"Prattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was the only child of Eldon Maise and how she spent her winters in a fashionable boarding school, only coming to the country in summer to spend her vacation. Eldon Maise, as Peri knew, was the rich man of the "clan." But the lively prattle of his sister and their dainty cousin on topics of interests common only to girls, bored him and he soon found himself becoming interested in the conversation ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... which finds its manifestation in language is to receive the name of reason, what shall we style the rest? We had thought that the love and intelligence, the soul, that looks out of a child's eyes upon us to reward our care long before it begins to prattle, were also ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... 've two bonnie little bairns, Full of prattle and of glee, And our little dwelling rings With their laughter, wild and free. Of the greenwoods, all the day, I 've a little bird that sings; It reminds me of my youth, And ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... thoughts had been focused too long on the wrongs of the rural regions to be able to transfer themselves to the sufferings and injustices of the town. He saw the city collectively as the oppressor of the country, and Leverett Whyland, by reason of Clytie's innocent prattle, became the city incarnate in a ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... my left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, and turned to me as ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... development. And young man—young woman, you who have left behind the days of knee trousers and short dresses, and with them have laid aside the doll and the pet, think it not weakness when you find yourself irresistibly drawn by the sweet smile of an innocent babe or by the childish prattle of one a little farther on. Be not ashamed when, under such influence, you picture yourself the center of a home, and in this connection think of him or her whom you would like to have share it with you. It is the sweetest influence that can ever come into your life. Rightly regarded and used, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... We prattle of the dead past, and use to fancy that peace must dwell there, if nothing else. Only in the past, say we, is security from jostle, danger, and disturbance; who would live at his ease must number his days backwards; no charm so potent as ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... I started Oceans wide have parted: Some are broken-hearted, Some lie in the clay; Those I once heard prattle, For whom I shook the rattle, Engaged in life's vain battle, Push ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... up your innocent eyes, little Annie, and dispels the gathering shade. The flame dies down again, and you draw closer to my side. The pure moon looks in at the southern window, replacing the ruddier glow; while the fading embers lisp and prattle to one another, like drowsy children, more and more ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... now made much of his step-children: and indeed he found their innocent prattle quite as intelligent, in essentials, as the talk of the full-grown nature myths who infested the palace of Anaitis. And the four of them—Jurgen, and critical Alecto, and grave Tisiphone, and fairy-like little Megaera,—would ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... their pretty prattle. It makes me think of 'eavens an' Gawd's angels," said Mrs Gowler. Then, as Mavis did not make any remark, she added: "Six ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... bay by the reflection that this must be a further manifestation of the New York manner, and her self-respect was propitiated by the cordiality of her entertainers. The conversation was bubbling and light-hearted on the part of both Mr. and Mrs. Williams. They kept up a running prattle on the current fads of the day, the theatre, the doings of well-known social personages, and their own household possessions, which they naively called to the attention of their guests, that they might be admired. But Selma enjoyed more ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full, ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all these ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... vices of the rich and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, we do not think that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... night, through the threatenings of death or the allurements of fame, one thought was paramount in Collingwood's mind. A yearning for a peaceful garden he had left behind—to him a veritable garden of Paradise—for the innocent prattle of his children, the sweet companionship of his wife. A dream of reunion tormented and sustained him. "Whenever I think how I am to be happy again my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth," he wrote. Incapable of a dramatic appeal to sympathy, his letters to Stanhope, in their strong self-repression, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... romping battle, A fairy tale, a "Children, bed," A kiss, a hug, a hush of prattle (God save each little drowsy head!) A cozy chat with wife a-sewing, A silver lining clouds that low'r, Then she too goes, and with her going, I come ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... occupation it is to an affectionate mind, even in a way of nature, to walk through the fields, and lead a little child by the hand, enjoying its infantine prattle, and striving to improve the time by some kind word of instruction! I wish that every Christian pilgrim in the way of grace, as he walks through the Lord's pastures, would try to lead at least one little child by the hand; and perhaps, whilst he is endeavouring to guide and ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... first thing I would have done would be to give 'em something to eat. I reckon I must have thought I had picked up an angel." To her he said, smoothing her hair with his free hand. "We'll have sumpin for baby's tummy mighty quick." He flushed at sound of that baby prattle from his lips. But it had popped out in the ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... face; quitting the interchange of wit, the society of the Townshends, the Walpoles, the Williamses, the Edgecumbes; all the jovial, keen wisdom of Gilly, and Dick, and Horace, and Charles, as they called one another, for the meaningless prattle, the merry laughter of this half-English, half-Italian child, It redeems Selwyn in our eyes, and it may have done him real good: nay, he must have felt a keen refreshment in this change from vice to innocence; and we understand the misery he expressed, when the old bachelor's ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... fingers. His clothes were sifted over with dust and fine particles of manure. The seat grated beneath his legs. The great headlines in the newspaper announced that the troops were arriving. Columns of childish, reportorial prattle followed, describing the martial bearing of the officers, the fierceness of the "bronzed Indian fighters." The city was under martial law. He read also the bickering telegrams exchanged between the state authorities ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... had disappeared in disgrace; and there I sat by my Wife's side, endeavouring to form a retrospect of the year 1999 and of the possibilities of the year 2000, but not quite able to shake off the thoughts suggested by the prattle of my bright little Hexagon. Only a few sands now remained in the half-hour glass. Rousing myself from my reverie I turned the glass Northward for the last time in the old Millennium; and in the act, I exclaimed aloud, "The boy ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... genteel place; but she masters that so fast, that now as my daughter is married and gone from me, I am desirous to qualify her to divert and entertain me in my thoughtful hours: and were you, sister, to know what she is capable of, and how diverting her innocent prattle is to me, and her natural simplicity, which I encourage her to preserve amidst all she learns, you would not, nor my son neither, wonder at the pleasure I take in her. Shall I call ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... her infant prodigy, Clarence, in our care for a little while that she might not be distracted by his innocent prattle while selecting the material for a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... talking dynasty pretended to. The sturdy old moralist felt grand enough, no doubt, when he said, "He that is growing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war or peace." Benjamin Franklin was one of these idlers who were electrifying bottles, but he also found time to engage in the trifling prattle about war and peace going on in those times. The ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not read. It was as though she struggled to recall a memory of something gone by,—something sweet yet unholy which she did not understand, would not ask about, and could not forget. And, at other times, in the midst of her childish prattle, she would say what would make him glance at her strangely, in a voice like hers, yet whose subtle intonations were not like hers. Also, he had not found many women who were at times as honestly regardless ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... take an apple rather than a crown; what they hear concerning Christ, of the life to come, etc., the same do they believe simply and plainly, and prattle joyfully thereof. From whence Christ speaketh unto us old ones earnestly to follow their examples, where he saith, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein." ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... Countess. The girl's idle prattle about the spurs has pained you: always too sensitive; always soon hurt, though never ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Conde began to prattle publicly of his deep projects of revenge. Aided by Spanish money and Spanish troops he would show one day who was the real heir to the throne of France—the illegitimately ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bottles of mandrake essence which we shall presently have to affirm or deny. Under any other circumstances we should deeply enjoy a half hour spent in a comfortable chair, with nothing to do but do nothing. Our barber is a delightful fellow; he looks benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... wood, and their dark wall round about the clearing where they dwelt. Face-of-god gave the twain the sele of the day in merry fashion as he passed them by, and the sober dark-faced man nodded to him but spake no word, and the child stayed her prattle to watch him as he ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... against his legs, following everywhere at his heels, pulling at his coat-tails, and, at last, exerting all the speed that its poor limbs were capable of, got directly before him and held forth its arms, mutely insisting on being taken up. It said not a word, being perhaps underwitted and incapable of prattle. But it smiled up in his face,—a sort of woful gleam was that smile, through the sickly blotches that covered its features,—and found means to express such a perfect confidence that it was going to be fondled and made much of, that there was no possibility in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Charles in spite of himself, and the astonishment in his voice woke the old gentleman from his prattle. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... for. To-day he had seen Sypher in a new mood, sympathetic, unegotistical, non-robustious, and he felt gratified at having won a man's friendship. It was an addition to his few anchorages in life. Then, in a couple of hours he would sun himself in the smiles of his adored mistress, and listen to the prattle of his other friend, Emmy. Mrs. Oldrieve would be knitting by the lamp, and probably he would hold her wool, drop it, and be scolded as if he were a member of the family; all of which was a very gracious thing to the sensitive, ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... to prattle impatiently, and the wife more than once said to her husband, "Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may have trouble in getting it if we ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... quiet ensued and another priestess took up the invocation. During her prolix harangue to the spirits the other two busied themselves, one in rearranging the offerings in the little shed, the other in lighting more incense, while the spectators continued their prattle, heedless of the services. After an interval of some 10 minutes the sacred dance was continued, the priestesses circling and sweeping around with their palm branches waving up and down as they swung their arms in graceful movements through the air. This continued for several minutes, until ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... flowers and fruit, or of Thomas Neal, concerning pet heifers, and new milk and butter and cheese, became tedious; the jokes and laughter of the farm-hands and dairymaids she heard with irritation; nor could the prattle and play of her romping boys divert her mind from the one absorbing theme—the descent of the Mississippi, the conquest of Mexico, the creation of a New World. In close daily communion with Theodosia, she dwelt not in a white frame house on ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... does not take alarm at my name (as has indeed been the case in other places, owing to the foolish prattle of the critics), they might try the "Prometheus" choruses there by-and-by. They are to be given almost directly (at the end of October) at Zwickau, and probably later on in Leipzig, where I shall then ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... and stood over the little lady, and looked down on her with faces of pity, which seemed blent with a serene and half-amused indulgence. It was a heavenly amusement, such as that with which mothers listen to the foolish-wise prattle of ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... ethereal. His longing for her was an acute physical pain, and he never allowed his ideals to stop his romancing. He insisted that his desire be stated in masking phrases and deceiving glories of chivalrous prattle. He was so torn by his conflicting emotions and ideals that he was fast arriving at a state where his action would be that of a wounded beast at bay. He did not know and would not admit that his own distorted view of Claire was back of his ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... endearing words and actions and companionship. But afterward, when I was restored to my human heritage, Mildred and I grew into each other's hearts, so that we were content to go hand-in-hand wherever caprice led us, although she could not understand my finger language, nor I her childish prattle. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... this mock grimace? Go, silly thing, and hide that simp'ring face. Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait, All thy false mimic fooleries I hate; For thou art Folly's counterfeit, and she Who is right foolish hath the better plea; Nature's true idiot ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... had prosperity been greater. Capital was abundant. The institutions of credit were flourishing. Securities were rising. Everybody's pockets were full to bursting. And the others listened in astonishment to this inexhaustible prattle, this "gab," more filled with gold spangles than Dantzig cordial, with which the commercial travelers of ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... make a splendid motion picture actor," declared the younger Miss Stanton, audaciously. "He sticks close to his cues, you see, and won't move till he gets one. He will answer your questions; yes, he has said he would; but you may prattle until doomsday without effect, so far as he is concerned, unless you finish your speech with ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... and caressed by a succession of the daughters of France, the fairest, the most ill-starred; I had fought and conquered shoulder to shoulder with her sons. A soldier, a noble, of the proudest and bravest race in Europe, it had been left to the prattle of a hobbledehoy lackey in an English chaise to recall me to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gracefully—we could not withstand such prattle. The blacksmith turned in some beans, the boys from Manchester divided their scanty store of flour and bacon, I brought some salt, some sugar, and some oatmeal, and as the small man put it away he chirped ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... my part, I never care For those lips that tongue-tied are: Tell-tales I would have them be Of my mistress and of me. Let them prattle how that I Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry: Let them tell how she doth move Fore or backward in her love: Let them speak by gentle tones, One and th' other's passions: How we watch, and seldom sleep; How by willows we do weep; How by stealth we meet, and then Kiss, and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... labour The midnight oil he burns, But unto some near neighbour His fair young face he turns, To share the harmless tattle Which bejants love to prattle, As wise as infant's rattle Or talk of ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... advise you by all means to accomplish that, for the sake of the family. Nobody likes his friends to be talked about. So I'd settle the matter amicably, were I you. Just let the fellow go his way; he won't return here again in a hurry, I'll be bound. As to clapping him in quod, he might prattle—turn stag." ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... anger passed out of the face of William Douglas as he listened to his sister's prattle, like the vapours from the surface of a hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength. He even thought with some self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle the Abbot. But a glance at the ring on his finger, and the thought ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... wa kal"lit. "it was said and he said;" a popular phrase for chit chat, tittle-tattle, prattle and prate, etc. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... dwelling, where I was taken to see them and their owner many years ago. My introducer on this occasion was herself a lady of no ordinary birth, being the daughter of Stuart, our greatest portrait painter. I have passed many quiet hours in the quaint studio (the same her father had used), hearing her prattle—as she loved to do if she found a sympathetic listener—of her father, of Washington and his pompous ways, and the many celebrities who had in turn posed before Stuart's easel. She had been her father's companion and aid, present at ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... portended something; and on "one vivid daybreak," half through April, Pompilia learned what that something was. . . . Going to bed the previous night, the last sound in her ears had been Margherita's prattle. "Easter was over; everyone was on the wing for Rome—even Caponsacchi, out of heart and hope, was going there." Pompilia had heard it, as she might have heard rain drop, thinking only that ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... shut our eyes, and all seemed right. True, the world's eyes are open now: —Less need for me to disallow Some few that keep Love's zone unbuckled, Peevish as ever to be suckled, Lulled by the same old baby-prattle With intermixture of the rattle, When she would have them creep, stand steady Upon their feet, or walk already, Not to speak of trying to climb. I will be wise another time, And not desire a wall between us, When next I see a church-roof cover So ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... only languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was served ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... on the shore the daughters of the land, No thought had man or maid of rest or home, While many a languid eye and thrilling hand Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, Or gently prest, returned the pressure still: Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeem ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the best terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling, as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could do Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what A B ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the so-called Prussian prove that the Cabinet Order is not the outcome of religious feeling? By describing the Cabinet Order everywhere as an outcome of religious feeling. Is an insight into social movements to be expected from such an illogical mind? Listen to his prattle about the relation of German society to the Labour movement and to social ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... one who makes a great stir with printed prattle, falsehood and fury. Madness is the characteristic of the true poet. All those who express themselves, with clearness, precision and simplicity are deemed unworthy of the ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... again? I sit night after night in my mother-in-law's "budwar," the crimson-satin chairs staring at me, the wedding-cake ornament with its silver leaves glittering in the electric light; I sit there listening vaguely to her admonitions and endless prattle of Augustus's perfections. I have now heard every incident of his childhood: what ailments he had, what medicines suited him best, when he cut all those superfluous ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... Schopenhauer's, not proofs but quips and sallies alone are suitable. While perusing such passages, the reader will grasp the full meaning of Schopenhauer's solemn utterance to the effect that, where optimism is not merely the idle prattle of those beneath whose flat brows words and only words are stored, it seemed to him not merely an absurd but a vicious attitude of mind, and one full of scornful irony towards the indescribable sufferings of humanity. When a philosopher like Strauss is able to frame it into a system, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the Bishop, "music pleases me right well, and if you can play up to your prattle, 'twill indeed grace your ceremony. Let us have ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... d'oeil of the progress of human life. In thought it occupies years, and embraces the circle of the affections from childhood to old age. Juliet has become a great girl, a young woman since we first remember her a little thing in the idle prattle of the nurse. Lady Capulet was about her age when she became a mother, and old Capulet somewhat ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Meredith could do, and after his notorious effort to shift the subject he could do very little, the light prattle ran on about Helen Sherwood and Brainard Macauley. Tom abused himself for his wild notion of cheering his visitor with these people who had no talk, and who, if they drifted out of commonplace froth, had no medium to float them unless they sailed the currents, of local personality, and he ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... walk on whatever befall, the good do not prattle, longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... effect on others, that nobody ever afterwards dared so much as shew me a book. My boyhood was therefore passed as it should be, in horsemanship, and hunting, and learning to fight. What is the good of a gentleman's poring all day over a book? Prowess to the knight, and prattle to the clergyman. ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... enemy fell without mercy. Fury everywhere raged and the cowardly cunning of weakness. Ne'er may I men so carried away by injurious passion See again! the sight of the raging wild beast would be better. Let not man prattle of freedom, as if himself he could govern! Soon as the barriers are torn away, then all of the evil Seems let loose, that by law had been driven deep ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... was already reaching out tentacles to the wider world, where schoolgirl criticisms would be mere prattle; and it was far more serious to her to wonder what Brother Dudley would think of her having an actress for her ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... motherly prattle stretched itself over two good hours, and much of it related to Clementine, as you will readily suppose. Leon had found her prettier than he had dreamed her in his sweetest visions, but less loving. "Devil take me!" said he, blowing out his candle; "One might think that that confounded ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... when at home, at a small table in his cabinet. The two sons of Hortense were frequently admitted, that they might interest him with their infant prattle. The Emperor would tell them a story, and have them repeat it after him, that he might ascertain the accuracy of their memory. Any indication of intellectual superiority excited in his mind the most lively satisfaction. Mademoiselle Cochelet, ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... when he returned, for him there existed neither wife nor child. For any trace of them that could be found, both might have been supernaturally spirited away. The great house, that had re-echoed to the boy's prattle, was deathly still; and neither wife, nor child, answered his call. The nurse was summoned. She was positive Madame was amusing the boy across the hall, and reassuringly bustled off to find mother and son in the next room, and the next, and yet the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... known and accepted everywhere as a useful man. As might be supposed, he is never obtrusively manly. The rough pursuits of the merely athletic repel him, yet he has the knack of assuming an interest where he feels it not, and is able to prattle quite pleasantly about sports in which he takes little or no active part. At the same time it must be admitted that he holds a gun fairly straight, and does not disgrace himself when the necessity of slaughtering a friend's pheasants interrupts for a few hours the rehearsals of private ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... aside as though it were the irresponsible prattle of a child, ignored it utterly. He was conscious of only one thing—that she had barred herself away from him, humiliated him, dealt their mutual love a ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... to this prattle, asked himself, for the third or fourth time, what he ought to think of the virtue of Miss Dimpleton. Sometimes the frankness of the grisette, and the remembrance of the large bolt, made him almost believe that she loved her neighbors merely as brothers or companions, and that Mrs. Pipelet ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... brief. Mr Dean returned, and all was as before; but I wearied yet more of the child's play and prattle he still continued for my amusement. He was much engaged with writing. I thought him ill ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Mr. Squills, thoughtfully, "there's a great deal of truth in what you say. Little Tom Dobbs is a wonderful child; so is Frank Stepington—and as for Johnny Styles, I must bring him here for you to hear him prattle on Natural History, and see how well he handles his ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you—never mind the year—you could speak no English, and when next I saw you, after a lapse of two years, you would prattle no French; when again we met, you were the nymph with bright and flowing hair, which frightened his Highness Prince James out of his feline senses, when, as you came in by the door, he made his bolt by the window. It was then that you entreated me, with "most petitionary vehemence," ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... I could hear the merry prattle of the little ones again out in the side yard. Ain't it funny how they get the gambling spirit so young? I'd hear little Margery say: 'I bet you can't!' And Rupert, Junior, would say:' I bet I can, too!' And off they'd go ninety miles on a straight track: ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... found the day before how Jessie could prattle on in an endless quiet stream without heeding whether any one entered into it or replied to it; but she was surprised at Allen's toleration of it, though he changed the current by saying, "Belforest seems a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Joseph enjoyed every minute that he spent in Betsy Butterfly's company. And if at times she found his prattle a bit tiresome, she was too ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... sitting on the knee of the Legal Member, and to hear him mention The Submontane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment. Tods had heard the bazaar talking of a new plan for the Ryotwari, as bazaars talk when there is no white man to overhear. Tods began to prattle, and the Legal Member began to listen, till he soon realised that there was only one drawback to the beautiful Bill. The beautiful Bill, in short, was altogether wrong, more especially in the Council's pet clause which so clearly "safeguarded the interests of the tenant." It therefore ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... sex and victor over the other. What is the love and submission of one manly heart to the woman whose ambition it is to sway the minds of multitudes as did a Demosthenes or a Cicero? What are the tender affections and childish prattle of the family circle, to women whose ears itch for the loud laugh and boisterous ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... he, politely, "and this is H.G. of PUNCHINELLO. We're a helthy team at writin' comic essays—eh! Squire?" And the hills, dales, and barn-yards resounded with our innercent prattle. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... painted for you by a friend of mine, the Knight of Plympton. She communes with you. She smiles on you. When your spirits are low, her bright eyes shine on you and cheer you. Her innocent sweet smile is a caress to you. She never fails to soothe you with her speechless prattle. You love her. She is alive with you. As you extinguish your candle and turn to sleep, though your eyes see her not, is she not there still smiling? As you lie in the night awake, and thinking of your duties, and the morrow's ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... hill, with a like rising opposite to it, at a few hundred yards distance; and perhaps success might be the easier ensured could some canal, lake, or stream, intervene. From a seat at the centrum phonicum he and his friends might amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle of this loquacious nymph; of whose complacency and decent reserve more may be said than can with truth of every individual of her ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... he had got up and had walked to and fro while she described her dream, the beauty of her chosen mission, the glory of the saloon whose high priestess she had become. And Dickie had listened with the bitter and disillusioned and tender face of a father hearing the prattle of a beloved child. ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... How proud she was of these! Can you forget how, sitting on your knees, She used to prattle volubly, and raise Her tiny feet to ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... anecdotes and illustrations that in spite of the moonlight, her nerves, her interest, and her forebodings, Bessie began to yield to the overpowering influence of sleep. The little comrade, listened to no longer, ceased her prattle and napped off too. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... to make sufficient penitence impossible. 'Tis true that in a few weeks the delirium was at an end. Oh, what were my sensations when the mist dispersed before my eyes? I called for my husband, but in vain!—I listened for the prattle of my ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... diversions, but always kept a little on this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of the Indian weed he might be thought a little excessive. He took it, he would say, as a solvent of speech. Marry—as the friendly vapour ascended, how his prattle would curl up sometimes with it! the ligaments, which tongue-tied him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... by little they gained a look of handsome youthfulness which made Caroline proud and happy. The pretty needlewoman guessed that her new friend had been long weaned from tenderness and love, and no longer believed in the devotion of woman. Finally, some unexpected sally in Caroline's light prattle lifted the last veil that concealed the real youth and genuine character of the Stranger's physiognomy; he seemed to bid farewell to the ideas that haunted him, and showed the natural liveliness that lay beneath the solemnity ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... madam, that you yourself, so good, so charming, so sensible, you have laughed sometimes—smiled, I should say—at the idle prattle of that good Parry, for whom your royal highness to-day ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "Prattle away all you please," he said, "but I mean it. I've got magnificent facilities for dying just now. I'll consider a proposition to die for the benefit of the cause if you fellows will agree to keep me in cigarettes and ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... and I have purposely held all my prattle with her in the same tongue, and her familiarity with it is such that you would hardly detect a French accent. I am not particularly anxious that she should maintain her knowledge of French; still, should a good opportunity occur, and a competent teacher be available, it might be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... in the humor to listen to Sukey's good-natured prattle, so her visit was brief, and she soon rode home, her heart full of trouble and rebellion. But the reward for virtue, which frequently fails to make its appearance, waited upon our heroine. When she was about to dismount at the home gate, her father ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... singing, but awkwardly chirruping among the green madronas, and the sound was cheerful, natural, and stirring. It did not hold the attention, nor interrupt the thread of meditation, like a blackbird or a nightingale; it was mere woodland prattle, of which the mind was conscious like a perfume. The freshness of these morning seasons remained with me far on ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... themselves on the bank to wait for a cloud, while old Robert proceeded to consult his fly-book. Neither of them seemed in a very talkative mood; indeed, when you are in front of a Highland river, with its swift-glancing lights, its changing glooms and gleams, its continual murmur and prattle, what need is there of any talk? Talk only distracts the attention. And this part of the stream was especially beautiful. They could hardly quarrel with the sunlight when, underneath the clear water, it sent interlacing lines of gold chasing one another across the brown sand ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... carefully hid away in the pantry whenever "the master" or the surgeons went their regular rounds, which was always at stated hours. When the wind raged without, and the rain, hail, or snow sought entrance through the casement, while sitting near a comfortable fire, listening to female prattle and gossip, narratives of incidents of real life, discussions on disputed points in politics, philosophy, or religion between my friend with the crutches and the tall corporal of dragoons, who were both as fond of controversy as Mr. Shandy ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... so far relieved, and glided into the dim quadrangle, with its square of smoky sky overhead; and the prattle of children playing on the flags, and the scrape of a violin from a window, were in his ears, but as it were unheard. He was looking up at a window, with a couple of sooty scarlet geraniums in it. This was the court where Dame Dutton ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Launcelot. Allen humored her, finding a real relief in this childish game which his little friend took so seriously. The one drawback was the amount of intimate information which she conveyed through the medium of her innocent prattle. Allen could not know what was coming next, and so was powerless to head off conversation upon subjects into which he knew he had no right to enter, for Patricia possessed the faculty of keeping herself well informed as to family matters. It was through this that he secured ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class against class! That is the very parrot prattle that we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following example:- A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great number of servants, who were good for nothing, who, when he asked them to give his children bread, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... truth, and you shall hear it. That man's father is an outlaw. He is a fugitive from justice. All this prattle about him being ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... met at the door with word that he was sleeping and did not wish to be disturbed. The first two times I believed Mrs. McGurk; after that—well, I know our doctor! So when it came time to send our little maid to prattle her unconscious good-bys to the man who had saved her life, I despatched her in charge ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... deaf and dumb? About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as we do not understand the language," ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... wounded, an' tharfore it's a ha'r-line deal to say anythin'; but as well as we can we tells him that what Willyum says, that a-way, bein' less'n two year old, is the mere prattle of a child, an' he's not to be ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... that's very well, remember that Posture; don't be a Prittle prattle, nor Prate apace, nor be a minding any Thing but what is said to you. If you are to make an Answer, do it in few Words, and to the Purpose, every now and then prefacing with some Title of Respect, and sometimes ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... sketch was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1858, just at the time that the first Atlantic Cable, whose first prattle had been welcomed by the acclamations of a continent, gasped its last under the manipulations of De Sauty. It has since been copied by Mr. Prescott in his valuable hand-book of ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... say the time has not yet come when you have no pleasure. I think, my friend, that it will never come. To an evergreen heart, like yours, so full of kindly sympathies, the little children will always prattle, the birds will always sing, and the flowers will always offer incense. This reward of the honest and kindly heart is one of those, which 'the world can neither ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... more tender, more exquisitely touching, than some of these notes." Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but "a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD." In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth "just as if he were ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... is waning is the disrespect we feel for great subjects. We only mention them, or hint at them; and this cannot lead to very brilliant talk. Tho prattle and persiflage have their place in conversation, talkers of the highest order tire of continually encouraging chit-chat. "What a piece of business; monstrous! I have not read it; impossible to get a box at the opera ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... side went Catharine, with such rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. Those eyes were always directed to her husband; and her charming prattle was to the king like the melodious song of birds, and made his heart leap for pleasure and delight. But how? What noise all at once drowned Catharine's sweet prattle? And what was it that flashed up there at the end of that large alley which the royal pair ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... answer, but picked up her basket and proceeded with her out of the valley. Chris gave a hand to the child, and save for Tim's prattle there ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of the poet's home-life would be incomplete did I not touch on his passionate fondness for his grand-children, the two little beings whose prattle and caresses lend a charm of peculiar sweetness to the waning hours of that illustrious career. For them the world-renowned genius is but the most loving and tender of grandfathers. Their games, their studies, their baby caprices, sway the actions of that grand personality as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting yet generous; fearless—of her mother, for instance, whose irrationally hard and strict rule she has often defied—yet reliant on any who will help her. Jessie, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning ways, is made to be a pet; and her father's ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... She continued to prattle of the momentous marriage impending, until her complacent chatter was interrupted by the entrance of her half-sister, Mrs. Wynyard, and the elder ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... tears, and bent above her babe again, and watched for its smile that should answer to her smile, and listened for the prattle of its little lips. But never a sound as of speech seemed to break the silence between the words that trembled from her own tongue, and never once across her baby's face passed the light of her tearful smile. It was a pitiful ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... gurgled in its throat immediately afterwards, and then a door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of a sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the prison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Halberger lived happily with his youthful esposa; all the happier that in due time a son and daughter—the former resembling himself, the latter a very image of her mother—enlivened their home with sweet infantine prattle. And as the years rolled by, a third youngster came to form part of the family circle—this neither son nor daughter, but an orphan child of the Senora's sister deceased. A boy ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... opportunity to abandon the Governor, but keen now for new experiences and sensations, Archie dismissed the idea. The appeal of the Governor's sister had imposed a new burden upon him, and the Governor's voluble prattle about fate and the inevitable drawing of destiny had impressed him. He could depart for Banff and take the chance of never being molested for any of his crimes, but to do this would be cowardice, just that fear of his fate that Isabel ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the debilitated jests and stories which a time-honoured custom inserts at the back of some of our magazines. It seems to be the custom of happy American parents to report to editors the infantile prattle of their engaging little children, and the editors print it for the benefit of those who escape the infliction firsthand. There is a story, pleasant but piteous, of Voltaire's listening with what patience he ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... goodness, drop that piffle!" begged Hippy wearily. "We have enough serious matters on hand to think about without having to listen to prattle. Laundry, did you know that Miss Dean had ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... wonderful to behold, are a few green stems of prickly rubus, and a tiny grass. They are here to meet us. Ay, even here in this darksome gorge, "frightened and tormented" with raging torrents and choking avalanches of snow. Can it be? As if rubus and the grass leaf were not enough of God's tender prattle words of love, which we so much need in these mighty temples of power, yonder in the "benmost bore" are two blessed adiantums. Listen to them! How wholly infused with God is this one big word of love that we call the world! Good-night. Do you see ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... joke whenever we meet, Clara and I; Prattle and laughter, and kisses sweet, Clara and I. Were I but twenty, and not two score, Clara and I would laugh still more, With plenty of hopeful years in store For Clara and I, Clara and I; With plenty of hopeful years in store ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... has neglected his personal appearance during his malady, his first wish is for a barber, who is speedily sent to him by Bostana.—This old worthy Abul Hassan Ali Ebe Bekar the barber makes him desperate by his vain prattle. Having solemnly saluted to Nurredin, he warns him not to {20} leave the house to-day, as his horoscope tells him that his life is in danger. The young man not heeding him, Abul Hassan begins to enumerate all ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... devoted to music and sometimes sang duets with her. She would have none of his duets to-night. She scarcely smiled when receiving him, and would scarcely condescend to talk to him. She was in no mood for talking with this immature young man —this boy, who came with his prattle when she wished to be alone. It was very ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... She had been sitting there for an hour, letting Mrs. Boyd's prattle pour over her like a rain, and thinking meanwhile ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... were surging up, till she felt choking. But the habit of her life, especially her life of the last two years, gave her self-control. And so she waited, trying with all her might to follow the child's prattle. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... might say, deceased—correspondence had too much of the town-life leaven in it, we will now, paulo majora, prattle a little of literature in all its branches; and first of the first—criticism. The Prince is at Brighton, and Jackson, the boxer, gone to Margate, having, I believe, decoyed Yarmouth to see a milling in that polite ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi (13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Naradia was almost hysterical and was willing to prattle on. Kahn Meng smiled tenderly. "Naradia," he continued, lowering his voice gently, "now that Peter Moore and I are at last together, will you excuse us? You must be exhausted, my dear—after this unpleasant affair. Will you retire? Remember, little Chaya, in another week this terror will be at an ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... glory of the green fields, the changes of the varying year supplied him with a wealth of beauty which was sufficient for all his needs, and when—after some long day's work amid the cottages, reading to the sick at their lonely bedsides, listening to the prattle of the children in the infant schools, talking to the labourers as they rested at their work—he refreshed himself by a gallop across the free fresh downs, or a quiet stroll under the rosy apple-blossoms of his ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... her over and there we sat, side by side, she laughing and talking and I hearkening to her childish prattle with marvellous great pleasure. Presently I ventured to touch her soft cheek, to stroke her curls, and finding she took this not amiss, summoned courage to stoop and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... editors in "The First Part" (which is so trivial that one wonders why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material), but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas "pedantial" (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian's "prattle" (p. 11). And, though at times it seems that his curiosity and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger, Donatus, Vossius, Servius, Minturno, Heinsius, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... art unconscious and to beauty blind. 60 Say, does her language your ambition raise, Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase, Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds, And maims the cadence of poetic sounds? Say, does your humble admiration choose The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse, While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear, Charged to say nought but what the king may hear? Or rather melt your sympathising hearts Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts, 70 Where old and young declaim on soft desire, And heroes ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... my hope, but I never think of it except in my best moods. The work to which I dedicate the ensuing years of my life, is one which highly pleased Leslie, in prospective, and my paper will not let me prattle to you about it. I have written what you more wished me ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... at any rate I was soon enough convinced that there was no reason for speaking harshly to Doctor Chord. It served no purpose; it accomplished nothing. The little old villain was really as innocent as a lamb. He had no dream of wronging people. His prattle was the prattle of an unsophisticated maiden lady. He did not know what he was talking. These direful intelligences ran as easily off his tongue as water runs off the falling wheel. When I had indirectly informed him that he was more or less of a dangerous scandal-monger, ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... defiant, her eyes on the door while the woman went to do her bidding—waited erect, refusing to think, her face set hard, until far down the outer passage—Mrs. Olney had left the door open—the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heralded Lord Almeric's return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and a bow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recovered the breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an attitude that made the best of his white ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... archetype of protean protein clay All the human's space has room for, for whom time makes a day, From the sage whose words of wisdom prince or parliament obey, To the parrots who but prattle, and the asses who but bray— So full was this Atom-Molecule, Of the young ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... an unaccountable affection for this wayward child. How blessed the virtuous parents whose attire Is soiled with dust, by raising from the ground The child that asks a refuge in their arms! And happy are they while with lisping prattle, In accents sweetly inarticulate, He charms their ears; and with his artless smiles Gladdens their hearts[119], revealing to their gaze His pearly teeth ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... was not listening to the eager prattle. He remembered afterward that Bobby's hands and face were hot with fever. Just now he was staring at the narrow staircase. Vos Engo and Loraine were descending slowly. The former was white and evidently very weak. He leaned on ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... position this cicerone's prattle and shopman's empty talk seemed like the petty vexations by which narrow minds destroy a man of genius. But as he must even go through with it, he appeared to listen to his guide, answering him by gestures or monosyllables; but imperceptibly he arrogated the privilege of saying nothing, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and Erin as martyr and prince, Lived Paolo, the young Campanaro,[95] the pride of his own little vale— Hope changed the hot breath of his furnace as into a sea-wafted gale; Peace, the child of Employment, was with him, with prattle so soothing and sweet, And Love, while revealing the future, strewed the ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... again. One after another, Truman and Todd, Wren and Mullins, told their stories, bringing forth little that was new beyond the fact that Todd was sure it was Elise he heard that night "jabbering with Downs" on Blakely's porch. Todd felt sure that it was she who brought him whisky, and Byrne let him prattle on. It was not evidence, yet it might lead the way to light. In like manner was Mullins sure now "'Twas two ladies" stabbed him when he would have striven to stop the foremost. Byrne asked did he think they were ladies when first he set eyes on them, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... too after that meal—a practice which I can well pardon in him—for, between ourselves, his wife, Maria Newboy, and his sister, Clarissa, are the loveliest and kindest of their sex, and I would rather hear their innocent prattle, and lively talk about their neighbors, than the best wisdom from the wisest man that ever wore ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prattle, by observing that now my daughter was no more, I should seriously think of the rest of my family, and attempt to save my own life, which was every day declining, for want of necessaries and wholesome air. He added, that it was now incumbent on me to sacrifice any pride ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... then during these happy months the thought of home came across me, and sometimes one of mamma's letters would have in it so much about Bobby and his play, and his prattle about Sissy's coming back, that I grew a little home-sick and looked wistfully into grandmamma's face as she read the letter. This would always make her say: "You don't want to go home, little one? Aren't ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... is surrounded by productive fishing grounds and potentially large oil reserves. In 1932, French Indochina annexed the islands and set up a weather station on Prattle Island; maintenance was continued by its successor Vietnam. China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1974, when its troops captured a South Vietnamese garrison occupying the western islands. However, the islands are still ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... his arms had opened her eyes, and was looking about in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his dusty leg, he said ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... a poor weak old man, and owe you an explanation for this outburst; some day—some day, not now. O, if you could guess how I have nursed that pretty babe when alone in distant lands; how I have doated on her little winning ways, and been gladdened by the music of her prattle; how I have exulted to behold her loveliness gradually expanding, as she was ever at my side, in peril as in peace, in camp as in quarters, in sickness as in health, still—still, the blessed angel of a bad man's ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... think you would when I got to this point. You people who prattle about your Universal Laws never really consider the exact meaning of the term. My knowledge of the history of science is very vague, but I'm willing to bet that the first Law of Gravity ever dreamed up stated that things fell at such and such a speed, ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... delighted to read this intimate journal of his travellings in remote waters, written by the wife who accompanied him, and who is herself, as she proves on many pages, one of the most enthusiastic of those admirers. You may say there is nothing very much in it all, but just some pleasant sea-prattle about interesting ports and persons, and a number of photographs rather more intimate than those that generally illustrate the published travel-book. But the general impression is jolly. Stevensonians will be especially curious over the visit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... for the few friends it was her fortune to possess. She didn't mind if Master Sammy was to go to a select school! She had all confidence in Mr. Bond's judgment concerning Nannie, and rejoiced that she could feel so easy as to the child's moral culture. She didn't care for Mrs. Flin's foolish prattle about her great acquaintances, and her own future anticipations of a higher station. It was not half of it that she heard; but if one sly innuendo was sent at the good man to whom she was so much indebted, there was a determined look that cowed the slanderous tongue before it could ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... his dark land. Among his friends it is known that Cipriani de Lloseta lived alone because he was faithful to the memory of one who, but for the hand of God, would have lived with him until she was an old woman, filling, perhaps, the great gloomy house in the Calle de la Paz with the prattle of children's voices, with the clatter of childish ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... inexpressibly tedious to him, and so he told his sympathetic professor, the learned Thibaut, author of the treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went to the piano and played Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on the different passages: "Now she speaks—that's the love prattle; now he speaks—that's the man's earnest voice; now both the lovers speak together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn't all that better far than anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite popular in society ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... was hard for Mabel to keep her secrets. When her papa came home at night, she always climbed upon his knee to tell him every thing that had happened in her little world during the day; and her papa always listened to her prattle with ...
— The Nursery, March 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various |
