"Prattle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some. And, madam, dear, there must be a cupboard in this house.' 'Alack, my pretty one,' said I, 'of cupboards we already have enow. There is King Charles's cupboard in which we hid his Majesty after Worcester fight, and the green and blue closet, as well as many others. Sure, you prattle of that of which you do not know.' She shook her fair, bright head, and answered, 'Nay, madam, there is no strangers' cupboard for forlorn wayfarers, and there must be one, full of food, and wine, and physic, and sweet, health-restoring cordials. And the birdies must have a breakfast daily. Dorothy, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... language to rally one, to chatter or talk lightly. From a representation of the inarticulate sounds made by different kinds of animals uttering rapidly repeated cries. Du. keffen, to yap, to bark, also to prattle, chatter, tattle. Halma," etc. We think it demonstrable that chaff is only a variety of chafe, from Fr. ecauffer, retaining the broader sound of the a from the older form chaufe. So gaby, which Mr. Wedgwood (p. 84) would connect ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... travelling, they always wear their best clothes, contrary to the habit of other nations. The English language is broken Dutch, mixed with French and British terms and words, but with a lighter pronunciation. They do not speak from the chest, like the Germans, but prattle only with the tongue." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was over, they would ramble o'er the lea, And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree, And ANNIE'S simple prattle entertained him on his walk, For public executions formed the ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... in Wonderland," was the result of notes taken during many years; for while he was thinking out the book he never neglected any amusing scraps of childish conversation or funny anecdotes about children which came to his notice. It is this fact which gives such verisimilitude to the prattle of Bruno; childish talk is a thing which a grown-up person cannot possibly invent. He can only listen to the actual things the children say, and then combine what he has heard into a ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... feel the need of a divine hand to help, and a divine voice to comfort and a divine heart to sympathize. Thousands of mothers have been led into the kingdom of God by the hands of their little children. There were hundreds of mothers who would not have been Christians had it not been for the prattle of their little ones. Standing some day in the nursery, they bethought themselves: "This child God has given me to raise for eternity. What is my influence upon it? Not being a Christian myself, how can I ever expect him to become a Christian? Lord, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... figure in pink muslin: many a one was gazing at Cynthia with intentness besides himself, but no one in anger. Mrs. Gibson was not so fine an observer as to read all this; but here was a gentlemanly and handsome young man, to whom she could prattle, instead of either joining herself on to objectionable people, or sitting all forlorn until the Towers' party came. So she went on with her ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... have I seen More that I may call men than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skill-less of; but, by my modesty,— The jewel in my dower,—I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts I ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... pride and the stronghold of 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 the two sovereigns with a gloomy, inquiring glance. But suddenly his face brightened, and a smile played round his lips. "Ah," he cried, "I understand! Your majesties have overheard my prattle, and have sent for me to order me to be silent. But I cannot, your majesties; I cannot! I must give vent to my wrath, my vexation, and grief! I must be allowed to scold, for if I did not I would be obliged to weep, and it ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... jumped the captain, 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 dwelt. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... favor; You stand where you have stood before, The old salt hasn't lost its savor. You now can laugh with friends, at foes' Ne'er heeding Mrs. Grundy's tattle; You've dealt and taken sturdy blows, Regardless of the rabble's prattle. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... God to take him, too, until it seemed that Cynthia frowned upon him for his weakness. One mild Sunday afternoon, he took little Cynthia by the hand and led her, toddling, out into the sunny Common, where he used to walk with her mother, and the infant prattle seemed to bring—at last a strange ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... nose and soft radiance swept all his misgivings and prejudices before her. One might as well hold grudges against a flower, he thought. He liked the confiding way she had of suddenly slipping her little hand into his great one. Her prattle amused him, and he was both flattered and worried by the fearlessness with which she followed him everywhere. She seemed to bring a veritable shower of song into this home of long silences. The very chaos made Mrs. Wade's heart beat tumultuously, and once when Martin came upon the little girl ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... fathers had been before them, agriculturists and workers in metals—not fighting men. Also she set herself to learn what she could of their tongue, which she did not find difficult, for Benita had a natural aptitude for languages, and had never forgotten the Dutch and Zulu she used to prattle as a child, which now came back to her very fast. Indeed, she could already talk fairly in either of those languages, especially as she spent her spare hours in studying ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... they had ample opportunities for doing. After the first outburst of joy from the hounds on discovering that there were rabbits in the covert, and after the retirement of the rabbits to their burrows on the companion discovery that there were hounds in it, a silence, broken only by the far-away prattle of the lady bicyclists on the road, fell round Freddy Alexander. He bore it as long as he could, cheering with faltering whoops the invisible and unresponsive pack, and wondering what on earth huntsmen were expected to do on such occasions; then, filled with that horrid conviction which assails ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... sweet prattle of childhood," said Mrs. Francis, clasping her shapely white hands. "How very interesting it must be to watch their young minds unfolding as the flower! Is it nine little ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... heavens, what wasn't there in it! I am positive that it would have reduced to rigidity even a Petersburg audience, let alone ours. Imagine an article that would have filled some thirty pages of print of the most affected, aimless prattle; and to make matters worse, the gentleman read it with a sort of melancholy condescension as though it were a favour, so that it was almost insulting to the audience. The subject.... Who could make it out? It was a sort of description of certain impressions and reminiscences. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... knew her. You knew her at Geneva. She told me so. Well, you knew me at Vevey. That's just as good. So you ought to have come." She asked him no other question than this; she began to prattle about her own affairs. "We've got splendid rooms at the hotel; Eugenio says they're the best rooms in Rome. We are going to stay all winter, if we don't die of the fever; and I guess we'll stay then. It's a great deal nicer than I thought; ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... and decided; she soft and yielding. They had two children or rather, I should say, she had two; for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs. Openshaw's child by Frank Wilson her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep up what he called ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... task of melancholy. [[2]All the language he speaks yet is tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity.] His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... dear, to call it dear! Why it isn't a horn you buy, but an ear; Only think, you'll find on reflection You're bargaining, Ma'am, for the Voice of Affection; For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth, And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth: Not to mention the striking of clocks—, Cackle of hens—crowing of cocks— Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox— Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks— Murmur of waterfall over the rocks— Every sound that Echo mocks— ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... only sighed. "The prattle of these little ones softens my hard heart, senors, with a new pleasure; but it saddens me, when I recollect that there may be children of mine now in the world—children who have never known a father's love—never known aught but a ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... her voice is very sweet, She does but little more Than simple childish songs repeat, And prattle ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... than at first. He was rich, and she would no longer be obliged to support herself by a degrading occupation. After the first buzz of scandal and excitement at her elopement the world would cease to prattle, or if it did she would be in America and safe from its strictures. The King was too poor in friends to refuse her recognition at his court. And, after all, there need be no scandal. She would go to America in the role of a professional ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... This prattle was interrupted by Rhoda Gale putting her right wrist round Zoe's neck, and laying her forehead on her shoulder with a little sob. So then they both distilled ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... suppose I bandy compliments; but, with moderate care, any such Translation of such a writer as Hafiz by you into pure, sweet, and partially measured Prose must be better than what I am doing for Jami; {304} whose ingenuous prattle I am stilting into too Miltonic verse. This I am very sure of. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... she spend the forenoon? Some of her friends would be coming to talk over the party; there would be callers; there was the summer-house, her hammock, her phaeton; there were nooks and seats, cool, fragrant; there were her mother and grandmother to prattle to and caress. "No," she said, "not any of them. One person ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... true womanly love for Pygmalion as the first man on whom her eyes alight. Sentiment of this kind, whether intended by the author or not, would scarcely harmonize with the satirical spirit of the play, and the innocent prattle which Miss Anderson gives us in place of it meets sufficiently well the requirements of the case dramatically, leaving the spectator free to derive pleasure from his sense of the beautiful, here so strikingly appealed to, from the occasionally audacious turns of the dialogue ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... go on from sea to sea, to tell, in the simplest language in my power, of the life that is around me, of the men among whom I toil. I shall not tell you of these fair towns of the Southern Sea, for you have travelled in years gone by. I shall not prattle of the beauties of Nature, for the prattle is at your elbow in books. But I shall—nay, must, for it is my use and habit—tell you about myself and the things in my heart. I shall be, not a hero talking about men, but a man talking about heroes, as well as the astonishing beings who ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... scornful critics, bunched with glistening ribbons, shaking back their cascades of blonde hair, lolling contemptuously on the foremost benches, and "looking big through their curls." There from "Fop's Corner" rises the tipsy laugh, the prattle, and the chatter, as the dukes and lords, the wits and courtiers, practise what Dryden calls "the diving bow," or "the toss and the new French wallow"—the diving bow being ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to enquire what he had bought. It turned out that he had purchased a copy of Comic Cuts. The news was all round Forres in an hour's time, and caused much consternation. "What great men do, the less will prattle of," and it is so difficult for the former to act up to ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... chatter, prate, prattle, babble, gabble, jabber, tattle, twaddle, blab, gossip, palaver, parley, converse, mumble, mutter, stammer, stutter.> (With this group compare the Say ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... turn to blush. And this little childish prattle seemed to have removed the barrier of strangership from between the two young people, who exchanged glances of a sort of merry vexation, and seemed to understand each other as if ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... monopolizer of the sex; in short, I have very little relish for any conversation but theirs: I love their sweet prattle beyond all the sense and learning ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... broken up by the reeds, like an old building in the lithe, hardy arms of the climbing ivy. You may watch the box where the good man of the inn keeps fish alive for his kitchen, one oily ripple following another over the top of the yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices from the shed under the old kirk, where the village women wash and wash all day among the fish and water-lilies. It seems as if linen washed there should be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... age, the daughters of our hostess, who herself had a melodious voice, and peculiarly pleasing manners. These little fairies constituted themselves our attendants during our stay at Mauleon, and as they spoke, equally well, French and Basque, we enjoyed their innocent prattle and intelligent remarks extremely. They were very eloquent in praise of a certain English traveller named Francois, who had stayed some time at their inn, and wanted to take them away to England, and they tried hard to persuade us that he must be a relation, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... o'er the couch did I then Turn and tumble, in haste to see the day-light, Hear your prattle again, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... would sing idly or prattle with an imaginary being that had a habit of peeking over the edge of the basket or would shout a greeting to some bird or butterfly and ask ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... upon his fearless face Before they murdered it, in all the grace Of manhood's dawn. Sisters, here's yours! his lips, Over whose bloom the bloody death-foam slips, Lisped house-songs after you, and said your name In loving prattle once. That hand, the same Which lies so cold over the eyelids shut, Was once a small pink baby-fist, and wet With milk ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... his martagon lilies, to decide between Ayrshire Ruga and Fellenberg for the pillar that requires a red rose, to fix the right proportion of sand and leaf-mould to suit his carnations—when 'his only plot' is to plant the bergamot—he resents being fobbed off with prattle:— ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... listener in conversation, a dreamer amid the tumult of business, whose success lay in his industry and caution, and who drew men to him not by what he promised, but by the faith we chattering daws have in the man who looks on and smiles while we prattle. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... sitting one afternoon before the fatal bust which had smiled and whispered away his peace, when the postman brought him a letter. It was from the simple girl to whom he had given his promise. We know how she used to prattle in her harmless way about her innocent feelings, and the trifling matters that were going on in her little village world. But now she wrote in sadness. Something, she did not too clearly explain what, had grieved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... prattle of the child with the women made the house seem pitifully lonesome. Jasper was expressing his sorrow by chopping wood down in the timber. Jasper was an odd sheep in the flock; he was a Sands after Daniel's own heart. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... not relax. She had been sitting there for an hour, letting Mrs. Boyd's prattle pour over her like a rain, and thinking ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... look up to meet his gaze, feeling it by intuition. Oh, the demure, modest, shamefaced hypocrite! How silent she is! She can prate enough to me! I would give my promised garter if she would but talk to him. Talk, talk, laugh, prattle, only simper, in God's name, and I shall be happy. But that bashful, blushing silence,—it is insupportable. Thank Heaven, the dance is over! Thank Heaven, again! I have not felt such pains since the last nightmare I had after ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... following simile in Richard the Second is deserving of attention:— As in a theatre the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... leave this enchanted realm. Violet kisses her fondly and clings to her; they have had such a happy day, there has not been a lonely moment in it. The wistful face haunts Grandon through the homeward ride, and he hardly hears Cecil's prattle. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... gray?—that all the impulse of her nature, the quick ebb and flow of youth and hope, was stilled and faded out, and all her thoughts absorbed into a dreadful longing? She could not tell, nor could she tell what ailed her; but she felt that she was changed. She tried to listen to the prattle of the two children—to ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... heart, Confirm'd their virtue, and expell'd the fear Of vice in minds so simple and sincere. Here the good pauper, losing all the praise By worthy deeds acquired in better days, Breathes a few months, then, to his chamber led, Expires, while strangers prattle round his bed. The grateful hunter, when his horse is old, Wills not the useless favourite to be sold; He knows his former worth, and gives him place In some fair pasture, till he runs his race: But ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... in the confederacy with her mother, she afterwards kept her secret. For this her motive was commendable, although I will not determine whether she did it well or ill. Two women, who have secrets between them, love to prattle together; this attracted them towards each other, and Theresa, by dividing herself, sometimes let me feel I was alone; for I could no longer consider as a society that which we all ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... great parlours, seemed to have no wants that a black man, coming at the sound of a bell, might not easily supply. Even the children seemed at ease and self-possessed in the midst of the crowd. They troubled no one with noisy play or merry prattle, but sat on chairs with their elders, listening to, or joining in the conversation, with a coolness and appropriateness painfully suggestive of what their future might be. Looking at these embryo merchants and fine ladies, from whose pale little lips "dollar" and "change" fall ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... heard her mother's mortuary prattle with a face from which no impatience of it could be inferred, and Mr. Ferris made no comment on what was oddly various in character and manner, for Mrs. Vervain touched upon the gloomiest facts of her history with a certain impersonal statistical interest. They were rowing across the ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... past political service, bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public transactions when "his old cap was new." Full of scandal, which all true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness that actually gives the momentum to national actors. Quite the prattle of age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you perpetually in alto relievo. Himself a party man, he makes you a party man. None of the cursed philosophical Humeian indifference, so cold and unnatural and inhuman! None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... feel settled, Kate; the dear old place will again ring with happy voices, old friends will be there," and he whispered low and tenderly, "In time, I trust, an heir will prattle at our knees, how happy would my dear mother be could she see our union ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... grave, had caressed him; where a father had guided his toddling steps; the home to which he had brought his bride in the bloom of a beautiful maidenhood; where Ruth had come to them as the blessing of God to make the house resound with prattle and laughter, and fill it with the sunlight of her presence; make it attractive by her grace and beauty,—the soul beauty that looked out from loving eyes and became, as it were, a benediction. He was to go, she to stay. God above would ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... 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
... not so when we talk to one another. With your arm about me, and your sweet face close to mine, I can prattle forever. Then my heart overflows at my lips. After hours thus spent, it seems as if there were a thousand things still to be said. Then I can tell you what the book has told me. I can repeat scores of verses by heart, though I ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... "what would have become of me if it had not been for you and Schmucke?" He felt touched by this horrible prattle; the feeling in it seemed to be ingenuous, as it usually is in the speech ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... from the very nature of the undertaking that it was practically limitless; that a bibliomaniac of so many years' experience could prattle on indefinitely concerning his "love affairs," and at the same time be in no danger of repetition. Indeed my brother's plans at the outset were not definitely formed. He would say, when questioned or joked about these amours, ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... them, but were polite to her, conversed with her in French, bowed and scraped before her, and called her "chere Maman"—a term to which she always responded in a tone of similar lightness and with her beautiful, unchanging smile. Only the lachrymose Lubotshka, with her goose feet and artless prattle, really liked our stepmother, or tried, in her naive and frequently awkward way, to bring her and ourselves together: wherefore the only person in the world for whom, besides Papa, Avdotia had a spark of affection ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... told the story of Bethlehem; of the babe in the manger, of the shepherds on the hills, of the host of angels and their midnight song. All the people listened, charmed into stillness. But the boy Bernhard, on Irma's knee, folded by her soft arm, grew restless as the story lengthened, and began to prattle softly at ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... and his love to Jenny Lavender. Stay—had he not? What was that faint something, without a name—a sort of vague uneasiness, which had seemed to creep over him whenever he had seen her during those months—a sense of incongruity between her light prattle and his own inmost thoughts and holiest feelings? It was so slight that as yet he had never faced it. He recognised now it was because his heart had refused to face it. And conscience told him, speaking loudly this time, that he must hold ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... loud cough from Mr. Dowden, so abrupt and artificial that his intention to check the flow of my innocent prattle was ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... oath, and never broken." Especially was Towandahoc attached to the Buckingham family, who ever treated him kindly, and to the little girl who played with his bow and arrows, and tried in her artless prattle to pronounce his name. Unbroken peace had hitherto prevailed between the red men and the pale faces, owing to the just and friendly treatment the natives had experienced; but symptoms of another spirit began now to appear. The war waged between England ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... has passed from the dwelling away, And quiet serenity brightens the day: With innocent prattle, her toils to beguile, In the midst of her children, the mother must smile. With matronly cares,—those relentless demands On the strength of her heart and the skill of her hands,— The hours come tenderly, ceaselessly fraught, And leave her small space ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... and arrange parties and receptions and so on, and sit ornamentally at the head of my table. I can't imagine anything jollier than marriage under conditions like that. When I came back a bit done up after a long sitting at the House, he would mix me a whisky-and-soda and read poetry to me or prattle about all the things he had been doing during the day.... Why, it ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... the rest; And should the youngest raise its little voice, The careful mother, ever on the watch, And always pleas'd with what her husband says, Gives it a gentle tap upon the fingers, Or stops its ill tim'd prattle with a kiss. The soldier next, but not unask'd, begins, And tells in better speech what he has seen; Making his simple audience to shrink With tales of war and blood. They gaze upon him, And almost weep to see the man so poor, So bent and feeble, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... shore;—and if he is fond of children, he must be delighted with the numberless pretty and happy little faces—the fair forms of Saxon men and women in miniature—that crowd about him on the green sward;—he must be charmed with their innocent prattle, their quick and graceful movements, and their winning ways, that awaken a tone of tender sentiment in his heart, ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... with the duties of a theocratic ministry." Anything which diverted the labors of the clergy from the Church seemed to him an outrage and a degeneracy. How could they reach the state of beatific existence if they were to listen to the prattle of children, or be engrossed with the joys of conjugal or parental love? So he assembled a council, and caused it to pass canons to the effect that married priests should not perform any clerical office; that the people ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... tears. Francois, the eldest, then nine years of age, tried to console her. He told her that he was almost a man, able to earn his food and to take care of her and his little brother. She listened to his prattle with a sad smile, kissed him ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Race lure us with passion and dreaming! We are not the losers by it. And if the dream fades and we grow gray despite what has been lived, then it is something to remember that soul and sense have leapt and pulsed. I am thankful that romance has an aftermath, and that old men and women can prattle about days that were robust. I am thankful that the soldiers of life are at the end given a furlough in which to fondle the arms they wielded with clumsiness and with spirit, and in which to pass themselves in review before their pension ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... to climb the opposite bluffs of the lake shore. We pulled well out into the lake and lay on our oars. If anything was said, I do not remember it. I was as one who had just heard words from the dead, and hears as prattle all the sounds of common life. My eyes, my ears, were opened anew to Nature, and it seemed even as if some new sense had been given me. I felt, as I never felt before, the cool gloom of the shadow creep up, ridge after ridge, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... alone—the disciples did leave Him alone occasionally. I should paint one little child left with Him. This child has been playing about near Him, and had probably just been telling the Saviour something in its pretty baby prattle. Christ had listened to it, but was now musing—one hand reposing on the child's bright head. His eyes have a far-away expression. Thought, great as the Universe, is in them—His face is sad. The little one leans its elbow upon Christ's knee, and with its cheek resting ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... walk in the neighbourhood of the capital. Here I would loiter for hours looking at the shoals of gold and silver fish which basked on the surface of the green sunny waters, or listening, not to the warbling of birds—for Spain is not the land of feathered choristers—but to the prattle of the narangero or man who sold oranges and water by a little deserted watch tower just opposite the wooden bridge that crosses the canal, which situation he had chosen as favourable for his trade, and there had placed his stall. He was an ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... such a peace have been imposed which will make the shambles in Belgium, Poland, and Serbia an eternal nightmare of the past, never to be repeated in the future. And over the anaemic hearts of the Trevelyans, the Ramsay MacDonalds, the Arthur Ponsonbys, who dare to prattle of a peace that shall not humiliate Germany, I would have this cartoon tattooed, not in indigo, but ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... only thirty-six weeks in the year! Need one wonder that their eyes were tired and their faces lined? Their clothes were shabby, all ambition had been ruthlessly crushed out of them, but no matter. They still stood sunning themselves on the Rialto, listening good naturedly to the youngsters' prattle. Now and then grim tragedy could be detected stalking behind comedy's mask. Haggard faces and shabby clothes spoke eloquently of poverty's pinch. A long summer ahead and nothing saved. Well—what of it? That was nothing unusual. If times were hard and engagements few, that was the price the mummer ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... children of the king, Cinderellas, fairy queens, magicians, monsters—all the familiar personages of those imaginary realms, crowding them in tumultuously with the kaleidoscopic rapidity of a dream. Her prattle sounded like the warbling of a bird; full of sweet modulations, with now and then a rapid succession of melodious notes that were not words,—a continuation of the wave of music already set in motion, like the vibrations of a string during a pause—when in the childish mind, the connection ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... said Nina, "that I shall dance like a wraith. It seems almost a sacrilege to bob around and prattle in such surroundings. How silly their sainted ghosts ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... youth; the flow of feelings and ideas give life and variety to the countenance, and the conversation to which it gives rise arouses and sustains attention, and fixes it continuously on one object. I suppose this is why little girls so soon learn to prattle prettily, and why men enjoy listening to them even before the child can understand them; they are watching for the first ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... rode home in a daze, answering without hearing the prattle of the children. She was appalled at the emotions that possessed her—that the sight of Frank Shirley riding down the street could have affected her so! She forgot Mrs. Armistead, she forgot the whole ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... in a yard joining to it, there was a thriving good humoured child at play, of two or three years old, so near us, that through the grates of the window we could almost touch it with our hands; and if, whilst we took delight in the harmless diversion, and imperfect prattle, of the innocent babe, a nasty overgrown sow should come in upon the child, set it a screaming, and frighten it out of its wits; it is natural to think that this would make us uneasy, and that ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... my deere Father: how features are abroad I am skillesse of; but by my modestie (The iewell in my dower) I would not wish Any Companion in the world but you: Nor can imagination forme a shape Besides your selfe, to like of: but I prattle Something too wildely, and my Fathers ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... she never expressed, became nurse as well as doctor, using what skill he had in every possible office for the sick, working early and late, and many a time the night through. It was not a time to prattle of the sea-maid to either Madame Le Maitre or O'Shea, who both of them worked at his side in the battle against death, and were, Caius verily believed, more heroic and successful combatants than himself. Some solution concerning his lady-love ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... deserve our notice, or excite our sympathy, we should remember that we likewise are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... the city, so frivolous and gay; And, as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Mother's knee, Mother's knee: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Where I used to stand and prattle With my teddy-bear and rattle: Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee, They sure look good to me! It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day! I'm going back, Believe me, oh! I'm going back (I want to go!) I'm going back—back—on the seven-three ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... scene of the second act. To the question of Polonius as to what he is reading, Hamlet replies:—'Words, words, words!' Indeed, Shakspere did not think it fair that 'the satirical rogue' should fill the paper with such remarks (whole Essays of Montaigne consist of similar useless prattle) as 'that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... 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 ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... mention stolen horses, nor thieves, nor airplanes, nor anything that could possibly lead his thoughts to those taboo subjects. Under that heavy handicap conversation lagged. There seemed to be so little that she dared mention! She would sit and prattle of school and shows and such things, and tell him about the girls she knew; and half the time she knew perfectly well that Johnny was not listening. But she could not bear his moody silences, and he sat out on the porch a good deal of the time, so she had to ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... himself with," replied Percy, "save his wage from my Lord Oxford, and that were but a drop in the sea for us. His old grandmother can do but little for him—so much have I picked out of his prattle. But, surely, Mr Catesby, you would not think to take into our number a green lad such as he, and a simpleton, and a ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... now," said the captain; "or was so very late for, but a month ago, I went from here, and then it was the general talk (as you know what great ones do, the people will prattle of) that Orsino sought the love of fair Olivia, a virtuous maid, the daughter of a count who died twelve months ago, leaving Olivia to the protection of her brother, who shortly after died also; and for the love of this dear brother, they say, she has abjured the sight and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... never saw me. I knew her favorite path across the mountains,—it led past a rocky chasm. On the edge of that chasm there was a broad, flat stone, and there she would sit often, reading, or watching the fishing-boats on the Fjord, and listening to the prattle of her child. I used to dream of that stone, and wonder if I could loosen it! It was strongly imbedded in the earth—but each day I went to it—each day I moved it! Little by little I worked—till a mere touch would have set it hurling downwards,—yet it looked ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and fiery, is the proper emblem of vivacity and wit; the acidity of the lemon will very aptly figure pungency of raillery, and acrimony of censure; sugar is the natural representative of luscious adulation and gentle complaisance; and water is the proper hieroglyphick of easy prattle, innocent ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... was next to theirs, and as she sat sewing she could hear the children's talk, for they soon forgot to whisper. At first she smiled, then she looked sober, and when the prattle ceased she said to herself, as she glanced about her ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... those who doubt its qualities. In it we will drown our adversities, and in its fire consume our sorrows. Whoever has once seen the blissful chalice, will scorn the wine-cup. Glorious drink! thy color is the seal of purity, and reason proclaims it genuine. Drink with confidence, and regard not the prattle of fools, who ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... both the little girls in her lap, and seemed to enjoy hearing their childish prattle. Patty glanced at the gay rings on the lady's fingers, and at the pictures on the walls, and wondered why it wasn't a happy home, and what made Mrs. Chase's eyes so red. Then all at once she remembered what Siller Noonin had said: "O, yes, Mrs. Chase has everything heart ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... and you shall hear it. That man's father is an outlaw. He is a fugitive from justice. All this prattle about him being dead ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... is that I never suffer my children to join in the conversation of grown people, or foolishly imagine themselves on an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would have them give a short and modest answer when they are spoken to, but never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ought ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... little shoes! 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
... on whatever befall, the good do not prattle, longing for pleasure; whether touched by happiness or sorrow wise people never appear ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... recovered girl most cordially. Every word of censure was carefully avoided; the more so, indeed, as even Undine, forgetting her waywardness, almost overwhelmed her foster-parents with caresses and the prattle ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the flowers in the glass of water beside her plate, and gave her attention to the prattle of ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... to. While they still stood bending over the well, straining both eyes and ears to the utmost, little Cora's voice came again. It seemed close to them; they could not distinguish any words, but the tones were those of her usual pretty baby prattle. Was that voice from the spirit land? They could see nothing but the gray stone walls of the dungeon, the dark, open well and some large, loose stones, which had heavy iron chains with rings attached to them, and which had in former years been fastened to the ankles ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to marry, his relations were ever clustering about him, paying the grossest adulation to a man, who, disgusted with mankind, received them with scorn, or bitter sarcasms. Something in my countenance pleased him, when I began to prattle. Since his return, he appeared dead to affection; but I soon, by showing him innocent fondness, became a favourite; and endeavouring to enlarge and strengthen my mind, I grew dear to him in proportion as I imbibed his sentiments. He had a forcible manner of speaking, rendered ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... surprise. Yerba broke the silence by suddenly turning to Milly. "Certainly, you remember how greatly interested we were in the conversation of a party of gentlemen who were there when we came in. I am afraid our foolish prattle must have disturbed YOU. I know that we were struck with the intelligent and eloquent ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... "Howel's Letters" are my bedside books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories. I don't heed them. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 a ...
— The Nursery, March 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... yourself, and you remember what your mother used to say to you. I believe that the younger one is, the better one understands the young. I am very much afraid that a woman of thirty, who doesn't know what it is to be a mother, will find it hard to learn to prattle ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... must have rung in the poet's ears like a sad refrain. The Digentia lost its charm; he could not see its crystal waters for the shadows of Charon's rueful stream. The prattle of his loved Bandusian spring could not wean his thoughts from the vision of his other self wandering unaccompanied along that "last sad road." We may fancy that Horace was thenceforth little seen in his accustomed haunts. He who had so often soothed ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle tender-hearted Amelia ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... such a tribute to the lively Peace on the previous day, her teacher would merely have raised her eyebrows doubtfully; but with the memory of that flushed, joyous face still so vividly before her, and with the sound of the eager, childish prattle still ringing in her ears, she nodded her head in assent, and turned back to the day's duties with a heaviness of heart that was overwhelming. With that restless, active figure gone from its accustomed corner, ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... young person of the opposite sex. He had an engaging habit of appearing at the door of Sara's sitting-room with an ingratiating: "I say, may I come in for a yarn?" And, upon receiving permission, he would establish himself on the hearth-rug at her feet and proceed to prattle to her about his own affairs, much as a brother might have done to a favourite sister, and with an equal assurance that his confidences would be met ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... literary arrogance? Well; there is nothing to be said about them. They are all alike. They grew up to be all very respectable, comfortable, and commonplace. They were well-meaning people. What they had formerly said and thought was only—CHILDREN'S PRATTLE. ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... why 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
... alone rather dismally, and now I shall imagine that I receive a visit from a young lady about twenty-three years of age, who enlivens me by her prattle. Is it her or her angel? But I believe that she is an angel, pale, volatile and like Laodamia in Wordsworth, ready to disappear at a moment's notice. I could write a description of her, but am not sure that ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... But never cry, And lips, but never prattle; You've fingers ten, Like brother Ben, But never shake ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... passes in front of his regiments (8,000 men) drawn up for action, and says, "My friends, my good friends, you see what is going on. How horrible! Alas! these are your papers, your titles and those of your parents." The soldiers smile at this sentimental prattle.] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... he longed more than either to get away from Aunt Deborah, the storm of whose vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he continued within sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the mill and the prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned it, but it did not. Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles behind, and setting the great city between him and her, could efface ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... had told me first something about herself: that she was a petted and somewhat spoiled only daughter; something of an heiress, too, if one might judge from her prattle about charming and costly costumes and a rather reckless expenditure of pin-money; and that she was betrothed to Gerald Trent, of the great Boston firm of Trent and Sons, with the full consent and approval of all concerned. What life could be more ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... she is only idle, as she always is idle. But love throws a new glory and a new interest around her indolence. The endless little notes with which she worries the Post-Office and her friends become suddenly sacred and mysterious. The silly little prattle hushes into confidential whispers. Every crush through the season, becomes the scene of a reunion of two hearts which have been parted for the eternity of twenty-four hours. Love, in fact, does not in the least change woman's life, or give it new earnestness or a fresh ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... love was re-born, and that he would spend the future in atoning for the wrongs he had inflicted upon her in the past. Then he dropped to the sheer babble of affection and poured out his heart to her—all the babydom of love, the foolish prattle, the tender nonsense. What matter that he was Governor now, and the first man in the island? He forgot all about it. What matter that he was writing to a fallen woman in prison? He only remembered it ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... certainly in 'Robert,' the City waiter of Punch. But so irresistible is the derision of the woman that all Charles Keene's persistent sense of vulgarity is intent centrally upon her. Never for any grace gone astray is she bantered, never for the social extravagances, for prattle, or for beloved dress; but always for her jealousy, and for the repulsive person of the man upon whom she spies and in whom she vindicates her ignoble rights. If this is the shopkeeper the possession of whom is her boast, what ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... neither Miss Taylor nor the long straight rows of desks and faces. She heard neither the drone of the spellers nor did she hear Miss Taylor say, "Zora!" She heard and saw none of this. She only heard the prattle of the birds in the wood, far down where the Silver Fleece ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... cried, laughing. "You can be quick enough when you choose, Master Malapert. But you are more fit to speak of high and weary matters with my sister Mary. She will have none of the prattle and courtesy of Sir George, and yet I love them well. But tell me, Nigel, why do you come to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... man can apologize for talking business to a woman. I've been in England for years, you know, and the women over there are doing all the men's work and getting better wages at it than the men ever did. After the war they'll never go back to their tatting and prattle. I'm going to your shipyard and have a look-in, but not the way a pink debutante follows a naval officer over a battle-ship, staring at him and not at the works. I'm going on business, and if I like ship-building, I may take ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... it was the gill of comforting port, but 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 ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... sleekit, cowrin' tim'rous beastie. Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa' sae hasty. Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin and chase thee, Wi murd'ing prattle! ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... Hogboom only grinned. "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 pie ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch |
