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Mutter   Listen
verb
Mutter  v. t.  To utter with imperfect articulations, or with a low voice; as, to mutter threats.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mutter" Quotes from Famous Books



... And seeing him higher up than on any tree one could ever climb, with the sunny sky above him and the shining water below him, I could only mutter out with envious longing—"How happy ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... Ranchero mutter an angry reply, and then came the tramping of horses as the band rode from the glade. In a few seconds the sound died away in the pass, and the fugitive was left alone. His first impulse was to descend into the glade, mount ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon

... about their waists, of which herb they make their drink. To make sure of a welcome, this king brought with him a present of sixteen hogs. When the two kings came in sight of each other, they began to bow and to mutter certain prayers; on meeting they both fell prostrate on the ground, and after several strange gestures, they got up and walked to two seats provided for them, where they uttered a few more prayers, bowing reverently to each other, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... heel, and those nearest him heard him mutter "Louise d'Artignan!" under his breath. As the words left his lips he fell headlong on the ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... wi' my foremast an' port rigging, sir." The Office does not precisely remember, but if boiler and foremast are on the quay the rest of the ship had better stay alongside. The skipper falls away relieved. (He scraped a tramp a few nights ago in a bit of a sea.) There is a little mutter of gun-fire somewhere across the grey water where a fleet is at work. A monitor as broad as she is long comes back from wherever the trouble is, slips through the harbour mouth, all wreathed with signals, is received by two motherly ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... slow but sure, or sudden but imperfect. Or shall I put back the hurt altogether till you get home?" "That, that," said Jock; "if I were ance home I could bear it well enouch." The hag began to pass her hand over the injured part, and to mutter under her breath some potent charm; and as she muttered and manipulated, the swelling gradually subsided, and the livid tints blanched, till at length nought remained to tell of the recent accident save a pale spot in the middle of the breast, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... spiders do so click there, are so like the death-watch, that Villiers, who is inveterately superstitious, will not abide there. The hall, with its enclosing galleries, and the buttery near, are manifestly unsafe. So they heard, nay crouch, mutter, and concoct that fearful treachery which, as far as their country is concerned, has been a thing apart in our annals, in 'my Lady's' closet. Englishmen are turbulent, ambitious, unscrupulous; but the craft of Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale—the subtlety of Ashley, seem hardly conceivable ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton

... have it, not being by, cries she, "Forsooth, Manners have come to a fine Pass in these Days! Bring her a Pin, quotha!" Instead of making answer, "Well, 'twas disrespectful; I ask your Pardon;" I must mutter, "I see what I'm valued at—less ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... storm was gathering with the rapidity so frequent in the great valley. All the little clouds swung together and made a big one that covered nearly the whole sky. The air darkened rapidly. Thunder began to growl and mutter and now and then emitted a sharp crash. Lightning cut the heavens from zenith to horizon, and the forest would leap into the light, standing there ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... towards the vehicle, with the children forming a bodyguard round her. A group of men hung about uneasily, looked sheepish, and waved large, helpless red hands, till a young fellow about seven feet high—who looked more uneasy and had even larger hands than the rest—was hustled forward, and began to mutter something that nobody ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... a sudden surging forward, and a mutter of admiration much more flattering than the cheers had been, when the principals followed their hats and, slipping out of their great-coats, stood forth in all the physical beauty of ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis

... and sat with a frown on his face, and a puzzled expression. At times he would mutter such words as, "Deuced odd!" "Confounded queer!" "What a lot!" "By Jove!" while Dacres looked at him ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... five very excited and incoherent persons in the group that had assembled at the foot of the stairs. Professors Jenks and Scotch would not say much of anything, only mutter and glare daggers at each other, while Professor Gunn was too furious and too confused to tell anything straight. Barney and Hans declared over and over that they had been bitten by "centipedes," and showed the wounds. The jumbled story ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... one of the city's most popular society gentlemen and ball-room devotees, and we hear him mutter to himself as he stares impudently at her pretty face: "Ah, my beauty, I shall locate your dwelling place later on. You are too fine a bird to be lost ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner

... mit den kleinen Kindern, Will ich alles mit ihr tun, Und sie soll in ihrer Wiege Neben meinem Bette ruhn. Schlaeft sie, werd' ich von ihr traeumen, Schreit sie auf, erwach' ich gleich,— Mein himmlisch gute Mutter, O, wie bin ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... den hoechsten Ideen der Zeit getragen und suchte die Erziehung an diese Ideen anzuknuepfen. So lange die Mutter nicht nach den Gesetzen der Natur ihr Kind erzieht und bildet und dafuer nicht ihr Leben einsetst, so lange—davon geht er aus—sind alle Reformen der Schule auf Sand gebaut. Trotsdem verlegt er einen Theil der muetterlichen Aufgabe in den Kindergarten, in welchem er die Kinder vor ihre Schulpflichtigkeit ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel

... Duchess Helen with Sir Hacon at her side had watched the eddying dust-clouds rolling now this way, now that, straining anxious eyes to catch the gleam of a white plume or the flutter of the blue banner amid that dark confusion. And oft she heard Sir Hacon mutter oaths half-stifled, and oft Sir Hacon had heard snatches of her breathless prayers as the tide of battle swung to and fro, a desperate fray whence distant shouts and cries mingled in awful din. But now, as the sun grew low, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... as Partow had said, over and over The saying had come to be repeated by hard-headed, agnostic staff-officers, who believed that the deity had no relation to the efficiency of gun-fire. The Brown infantrymen even were beginning to mutter it in the midst ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... blow away and the agonized Bosja to mutter curses not loud, but deep, upon his head and ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... contrary, they fell to the rear and grimly halted our advance. Towers of alkali dust, hot and white, lingering smoke-like in the air shielded us like a screen, and so—slowly riding—we drew near enough to perceive the calves and hear the mutter of the cows as they reenacted for us the life of the vanished millions of ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... bless the people!' as the man who, to my apprehension, represents the democracy, went past. A very intelligent Frenchman, caught in the crowd and forced to grope his way slowly along, told me that the expression of opinion everywhere was curiously the same, not a dissenting mutter did he hear. Strange, strange, all this! For the drama of history we must look to France, for startling situations, for the 'points' which thrill you to ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... only faces that he saw out of the innumerable host: Themistocles, Democrates, Simonides, Cimon. They beheld him raise his arm and lift his glorious head yet higher. Glaucon in turn saw Cimon sink into his seat. "He wakes!" was the appeased mutter passing from the son of Miltiades and running along every tier of Athenians. And silence deeper than ever held the stadium; for now, with Lycon victor twice, the literal turning of a finger in the next event might win or lose ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... soft carpet of moss, overhead the gentle summer breeze stirred the great branches of the elms, causing the crisp leaves to mutter a long-drawn hush-sh-sh in the stillness of the night. From far away came the appealing call of a blackbird chased by some marauding owl, while on the ground close by, the creaking of tiny branches betrayed the quick scurrying of a squirrel. From the remote and infinite distance ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... dead silence fell on the little group. Miss Brooke heard her brother mutter something beneath his breath in a very angry tone. She wondered whether his daughter heard it too. The faithful and officious Dayman immediately pressed forward with soothing ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... swell beneath us. 'All the old signs fail.' 'God answers no more by Urim and Thummim, nor by dream, nor by prophet.' Men's hearts are failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth. Thunders mutter in the distance. Winds moan across the surging bosom of the deep. All things betide the rising of that final storm of divine indignation which shall sweep away the vain refuge ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith

... gather now and then open-mouthed at the wicket, and Mere Krebs would shake her head as she went by on her sheepskin saddle, and mutter that the child's head would be turned by vanity; and old Jehan would lean on his stick and peer through the sweetbrier, and wonder stupidly if this strange man who could make Bebee's face beam over again upon that panel of wood could not give him back his dead daughter ...
— Bebee • Ouida

... buildings being in some way connected with man's fate. Yet he knew that his smile was assumed, for he felt all the while the oppression of the loneliness, of the sadness of a half-ruined building, of the gurgling mutter of the river, and instinctively quickened his pace. He was glad when he had passed the spot, and again that night, as he looked back, he saw the strange effect of light and darkness which produced the impression of someone standing in the shadow of the last buttress space. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... him no heed except to glower at him in the camp-ways or to mutter after him when he had passed. Seeing that Judah suffered him, they did not fall on him. Thus the young man was safe. As for the notice Kenkenes took of Israel, it began and ended with his inquiry after ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... teeth, his wig, and his glass eye, thanked Dr. Small for a suggestion so valuable, and thought best to put John Pearson under arrest before proceeding further. Mr. Pearson was therefore arrested, and was heard to mutter something about a "passel of thieves," when the court warned ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... own? I say that I am mistress here and that I will not allow it. If we are to be made fools of in this fashion by the peepings and mutterings of Kaffir witch-doctors we had better give up and die at once to go and live among the dead, whose business it is to peep and mutter. Our business is to dwell in the world and to face its troubles and dangers until such time as it pleases God to call us out of the world, paying no heed to omens and magic and such like sin and folly. Let that come which will come, and let us meet it like men and ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard

... priests o'er our union was mutter'd, To rivet the fetters of husband and wife; By our lips, by our hearts, were our vows alone utter'd, To perform them, in full, would ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... since houses and streets and rooms and passages and windows and basements have come to mean more to them than fields and woods, it is essential that "the Old Man covered with a Mantle," the Ancient of Ancients, the Disturber of Rational Dreams, should move into the town, too, and mutter ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... to reconcile. reconocer to recognize. reconquistar to reconquer. reconvencion f. reproach, recrimination reconvenir to reproach. recordar to recall, remember. recorrer to run through, traverse, review. recreo recreation. recuperar to recover. rechistar to mutter, protest. red f. net. redactar to edit, compose. redentor m. redeemer. redimir to redeem. redito revenue, rent. redoblar to strengthen, fortify. redoma phial. redondel m. circle. redondo round, rotund. reducir to reduce; confine. referir(se) to relate, ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... took hours to tell the story, and when we had all finished and Aggie had gone to bed in Tish's spare room with hysteria, and Tish had gone to bed with tea and toast, Charlie Sands was still walking up and down the parlor, stopping now and then to mutter: "Well, I'll be——" and then going ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... off the path, into a glade where there was partial shelter from the icy wind that swept past, laden with coming snow. There we tarried for a long half-hour (told on my watch by a fusee-light), and still no signs of our companions. Symonds (the cousin), who abode with us still, began to mutter doubts, and the Alabama man to grumble curses (he had ever a fatal facility in blasphemy), and I own to having entertained divers disagreeable misgivings, though I carefully avoided expressing them. At last our guide thought it best that we should make our ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... magician. He began to mutter spells and strange words, and all of a sudden he was gone, and in his place was a great black ant, for he had changed himself into an ant. In he ran through a crack of the door (and mischief has got into many a man's house ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle

... alone—you fright me!' Said the daughter of the Jew: 'Dearest! how these eyes delight me! Let me love thee, darling, do!' 'Vat is dish?' the bailiff mutter'd, Rushing in with fury wild; 'Ish your muffins so vell butter'd Dat ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... have both body and soul cast into hell, as if eager to make his damnation doubly sure, rises in the United States Senate and proposes an inquiry into the expediency of passing yet another law, by which every one who shall dare peep or mutter against the execution of the Fugitive Slave Bill shall have his life ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... stream is very wide but has no depth. Fight shallowness. Insist on reading thoughtfully. A very suggestive word in the Bible for this is "meditate." Run through and pick out this word with its variations. The word underneath that English word means to mutter, as though a man were repeating something over and over again, as he turned it over in his mind. We have another word, with the same meaning, not much used now—ruminate. We call the cow a ruminant because she chews the cud. ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

... Behave properly for the rest of the evening, and come and see me to-morrow at a quarter past five." She was severe, and in the manner in which she turned her back to him there was a degree of contempt which caused him to mutter a decent imprecation. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... He went on saying this over to himself, as if he would mutter down every pain in ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis

... of amusement or execration. The chairman was on his feet flapping both his hands and bleating excitedly. "Professor Challenger—personal—views—later," were the solid peaks above his clouds of inaudible mutter. The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his beard, and relapsed into his chair. Waldron, very flushed and warlike, continued his observations. Now and then, as he made an assertion, he shot a venomous glance at his opponent, who ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sub-conscious way her moving seemed to rouse them. Their discussion had been growing gradually louder; now the bearded man and the young Jotun rose suddenly and faced their companion, whose voice became audible in an obstinate mutter,— ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... fixedly upward with a horror in his wild blue gaze which chilled our blood. What did he see there—what dire other-world thing dragging him into the depths of space? Shortly his eyes closed, and he ceased to mutter. ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby

... prospectors and foresters who lived in the mountains. Stewart came out again. He walked around the horses, out into the gloom, then back to Madeline. For a long moment he stood as still as a statue and listened. Then she heard him mutter, "If we have to start quick I can ride bareback." With that he took the saddle and blanket off his horse and carried them ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... Peter, doubtless, perfectly understood, for he squatted himself down upon the ground, without any attempt to follow his master, Nathan departed, with Roaring Ralph at his side, leaving Roland to mutter his anxieties and fears, his doubts and impatience, into the ears of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... in act to speak, or rather stammer, But sage Antonia cut him short before The anvil of his speech received the hammer, With 'Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more, Or madam dies.'—Alfonso mutter'd, 'D—n her,' But nothing else, the time of words was o'er; He cast a rueful look or two, and did, He knew not wherefore, that ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to the oar in Mediterranean galleys, of the English criminal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... front. She might go into Mrs. Albright's room—no, she had better remain at home, somebody might come. She took a book and sat down in the easiest chair; but her thoughts were not on the printed page. She slammed it back in its place with a mutter of scorn—scorn ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... return till late. He had been drawing wood for Horton that day, which was the reason he happened in Quonab's neighbourhood; but his road lay by the tavern, and when he arrived home he was too helpless to do more than mutter. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... other, on his face, six paces off, Lay moaning, and the old familiar name He mutter'd through the grass, seem'd like a scoff Of some lost soul remembering ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... killed at any rate," I heard him mutter as she turned and opened her eyes and smiled faintly up in his face. "I ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... got red coats, partickerlarly them in blue swaller-tails. We air bound to lick 'em—hurrah for our side! Go inter 'em like a thousand of bricks fallin' off 'n a slated rufe. The genius of Ammerikin liberty, in the shape of the carnivorous eagle, soarin' aloft on diluted pillions, seems to mutter E Pluribus Unum—we are one of 'em! Hail Columby happy land! Sing Yankee Doodle that fine tune—cry havock! and let looset ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... I heard Wolf Larsen mutter, half to himself, half to them as though they could hear. "You want to come aboard, eh? Well, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... difficult. You would go to call on the Gillstones and find them plunged in despair. Maurice would gaze at you with a wild unseeing eye, pass his hand through his dishevelled hair, mutter "The inspiration has left me," and fling himself into a chair and groan. Mrs. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various

... him the precedence; and then, from these things which he adduces, I will shoot him dead with new words and thoughts. And at last, if he mutter, he shall be destroyed, being stung in his whole face and his two eyes by my maxims, as ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... nothing but generalities, for they alone are safe, harmless, and respectable; and, if they are also empty, how can that he helped? Starving, it shrank into itself, muttering old incantations; and it continued to mutter them, automatically, some ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... mutter of a voice hasty and with the quality of stern exhortation, the snap of the lock, and the door was jerked open. Norton's eyes, probing into every square foot of the chamber, took stock of Jim Galloway, and beyond him of Kid Rickard, slouching ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... words, and read him as one reads a barometer. He shrank visibly into his bulb, and the tone of his conversation marked a storm. I heard him mutter 'Diavolo!' under his breath, and then the mercury of ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... these lunatics was as simple as it was irritating. Bonds and confinement in a darkened room were the specifics; and the monotony of this treatment was relieved by occasional visits from the sage who had charge of the case, to mumble a prayer or mutter an exorcism. Another popular but unpleasant cure was ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding

... forward, when the artist had gone away, and taken the picture with him, old Hans was quite changed: he went about the village, talking to himself, and was often heard to mutter, "Nailed up to the wall—stolen! Hans has his eyes open day and night, looking down from the wall—never sleeps, nor eats, nor drinks. Stolen!—the thief!" Seldom could a sensible word be drawn from him; but he played the wildest tunes on ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... introducing the animal world into his ordinary talk ("Brother Wolf, Sister Swallow," etc.). So Joseph used to speak of himself as l'asinelio—the little ass; and a pathetic scene was witnessed on his death-bed when he was heard to mutter: "L'asinelio begins to climb the mountain; l'asinelio is half-way up; l'asinelio has reached the summit; l'asinelio can go no further, and is about to leave his ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... was a mutter of bees, And Bill 'gan muttering too,— "If the honey-comb swells in the hollow trees, (What else can a Didymus do?) I'll steer to the purple woods myself And see if this thing be so, Which the chaplain found on his little book-shelf, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... questioned the boatswain and his comrades, whose devotion was unreservedly his, by a long and anxious look, and I heard him mutter between ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... which I then acted. However, we ran them over with a mutual inadvertency of one another. I seem'd careless, as concluding that any assistance I could give her would be to little or no purpose; and she mutter'd out her words in a sort of mifty manner at my low opinion of her. But when the play came to be acted, she had just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment, by the (almost) amazement that ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... hear my father mutter, when he saw the crowned helm under the standard, that it was ill done, and no good could come of seething the kid in the mother's milk? And verily, had not the Prince been carrying his father from the field, I trow the Mortimers had not refused us quarter, nor had their cruel ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... will tell me where to find your husband, in Newmarket, and allow me to light my pipe, I'll not trouble you any more." These benevolences the pale woman did not withhold, but she saw me depart with a wintry smile, and I heard her distinctly mutter to a handmaiden—fearfully arid and adust—who peered over her mistress' shoulder, "There's ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... sleigh struck against the ice, roused its occupant. She started up, stood upright, stared for a moment at me, and then, at the scene around. Then she sprang out, and, clasping her hands, fell upon her knees, and seemed to mutter words of prayer. Then she rose to her feet, and looked around with a face of horror. There was such an anguish of fear in her face, that I tried to comfort her. But my ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille

... crowded to-morrow morning," MacIlwaine, chief of detectives, paused long enough from storing away useful information to lean and mutter in Colonel Stilton's ear. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London

... are you here again?—now then for the tizzy you owe me,—I have been waiting here for it ever since last Monday morning." This salute produced an irate look and a shake of his cane from Green, with a mutter of something about "imperance," and a wish that he had his big fighting foreman there to thrash him. When they got to the gate at the end, the tide of fashion became obstructed by the kissings of husbands and wives, the greetings of fathers and sons, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... Haldin had ceased speaking I felt the grip of his hand on mine, a muscular, firm grip, but unexpectedly hot and dry. Not a word or even a mutter assisted this short and ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... lie and damn, rather than tell me that; I say again, where is she? Mutter not; Sir, speak you ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... is milking-time, and they have to fight their way on hands and knees across the yard to the cowshed, dragging a lantern that WILL go out and a milk-pail that WON'T be held. And "Lord preserve us!" mutter the old wives seated round the stove within doors—and their thoughts are far away in the north with the Lofoten fishermen, out at ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... often say when the conversation turned on any of his fresh conquests. Then, passing his hand over his marble brow, the old look of stern fixedness of purpose and unflinching severity would straighten the lines of his mouth, and he would mutter, half to himself, "S'death!" ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... und nachdem man Mutter ist, ist Man ein Mensch; die muetterliche Bestimmung aber, oder gar die heeliche, kann nicht die menschliche ueberwiegen oder ersetzen, sondern sie muss das Mittel, nicht der Zweck derselben ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... but he began to mutter in a sleepy monotone, "Don't hit me, sir. It was snow. I'll not come home late again. Ninepence, sir, ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... had come creeping from under the roots of his beard, and had spread over the low forehead and the sides of the neck. The eye-glass fell from the eye, a signal for the colour to retreat. The full lips grew pallid, and began to mutter unspoken words. His eyes wandered appealingly from the woman beside him to me. I didn't want to look him in the face. The man was a trafficker in human blood, an evil liver, and I hated him. He had to pay his price; would have ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad

... out of the hut as hard as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send up a succession of awful yells. Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an old woman, wrapped up in a greasy leather garment. Taking her by the arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would not, come ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... seemed to enter his head. I saw him push back the plug, grasp the Irishman, who was nearest him, by the arm, and mutter, in a low and hurried voice, "Paddy! Barney! gi' us ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... at me! show you hate me!—anything but that terrible humiliation of yourself before me!" That's how I feel. The abasement of which he isn't sensible affects me on his behalf. I give money with what delicacy I can. If I am obliged to refuse, I mutter apologies and hurry away with burning ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... a windy, rainy night, and I have told Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger she was heard to mutter that "Teacher wouldn't let her go to church because she was afraid she would ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... the austere Oppressors in their strength, Stand aghast and white with fear At the ominous sounds they hear, And tremble, and mutter, "At length!" ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... think twicet before he comes bothering around me, by hokey!" Bill would mutter darkly. "I've stood a hull lot from Ford; I like 'im, when he's himself. But I've stood about as much as a man can be expected to stand. And he better look out! That's all I got to say—he better look out!" Bill himself, it may be observed incidentally, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... outline, his own faults. He will probably decide that the anxieties of children outweigh the joys connected with children. He will admit all the shortcomings of existence, will face them like a man, grimly, sourly, in a sturdy despair. He will mutter: 'Of course I'm angry! Who wouldn't be? Of course I'm disappointed! Did I expect this twenty years ago? Yes, we ought to save more. But we don't, so there you are! I'm bound to worry! I know I should be better if I didn't smoke so much. I know there's ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... brown hair. Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... half-frightened at the act, for she knelt so a moment without speaking. There she began to mutter: "Maybe He won't drive me off; if they did, maybe he won't. I should just like to ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... was a jabber of hissings and gutturals. Carmena jerked her hand about in swift signs and cried back in uncouth thick-tongued Apache words. The dispute at last ended in a sullen mutter from below and a sudden thudding of hoofs. The Apaches dashed out from under the cliff, loping their horses toward a corral over across to the left of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... Lafitte, 1187;" or, "Write, Chambertin, 1203." (Those, you know, were the names and dates of the vintages.) "Yes, my lord," Mistletoe always piped up; on which Sir Godfrey would peer over her shoulder at the writing, and mutter, "Hum; yes, that's correct," just as if he knew how to read, the old humbug! Then Mistletoe, who was a silly girl and had lost her husband early, would go "Tee-hee, Sir Godfrey!" as the gallant gentleman gave her a ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... "aim at being generous" had met with no response. "I have given proofs," he said, briefly, to drop a subject upon which he was not permitted to dilate; and he murmured, "People acquainted with me . . . !" She was asked if she expected him to boast of generous deeds. "From childhood!" she heard him mutter; and she said to herself, "Release me, and you shall ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... is true, would mutter "shocking!" And give her head a sorrowful rocking, And make a clucking with palate and tongue, Like the call of Partlet to gather her young, A sound, when human, that always proclaims At least a thousand pities and shames; But still the darker the tale ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... inaudible, about seeking a fortune and finding one, which was prettily put, and Frenchy as best man was heard to mutter something about "Beautiful ... loss to camp ... happiness ... wooden leg," and the speech ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... or to cast a spell of jettatura upon it. The modern Greeks are even more jealous of praise, and if you compliment a child of theirs, you are expected to spit three times at him and say, [Greek: Na maen baskanthaes], ("May no evil come to you!") or mutter [Greek: Skordo], ("Garlic,") which has a special power as a counter-charm. So, too, in Corsica, the peasants are strict believers in the jettatura of praise, which they call l'annocchiatura,—supposing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... a mutter of conversation from the next room. It seemed interminable. Then the door opened, and McMurdo appeared, his finger upon ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... to Lemuel Fogg that Griscom spoke. Fogg was Ralph's fireman on the present trip. He presented a decided contrast to the brisk, bright engineer of No. 999. He shoveled in the coal with a grim mutter, and slammed the fire door shut with a ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... holding-ground in the lee of the castle and island. All did not drag at once, or drag together; but one by one their power of endurance gave out, and one by one they came dragging on, when they had no longer any help, and little hope, if the storm continued. "It can not last long," the spectators would mutter, rather in hope than expectation, for the only chance for the safety of the vessels was in the lulling of the tempest. Yet it did continue against the constant predictions of all, and momentarily increased in violence. Hope seemed to ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... command of him. He saw Helen like dawn and Miriam like night, and as one irritated him with her calm, the other roused him with her fire, and he came to watch for Helen that he might sneer inwardly at her, with almost as much eagerness as he watched for Miriam that he might mutter foul ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young

... now—as they slid thro' the pine-woods with their peaks of midnight blue, She heard, in the broadening distance, the deep sound that she knew, A mutter of steady thunder that grew as they glanced along; But ever she glanced before them And glanced away to the darkness, And or ever they heard it rightly, she raised her ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... column rear'd to victory in that detested war, When the Tricolor went down before our flag at Trafalgar, The column that hath taught our sons to mutter Nelson's name, I'd level straightway with the dust, and with it sink ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... good days they would go to bed in the big nursery, sure that no children in the world were so content. When there was no frightening wind in the trees they could hear through the open window the sea across the fields. "It's a quare, good world," Jane would mutter sleepily; and Fly would reply: "The sea's the nicest ould thing in it; you'd think it was hooshin' us to sleep"; and then Patsy's voice would come from the dressing-room: "Mebby it's bringin' our ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick

... the other. So much were they occupied with these duties, that they scarcely looked at the scenery along the road, though, probably, it is very rare for them to see anything outside of their convent walls. They never failed to mutter a prayer and kiss the crucifix whenever we plunged into a tunnel. If they glanced at their fellow-passengers, it was shyly and askance, with their lips in motion all the time, like children afraid ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... sudden lightning-flash reveals nothing in the blackness; the powers of evil have overcome; and the universe has lost its hope. But now there comes a lull; and suddenly—far away, and faint, and triumphant—rises the song of reliance and joy. The demons of the night mutter and moan; but the divine song rises clearer and more clear. It is the voice of faith, silver-toned and sweet; and the very heavens themselves seem to listen; and the thunders rumble away into the valleys; and the stars, ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... Jellico. Dane and Tau settled themselves on the less comfortable seats of the terrace steps. Those tapping fingers increased their rate of beat, and the notes of the drums rose from the low murmur of hived bees to the mutter of mountain thunder still half a range away. A bird called from those inner courts of the palace from which the women ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... professional assassins; to the Warrows, who wallowed in the marshes; to the Arawaks, or "Flour People," who prepared tapioca; to the Caribs, who sought them that had familiar spirits and wizards that peep and mutter. "It seems very dark," they wrote to the Count, "but we will testify of the grace of the Saviour till He lets the light shine in this dark waste." For twenty years they laboured among these Indian tribes; and ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... went on; "here you are teaching all the time, fathoming the depths of the ocean, dividing the weak and the strong, writing books and challenging to duels—and everything remains as it is; but, behold! some feeble old man will mutter just one word with a holy spirit, or a new Mahomet, with a sword, will gallop from Arabia, and everything will be topsy-turvy, and in Europe not one stone will be ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... stood looking out with his revolver pointed up the stairs. I was about to give another tweak at the fishing-line when an unmistakable creak came from the upper stairs. I think this somewhat reassured my friend, for I heard him mutter that 'he supposed it was them dam girls.' He stepped cautiously outside the door, and, fumbling in his pocket, produced a little electric bulls-eye, the light of which he ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... Surgions and Physicians were sent for, and the prince was dressed, and within few dayes after, the wound began to putrifie, and the flesh to looke dead and blacke: wherupon they that were about the prince began to mutter among themselues, and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... He mutter'd, when thus he the maid had cheer'd, A strange sound that was drown'd in the forky beard; Then all around loud thunders broke, And the cave was wrapp'd in fire and smoke, And that fearsome man has disappear'd With his flaming eyes and his ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... the arrival of the Prince of Wales; and as the little cavalcade dismounted at the door and entered the noble hall, a figure, habited after the fashion of the ecclesiastics of the day, stepped forth to greet the scion of royalty, and the twin brothers heard their comrades mutter, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... beasts, the mutter of the mob went on, now in an undertone, now louder, and still that voice that first had plead for tar and feathers plead still—for feathers and tar. And here ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers

... to mutter threats against Purvey as a 'false harlot'; and so the Bible-translator, if such he were, was abused on both sides. The dialogue about him is a fair instance of the vividness with which Thorpe's account of his trial illustrates ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various

... as the act. Consequently if the sacrificer during the sacrifice merely mutter the words "let such an one die," he must die; for the sacrifice is holy, godly; the words are divine, and cannot be frustrated (Cat. Br. iii. 1. 4. 1; iv. 1. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... his environment. He sleeps with it pulsing in his ears, so that if she slows or stops he opens his eyes. When I go up at four o'clock and call the Second Engineer, he will stretch, yawn, half open one eye, and mutter, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... on his words producing an effect, and he was not disappointed. The vendor of miscellanies gasped, open-mouthed, like a fish, and steadied himself against the counter. When he spoke, after a short interval, it was in a hoarse mutter, tremulous and unsteady. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... creeping over her, as the fog had crept over the country side. The village children had been called in by their mothers, and there was not the usual sound of boys and girls at play in the street. The rumble of a cart in the distance sounded like the mutter and mumble of a discontented spirit; and as Lucy passed through the square formed by the old timbered houses by the lych gate, no ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... straight to the bushes, paused, and then parted them and looked in. He was heard to mutter something to himself; then ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... termination of the adventure seemed so surprising, and the evening light shining on the walls of green round us was so full of a solemn quiet, that I was not surprised to hear La Trape mutter a short prayer. For my part, assured that something more than chance had brought me hither, I dismounted, and spoke encouragement to the hound; but it only leaped upon me. Then I walked round the enclosure, and presently remarked, close to the hedge, three small patches where the grass was slightly ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... statement," he continued in the same cautious mutter. "It may be a lie. But there was somebody arrested between midnight and one in the morning ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... one chair, and planted his legs on another. Then he took a short clay pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it, and began to smoke, in a slow meditative manner, stopping every now and then to mutter to himself, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... those who read the German, yet are not likely to have dipped often in the massive folios of this heroic reformer, the simple, sinewy, idiomatic words of the original. "Denn man muss nicht die Buchstaben in der Lateinischen Sprache fragen wie man soll Deutsch reden: sondern man muss die Mutter in Hause, die Kinder auf den Gassen, den gemeinen Mann auf dem Markte, darum fragen: und denselbigen auf das Maul sehen wie sie reden, und darnach dolmetschen. So verstehen sie es denn, und merken dass man Deutsch ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... "That I've but vanished from this earth awhile, "To come again with bright, unshrouded smile! "So shall they build me altars in their zeal, "Where knaves shall minister and fools shall kneel; "Where Faith may mutter o'er her mystic spell, "Written in blood—and Bigotry may swell "The sail he spreads for Heaven with blasts from hell! "So shall my banner thro' long ages be "The rallying sign of fraud and anarchy;— "Kings yet unborn shall ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... still the viols are playing That grand old wordless rhyme; And still those two ate swaying In perfect tune and time. If the great bassoons that mutter, If the clarinets that blow, Were given a voice to utter The ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Scruple or first Impression, yet I found it grow daily more and more upon me, and often in the height of my Diversions it lay upon my Stomach like an indigested Meal; yet at the same time I durst not mutter the least of this Matter to the greatest Confident I had in the World; for I was sensible what would be the Consequence of such a Liberty of Speech, and that nothing less than perpetual Imprisonment in the Bastile must have atton'd for the Crime, and ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe

... according to rule, and there will be an end,' the fiendish wretch was heard to mutter. No one was allowed to follow her. She probably did drown herself, but that was by no means the end. Well, the gipsy girl is said to have kept ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... River—the River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts will drown; we, even we, shall drown! The River!" And women stood like things of stone, listening; and men shook their fists at the black sky and at that traveling mutter of the winds and waters; and the beasts ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... care! It was as if some portion of her refused absolutely to obey her will in this matter. In silence she might declare her determination not to care, or through tense lips she might mutter the same thing in spoken words; but this made no difference. She was a free agent, to be sure. She had the right to dictate terms to herself. She had the sole right to be arbiter of her destiny. It was to that end she had craved freedom. It was for her alone to decide ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the fishermen go away at night leaving an expiring fire of drift-wood upon the shore, from the dark depth of the sea might something creep forth, crawl up towards the fire, look at it with wild intentness, and dragging all its limbs up to it, mutter in hoarse complaint: ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... silent on the burro as if asleep. He had never once roused to give heed to the words or the trail through the long ride. At times where the way was rough he would mutter thanks at the help of Kit and sink ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan

... adverse decisions in the Lower Courts to the bitter end in one of the divisions of the Court of Session. After the decision of this tribunal affirming the judgment he had appealed against, and thus finally blasting his fondest hopes, he was heard to mutter as he left the Court: "They ca' themselves senators o' the College o' Justice, but it's ma opeenion they're a' ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... lurching flight of steps that scrambled up a clay bank to a cottage like a hen that has set too long. Milt noticed that Mrs. Gilson made efforts to remain in the limousine when it stopped, and he caught Gilson's mutter to his wife, "No, it's Claire's turn. Be ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis

... priori, and began to investigate and classify facts. Human liberty began to be conscious of thews and sinews, soon to be tested in the struggle of the Netherlands against Philip II. of Spain, and, later, in that of the people of England against their own Charles Stuart. Religion was heard to mutter something about the rights of private conscience, and anon the muttering took form in the heroic protest of the man of Eisleben. It was like the awakening in the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, in the fairy-tale. Columbus had kissed the lips ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... admiration for the clever work of his chum. As for Dock, he hardly knew what to say immediately, though after he caught his breath he managed to mutter: ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster

... came back again with heavy step, carrying on a sort of collective can-canade, but every minute there was heard the sharp bang of the conductor's baton against his desk and the hoarse yell—"Halt! Start over again!" And swinging his baton he would mutter ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... day, had only just come back from Germany, and the Imperial tragedy, which had as central figure one so noble and so selfless, had moved her eager young heart very deeply. She remembered how hurt she had felt at hearing her cousin mutter to his wife, "I'm sorry she is here. She oughtn't to have come to this kind of thing. Royalties, especially foreign Royalties, should have no politics." And with what satisfaction she had heard Mrs. Hayley's spirited rejoinder: "What nonsense! She hasn't ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... The drowsy brood that on her back she bore, Imps, in the barn with mousing owlet bred, From rifled roost at nightly revel fed; Whose dark eyes flash'd thro' locks of blackest shade, When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bay'd:— And heroes fled the Sibyl's mutter'd call, Whose elfin prowess scal'd the orchard-wall. As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew, And trac'd the line of life with searching view, How throbb'd my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears, To learn the colour of my future years! Ah, then, ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers

... however, a minute later, when he felt sure he could again hear the low mutter of voices. It struck him that several persons might be urging each other on, as though inclined to feel the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... another word, but I saw a storm was brewin, and I heard her mutter to herself, 'Creation! what a spot of work! I'll have no teaching of 'mother tongue' here.' Next morning she sent me to Boston of an errand, and when I returned, two days after, Flora was gone to live with sister Sally. I have never forgiven myself for that folly; but really ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... interested for his success, and had contributed to it. However, we thought there was no harm in having our joke, when he could not be hurt by it. I proposed that he should be brought on to speak a Prologue upon the occasion; and I began to mutter fragments of what it might be: as, that when now grown old, he was obliged to cry, 'Poor Tom's a-cold[705];'—that he owned he had been driven from the stage by a Churchill, but that this was no disgrace, for a Churchill[706] had beat the French;—that he had been satyrised as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... notwithstanding the proofs he had brought him, did not yet believe that Djalma was in his power. On that theory, the contempt of Van Dael's correspondent admitted of a natural explanation. But Rodin was playing a bold and skillful game; and, while he appeared to mutter to himself, as in anger, he was observing, with ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... mollified by this, and he let his feeling be seen, though he said no more than to mutter, "He's a willian!" words that had frequently issued from his lips within the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... carnage and the magnificence of Waterloo, and the other amidst the vanishing gleams and the dusty clouds of Agamemnon's rearguard—that we may pardon a little exultation to the man who can actually mutter to himself, as he rides home of a summer evening, the very words and vocal music of the old blind ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... Martha smiled back at the giant porker, perched amongst the cases and bags and household goods like the victim of some bawdy chiavari. "I've never heard a pig mutter so," ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang

... seemed at all possible to bring this to his understanding was by comparing it to the scuffling and quarrelling of dogs—on which he observed: 'lol grn (i.e. gern likes to) raufn, mudr frbidn (i.e. Mutter verbieten Mother forbids) abr franzos raufn mit deidsn (i.e. Deutschen), mudr soln frbidn, (i.e. Mutter soll es verbieten Mother should forbid it), di nid dirfn (duerfen) raufe, is ganz wirsd fon di ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann

... to such diversions as I was, often occasioned me to give him many a hearty malediction when at a safe distance. In fact, he continued this practice until I became too much of a man to run away, after which he durst only growl and mutter abuse, whilst I snapped my fingers at him. For this reason, then, and remembering all the vexatious privations of my favorite sports which he occasioned me, I resolved to turn the laugh against him, which I did effectually, by bringing ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... the chief seat of the disturbance. It has been already pointed out in these pages, that the connecting link between the Indian and the whiteman, is the half-breed. It is not to be wondered at then, that as soon as the Metis began to mutter vengeance against the authorities, the Indians began to hunt up their war paint. The writer is not seeking to put blame upon the Government, or upon the Department delegated especially to attend to Indian affairs, with respect to its management of the tribes. Any one who has studied the ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... actual age, and he began to realize that his right hand was forgetting its cunning, his eye for beauty was growing dim, and his craft failing him. The long, light summer days kept him for a while from utter hopelessness. But as the autumn winds began to moan and mutter round the house he told himself that his work was done, and that soon Phebe would be a friendless ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... cup, and helped herself to hominy out of the pot, and to a roll out of the oven; but though she looked at the fowl she did not touch it, helping herself instead to a goodly cup of coffee. So she ate and drank with the axe close beside her, now and then pausing to groan and mutter—"Po' Mass Johnnie!—po' Mass Johnnie!—Lawd! Lawd!—if Miss Nellie had er sen' Abram atter dat chicken—like I tell um—Lawd!" ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... the witches told me that when a person meets any of them he should mutter thus, 'May a potsherd of boiling dung be stuffed into your mouths, you ugly witches! may the hair with which you perform your sorcery be torn from your heads, so that ye become bald. May the wind scatter ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... the plain man put it? I mean—does he put it seriously and effectively? I think that very often, if not as a general rule, he does not. He may—in fact he does—gloomily and savagely mutter: "What pleasure do I get out of life?" But he fails to insist on a clear answer from himself, and even if he obtains a clear answer—even if he makes the candid admission, "No pleasure," or "Not enough pleasure"—even then he usually does not insist ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett

... a clear landing," he would mutter to himself, "once let me see my way straight to get ashore in a safe place, and then I'll make the 'Westward Ho!' too hot to hold them. Too hot—ah, yes, a precious deal too hot to hold them, that I would; for I would make up such a blaze as they would never be ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng

... woods at their right began to thresh about, with a surprised rustling, and a low mutter, as of smothered warning, ran over the shoulder ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley



Words linked to "Mutter" :   croak, sound, complain, kvetch, muttering, kick, verbalize, mouth, murmuration, utter, sound off, maunder, grumbling, mussitation, verbalise, plain, talk, mussitate, quetch, gnarl, mumble, murmuring, mutterer, grumble, complaint



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