," to lisp. "Thir, will you have the kindness to supply me with thome papah and enwelophs!" The hotel clerk measured that man quick, and he pulled the envelopes and paper out of a drawer, threw them across the counter toward the young man, and then turned away to his books. You ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... scenes like this, I would go upstairs, and stand before the ikons, and say with a rapturous feeling, "God bless Papa and Mamma!" and repeat a prayer for my beloved mother which my childish lips had learnt to lisp-the love of God and of her blending ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... never even smiled, but fixed his eyes in a rather unpleasant manner upon Joachim as he raised them from his books. Still he was an irresistible subject for the Mimic; for, though he learnt his lessons without a mistake, and always obtained the Master's praise, he read them with so strong a lisp, and this was rendered so remarkable by his loud, deep voice, that it fairly upset what little prudence Joachim possessed; and, as he returned one day to his seat, after repeating a copy of verses in the manner I have described, Joachim, who was not far off, echoed the last two lines with such accuracy ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... boy named To' Muda Long, who was the eldest son of one of the great up-country Chiefs. He was returning from Singapore with the Raja, to whom he had fled after some escapade of his had excited the paternal wrath. He was a nice-looking youngster, with a slight lisp, and a manner as soft as floss-silk, and he was always smartly dressed in pretty Malay garments. We travelled together for more than three months, and I got to know him pretty well, and took something of a liking to him. I knew, of course, that ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... still here the language of worship seems far, and yet lies very nigh; for what better note can our frail tongues lisp than the voice of wind and sea, river and stream, those grateful servants giving all and asking nothing, the soft whisper of snow and rain eager to replenish, or the thunder proclaiming a majesty too great ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... she greeted her. "Goody! What a relief! I've been worrying about what you'd be like, and just praying you wouldn't have spectacles and talk with a lisp. Miss Todd gave me to understand you were a peach, and I might think myself in luck to room with you, but you never can trust head mistresses till you see for yourself. She's told me the truth, though, after all. Yes, I like you right straight ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... prokrastigxi. Lining subsxtofo. Link (of chain) cxenero. Link torcxo. Lint cxarpio. Lion leono. Lip lipo. Liquefy fluidigi. Liquid fluida. Liquid fluidajxo. Liquidate likvidi. Liquidation likvido. Liquidator likvidanto. Liquor likvoro. Liquorice glicirizo. Lisp lispi. List registro. List of names nomaro. List (index) tabelo. Listen auxskulti. Listless senvigla. Litany litanio. Literal lauxlitera. Literally lauxlitere. Literary literatura. Literateur literaturisto. Literature literaturo. Lithe aktiva. Lithograph ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... encore took effect, return immediately to his noisy and disturbing engrossment in the young ladies' society from whose impertinent whispering he had only rested for the moment, troubling all who sat near him both with his talk and his sympathetic lie. A true man will not move a finger or lisp a syllable to echo what he does not apprehend and approve. A true man never assents anywise to what is error to him. In the delicious letters of Mendelssohn we read of an application by a distinguished lady made to him to write a piece ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... with a sickly mien, Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen; Practised to lisp, and hang the head aside, Faints into airs, and languishes with pride; On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe, Wrapp'd in a gown, for sickness, and for show. The fair ones feel such maladies as these, When each new night-dress gives a ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... not,"—and go about asking our blind guides, whether Pope was a poet or not? It will never do. Such persons, when you point out to them a fine passage in Pope, turn it off to something of the same sort in some other writer. Thus they say that the line, "I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came," is pretty, but taken from that of Ovid—Et quum conabar scribere, versus erat. They are safe in this mode of criticism: there is no danger of any one's tracing their ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... same bright bloom on their complexion, and very precious necklaces on very withered necks. Among these, a young lady of sixty-five, remarkably coolly dressed as to her back and shoulders, who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn't keep up well, without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners had that indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the giddiness of youth. As the greater ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... over sea. Coasting vessels that had run into the bay for shelter from the North wind lay with their shadows thrown shoreward on the cold smooth water, almost to the verge of the beach, where there was neither breath nor sound of wind, only the lisp at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... could well crawl he was taught to kneel; before he could well speak he was taught to lisp the Lord's prayer, and the general confession. How was it possible that these things could be taught too early? If his attention flagged or his memory failed him, here was an ill weed which would grow apace, unless it were plucked out immediately, and the only ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... was not constant, nor the pitch of its note, which fell when Lawrence stood erect, but rose to a shrill overtone when he bent his head: sometimes one would have thought the river was going down in spate, and then the volume of sound dwindled to a mere thread, a lisp in the air. Lawrence was observing these phenomena with a mind vacant of thought when he heard footsteps brushing through the grass by the field path from the village. Val had ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... parents got the name, I cannot tell—was four or five years older than Rita. He was a manly boy, and when my little friend could hardly lisp his name she would run to him with the unerring instinct of childhood and nestle in his arms or cling to his helpful finger. The little fellow was so sturdy, strong, and brave, and his dark gray eyes were so steadfast ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major |
