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Prattle   Listen
verb
Prattle  v. t.  To utter as prattle; to babble; as, to prattle treason.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prattle" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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

... out of the face of William Douglas as he listened to his sister's prattle, like the vapours from the surface of a hill tarn when the sun rises in his strength. He even thought with some self-reproach of his treatment of Malise and of his uncle the Abbot. But a glance at the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... But protracted too long, it becomes a perfect plague. Your philosopher is a complete novice in the life comme il faut.... I like very well to see a child babble and stammer; there is even a grace about it when it becomes his age. But to see a man continue the prattle of the child, is absurd. Just so with your philosophy." The consequence of this prevalent spirit of universal skepticism was a general laxity of morals. The Aleibiades, of the "Symposium," is the ideal representative of the young aristocracy ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... Launcelot. Allen humored her, finding a real relief in this childish game which his little friend took so seriously. The one drawback was the amount of intimate information which she conveyed through the medium of her innocent prattle. Allen could not know what was coming next, and so was powerless to head off conversation upon subjects into which he knew he had no right to enter, for Patricia possessed the faculty of keeping herself well informed as to family matters. It was through this ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... me—simply trifling. The friends of that other woman, a great brown-eyed beauty with the subtle charm and fatal fascination of a devil most lovely, made it appear that of course Gerome Meadows had never loved me—why should he? He cowardly held his peace and let them prattle; he was kneeling low before the shrine of his own selection; he was in open rebellion against his irate mother, who did not approve ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... not the outcome of religious feeling? By describing the Cabinet Order everywhere as an outcome of religious feeling. Is an insight into social movements to be expected from such an illogical mind? Listen to his prattle about the relation of German society to the Labour movement ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... he was unmarried then. "And he is so now," said the captain; "or was so very lately, 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 ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... exquisitely touching, than some of these notes." Swift says that when he wrote plainly, he felt as if they were no longer alone, but "a bad scrawl is so snug it looks like a PMD." In writing his fond and playful prattle, he made up his mouth "just as if he were ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... with your left hand the wounds that you inflict with your right; you will make a shroud of your virtue in which to bury your crimes; you will strike, and like Brutus you will engrave on your sword the prattle of Plato! Into the heart of the being who opens her arms to you, you will plunge that blood-stained but repentant arm; you will follow to the cemetery the victim of your passion, and you will plant on her grave the sterile flower of your pity. You will ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... we shall presently have to affirm or deny. Under any other circumstances we should deeply enjoy a half hour spent in a comfortable chair, with nothing to do but do nothing. Our barber is a delightful fellow; he looks benign and does not prattle; he respects the lobes of our ears and other vulnerabilia. But for some inscrutable reason we feel strangely ill at ease in his chair. We can't think of anything to think about. Blankly we brood in the hope of catching the hem of some intimation of immortality. ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... thing—in the Masnavi of Jelalu-'d-Din er-Rumi (13th century), a grand mystical poem, or rather series of poems, in six books, written in Persian rhymed couplets, as the title indicates. In the second poem of the First Book we read that an oilman possessed a fine parrot, who amused him with her prattle and watched his shop during his absence. It chanced one day, when the oilman had gone out, that a cat ran into the shop in chase of a mouse, which so frightened the parrot that she flew about from shelf to shelf, upsetting several jars and spilling ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... prattle at the pane Makes timorous Fancy smile: Then let me hear that tender strain; ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous

... silly, scheming daughter, with her small waist and flat neck; and, with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. As I heartily detest the whole race, I determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable Miss B—came in. As I never meet her without experiencing a heartfelt pleasure, I stayed and talked to her, leaning over the back of her chair, and did not perceive, till after some time, that she seemed ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly, when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it must have been by that time more than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I can ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of unscrewing the nickel-cap of the little phial, and tell himself that he was getting stronger. Sometimes he really was so, and then the child sat on his wide hollow chest, and played with the beard that was now all grey and unkempt and matted, until some word in her baby prattle, some look of wondering inquiry in the innocent eyes, golden-hazel and black-lashed, like his own, that were almost too beautiful to be a man's, people used to say, like the weak, passionate, gentle mouth under the heavy ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... without some-indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.(26) We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... great deal of prattle about Italian skies: the skies and clouds of Italy, so far as I have had an opportunity of judging, do not present so great a variety of beautiful appearances as our own; but the Italian atmosphere is far more uniformly fine than ours. Not ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... of heart, and the hope of seeing again, in a year's time or so, two people who have supplied so many tables here with materials for conversation, when the fountain of talk was stopt by deficiencies, and the little stream of prattle ceased to murmur for want of a few pebbles to break ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... been ways of pleasantness, Nor all her paths of peace. But her distress And grief she has lived past; your giddy round Disturbs her not, for she is learned profound In deep brahminical philosophy. She chews the cud of sweetest revery Above your worldly prattle, brooklet merry, Oblivious of all ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... is one who makes a great stir with printed prattle, falsehood and fury. Madness is the characteristic of the true poet. All those who express themselves, with clearness, precision and simplicity are deemed unworthy of ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... an 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 and ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... William did all he could for their comfort. Betty went to see them sometimes, and brought me tidings. She was not permitted to enter the jail; but William would hold them up to the grated window while she chatted with them. When she repeated their prattle, and told me how they wanted to see their ma, my tears would flow. Old Betty would exclaim, "Lors, chile! what's you crying 'bout? Dem young uns vil kill you dead. Don't be so chick'n hearted! If you does, you vil nebber git ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... archetype of protean protein clay All the human's space has room for, for whom time makes a day, From the sage whose words of wisdom prince or parliament obey, To the parrots who but prattle, and the asses who but bray— So full was this Atom-Molecule, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various

... 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 then ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... took 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 ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May

... her pretty wiles on me when I'm poverty stricken and penniless, when it won't do any more good to coax than if you were to prattle to a dead man at his tomb.[18] The money goes to my father, that's ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... tears, and laughter and careless prattle with my mother, and roundabout questions from her to know if I had never lost my heart in the Bush; and evasive answers from me, to punish her for not letting out that Blanche was so charming. "I fancied Blanche had grown the image of her father, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... His retort and crucible are thrown aside. His shrubbery bloom's and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain he likes it not. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor, and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. Greater objects have taken possession ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... his temper and his breath To keep a brute alive that's bent on death? Yet one thing more: your fate may be to teach In some suburban school the parts of speech, And, maundering over grammar day by day, Lisp, prattle, drawl, grow ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... voice 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 ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller

... cannot be so well told by this way, as by presence and conversation; sure Philander understands what I mean by this, which possibly is nonsense to all but a lover, who apprehends all the little fond prattle of the thing belov'd, and finds an eloquence in it, that to a sense unconcern'd would appear even approaching to folly: but Philander, who has the true notions of love in him, apprehends all that ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... 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

... makes truth more palatable. Trust me to work things to a highly artistic and flawless finish. I can procure any number of witnesses—at so much per head—who have time and again distinctly heard your childish prattle regarding dear ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... amused at his significant performances. He turned his knowing head one way, and then another, now sidewise toward the fruits, and then obliquely up at me, as I sat enjoying the repast, enlivening his gestures with gentle prattle, and yet never making a single demonstration in the direction of my food. He put me in such good humor that I was impelled to say ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various

... vs to the Castle. Newes (Friends) our Warres are done: The Turkes are drown'd. How do's my old Acquaintance of this Isle? (Hony) you shall be well desir'd in Cyprus, I haue found great loue among'st them. Oh my Sweet, I prattle out of fashion, and I doate In mine owne comforts. I prythee, good Iago, Go to the Bay, and disimbarke my Coffers: Bring thou the Master to the Cittadell, He is a good one, and his worthynesse Do's challenge much respect. Come Desdemona, Once more ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... when we meet She does not prattle of her posies, Dull facts of what begonias eat, The dietetic fads of roses, And how she strove with spade and spud. Or nipped the green ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various

... he has gone a little out of his way to tell you these things? The Primitives tell us nothing of that sort; they stick to their business of creating significant form. Whatever of their personalities may reach us has passed through the transmuting fires of art: they never prattle. The Primitives are always distinguished; whereas occasionally the douanier is as much the reverse as the more successful painters to the ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... partly in his own servants, and partly in the attendants of the king. He entered Scotland, and, when quite close to the abode of the queen, he went into a meadow by the wayside to rest his horses. Pleased by the look of the spot, he thought of resting—the pleasant prattle of the stream exciting a desire to sleep—and posted men to keep watch some way off. The queen on hearing of this, sent out ten warriors to spy on the approach of the foreigners and their equipment. One of these, being quick-witted, slipped past the sentries, pertinaciously made his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... Greek theos, logos, renders distinct the meaning of the subject it attempts to treat.—Theos, God, or Gods, unseen beings and unknown causes. Logos, word, talk—or, if we like to employ yet more familiar and expressive terms, prattle or chatter. Talk, or prattle, about unseen beings or unknown causes, The idleness of the subject, and inutility—nay, absolute insanity of the occupation, sufficiently appears in the strict etymological meaning of the word employed to typify them. The danger, the mischief, the cruelly ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... with their ranges and ranches? Do they ring with rough rider refrains? Do the cowboys scrap there with Comanches And other Red Men of the plains? Are the hills covered over with cattle In those mystic worlds far, far away? Do the ranch-houses ring with the prattle Of ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... alone when at home, at a small table in his cabinet. The two sons of Hortense were frequently admitted, that they might interest him with their infant prattle. The Emperor would tell them a story, and have them repeat it after him, that he might ascertain the accuracy of their memory. Any indication of intellectual superiority excited in his mind the most lively satisfaction. Mademoiselle ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... company fell into groups—some out of doors beneath the apple-trees, others near the piano at which Virginia was playing Mendelssohn. Monica ran about among them with her five-year-old prattle, ever watched by her father, who lounged in a canvas chair against the sunny ivied wall, pipe in mouth. Dr. Madden was thinking how happy they made him, these kind, gentle girls; how his love for them seemed to ripen with every summer; what a delightful ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... pretence of being great, 'T is not so to be good; and, be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state: And tell them—But you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but, by and by, I'll prattle Like ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... laughed silently. She did not fear to confront these guests. Who then? She dreaded the flash of her own mother's eye. Yes, indeed, her pretty mamma had ceased to love her, banished her more and more from her presence, made sharp or dry responses to her prattle. Cecilia sighed inaudibly as she crouched there. Hark! The visitors approached the window; she could touch one by extending her arm from her hiding-place. Who were they? Oh, some of her mamma's gentlemen friends lounging in for an afternoon call. They spoke in a low, rapid tone, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... the fire, and my aunt made a great blaze, for it was very cold. They sat one in each corner, and I sat between them, and told them many things concerning the school. They asked me questions and encouraged my prattle, seeming well pleased that the old silence should be broken. I fancy I brought them a little nearer to each other that night. It was after a funeral, and yet they both looked happier than I had ever ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... filled with this intolerable pain, as he passed through the streets he yielded to the temptation to kill out this torturing consciousness: he accosted one of the women of the streets and walked away with her. She was full of light prattle, and chattered on and on. Harvey answered her not a word; he was set on his stony purpose. Child of the Stars! what had he to do with these things? He sought only his soul's annihilation. Something in this terrible silence ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... left her infant prodigy, Clarence, in our care for a little while that she might not be distracted by his innocent prattle while selecting the material for a ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... which finds its manifestation in language is to receive the name of reason, what shall we style the rest? We had thought that the love and intelligence, the soul, that looks out of a child's eyes upon us to reward our care long before it begins to prattle, were also ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... dare not 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 dining with ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... mediaeval gloom and modern din, another spirit breathed upon him,—a spirit of green woods and blue waters, the freshness of May mornings, the prattle of tender infancy, the gambols of young lambs on the hill-side. From his childhood, Poetry walked hand in hand with Painting, and beguiled his loneliness with wild, sweet harmonies. Bred up amid the stately, measured, melodious platitudes of the eighteenth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... well, remember that Posture; don't be a Prittle prattle, nor Prate apace, nor be a minding any Thing but what is said to you. If you are to make an Answer, do it in few Words, and to the Purpose, every now and then prefacing with some Title of Respect, and sometimes use a Title of ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... About as much as we are, I judge. Why, he is talking incessantly, only we can't make anything out of his prattle, as we do not understand the language," said ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... of children," smiled Francisco on the evening before their departure. He was writing a novel, in addition to the other work for Carmony and Pixley. Sometimes it was hard work amid this unusual prattle by his usually sedate and silent parents. He tried to imagine the house without them; his life, without their familiar and cherished companionship.... It would be lonely. Probably he would rent the place, when his novel was finished ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... ladies who had to stand there on duty, watching her as the mourners watched the King, though her lying-in-state was not always as silent; for though, there was much time spent in slumber, Catherine sometimes would indulge in a good deal of subdued prattle with her mother, or her more confidential attendants. But at other times, chiefly when first awaking, or else when anything had crossed her will, she would fall into agonies of passionate grief—weeping, shrieking, and rending her hair with almost a frenzy of misery, as she called ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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

... but presently thou shalt become illicit to me and legitimate to thy husband; so from this time forth thou art dearer and more honorable to me than my eyes and my mother and my sister. But for the moment thy return to Damascus is not possible for fear of foolish tongues lest they prattle and say, 'Attaf went forth to farewell Ja'afar, and his wife lay the night with the former, and thus have the back-bones had a single lappet.'[FN366] However I will bear thee to Baghdad where I will stablish ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... 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 ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... same principle it 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... wonders why he ever troubled to accumulate so much insignificant material), but after quoting them he does not hesitate to call their ideas "pedantial" (p. 24) and to refer to their statements as grammarian's "prattle" (p. 11). And, though at times it seems that his curiosity and industry impaired his judgment, Rapin does draw significant ideas from such scholars and critics as Quintilian, Vives, Scaliger, Donatus, Vossius, Servius, Minturno, Heinsius, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... of a small pale prattle about the people she had seen at Ouchy, as to whom she had the minute statistical information of a gazetteer, without any apparent sense of personal differences. She said to Darrow: "They tell me things are very much changed ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton

... all, though, Indian-like, listening with respectful attention whenever his companion seemed to be addressing him in particular. But, as if reserving all his regrets for the parting moment, Bushie—now mounted on Burl's shoulder, now walking hand in hand with Kumshakah—kept up a lively prattle which never ceased, and to which the others listened with pleased ears. Sometimes, while riding aloft, he would amuse himself by catching at the slender, pliant branches of the trees brought within his reach, which he would draw after him as far as ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... was already reaching out tentacles to the wider world, where schoolgirl criticisms would be mere prattle; and it was far more serious to her to wonder what Brother Dudley would think of her having an actress ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... was frequently impeded by the questions and observations of his young auditors, we deem it advisable to omit all such prattle as is not essential to the story. We have taken some pains to find out exactly what Grandfather said, and here offer to our readers, as nearly as possible in his own ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... yourselves nothing ever conflicks with your pecooler idees, except when Human Nater busts out among you, as I understan she sumtimes do. [I giv Uriah a sly wink here, which made the old feller squirm like a speared Eel.] You wear long weskits and long faces, and lead a gloomy life indeed. No children's prattle is ever hearn around your harthstuns—you air in a dreary fog all the time, and you treat the jolly sunshine of life as tho' it was a thief, drivin it from your doors by them weskits, and meal bags, and pecooler noshuns of yourn. The gals among you, sum of which air as slick pieces of caliker ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... how characterised I forget. I did not think, however, that the proposed antidote, in which the mysteries of religion and the specialties of a zealous class in the English Church were mixed up with childish prattle, was much more decorous or appropriate than what it was ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... footstool was serving as a table for the various flowers that two children were constantly gathering in the grass and presenting to her, to Rachel, or to each other, with a constant stream of not very comprehensible prattle, full of pretty gesticulation that seemed to make up for the want of distinctness. The yellow-haired, slenderly-made, delicately-featured boy, whose personal pronouns were just developing, and his consonants very scanty, though the elder of the two, dutifully ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... my left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine, and turned to me as the lesser of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... no more! I must not wed One who is poor, so hold your prattle; My lips on love have ne'er been fed, With poverty I cannot battle. My choice is made—I know I'm right— Who wed for love starvation suffer; So I will study day and night To please and win ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... few moments we retired to our rooms while the pretty Hosanna arranged the forty-nine presents on the tree. Then she clapped her hands, and we rushed in. What a wondrous sight! What a shout of infantine laughter and charming prattle! for in that happy moment were we not all ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... Middleton looked simply grave; a way of asserting the contrary opinion that tells of rueful experience. "We'll see," said the colonel. They chatted like a couple unexpectedly discovering in one another a common dialect among strangers. Can there be an end to it when those two meet? They prattle, they fill the minutes, as though they were violently to be torn asunder at a coming signal, and must have it out while they can; it is a meeting of mountain brooks; not a colloquy, but a chasing, impossible to say which flies, which follows, or what the topic, so interlinguistic ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... after the parade service at the garrison church; a staff officer collected the reports and reported to another staff officer, who reported to a bigger staff officer, and so on; there was any amount of saluting and of reassuring prattle before the general was at last made aware that everything was all right. One Sunday it was my turn to collect the reports and to report to the D.A.A.G. In those days cocked hats had (and they probably still have) a ridiculous scrap of ribbed gold-wire lace of prehensile tendencies at ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... had the maiden, and she thought, Within herself: 'I would I were like them; For then I might go forth alone, to trace The mighty rivers downward to the sea, And upward to the brooks that, through the year, Prattle to the cool valleys. I would know What races drink their waters; how their chiefs Bear rule, and how men worship there, and how They build, and to what quaint device they frame, Where sea and river meet, their stately ships; What flowers are in their gardens, and what ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... Giovanni," when the final rehearsal already had been held, the overture still remained unwritten. It had to be written overnight, and it was she who sat by him and relieved the rush and strain of work with her cheerful prattle. It is said that, among other things, she read to him the story of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp." Be that as it may;—she rubbed the lamp, and the overture ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... fluttering feed you with the Sirup, And if thence you put them by They to your white necke will flye, And if you expulse them there They'll hang vpon your braded Hayre; You so long shall see them prattle Till at length they'll fall to battle, 160 And when they haue fought their fill, You will smile to see them bill These birds my Lirope's shall be So thou'lt leaue ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... of fresh air was nearly eaten—turned with eagerness to watch this new source of amusement. Innocent laughter and childish prattle were strange to them. Some smiled, and nodded with interest in the varying fortunes of the game. One young lad could hardly restrain himself from applauding. It was as though, out of the sultry heat which brooded over the ship, a cool breeze ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... Beaumont-Greene's father was endeavouring to establish a credit-account with the Recording Angel. Originally a Nonconformist, he had joined the Church of England after he had made his fortune (cf. Shavings from the Workshops of our Merchant Princes, which appeared in the pages of "Prattle"). Then, the famous inventor of the Imperishable Boot had taken to endowing churches; and he published pamphlets denouncing drink and gambling, pamphlets sent to his son at Harrow, who (with an eye to backsheesh) had praised his ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... her whole existence, while a man's love is only part of his—which is true, and only natural and reasonable, all things considered. But women never consider as a rule. A man can't go on talking lovey-dovey talk for ever, and listening to his young wife's prattle when he's got to think about making a living, and nursing her and answering her childish questions and telling her he loves his little ownest every minute in the day, while the bills are running up, and rent mornings begin to fly round and hustle ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson

... 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 back ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... of the poet's home-life would be incomplete did I not touch on his passionate fondness for his grand-children, the two little beings whose prattle and caresses lend a charm of peculiar sweetness to the waning hours of that illustrious career. For them the world-renowned genius is but the most loving and tender of grandfathers. Their games, their studies, their baby ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious. 1895 SHAKS.: Richard II., Act v., ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... 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 most ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis

... wife who accompanied him, and who is herself, as she proves on many pages, one of the most enthusiastic of those admirers. You may say there is nothing very much in it all, but just some pleasant sea-prattle about interesting ports and persons, and a number of photographs rather more intimate than those that generally illustrate the published travel-book. But the general impression is jolly. Stevensonians will be especially curious over the visit to Samoa, concerning her first impressions ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... child in his arms had opened her eyes, and was looking about her in wonder, he checked himself to say a word or two of foolish prattle in her ear, and stand her on the ground beside him. Then slowly winding one of her long tresses round and round his rough forefinger like a ring, while she hung about his dusty leg, he ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... that betrothal night) Winifred prattled on, while I listened to the prattle, craftily throwing in a word or two, now and then, to direct the course of the sweet music into such channels as best pleased my lordly whim,—when suddenly, against my will and reason, there came into my mind that idea of the sea's prophecy which was so ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... believe that Latin and Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Caesar and Cicero and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their marvellous power of discovering historical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... himself. "In the name of what we have been to each other in days past, I hope you are not their—that you don't realize they are making you a——But I can't say it! I want proof from you now by word o' mouth! I don't want any more prattle of business! I want you to show me that you are talking for yourself. Lana Corson, say to me some word from your own heart—something for me alone—something from old times—to prove that you are what I want you to be! I love you. You are mine! I don't believe their gossip. I have ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some parts of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the charms ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... the Greek, wherein's his pleasure.) That (jovially) so Greek he takes the guard of, That he's the merriest Greek that ere was heard of; For he as 'twere his Mothers twittle twattle, (That's Mother-tongue) the Greek can prittle prattle. Nay, of that Tongue he so hath got the Body, That he sports with it at Ruffe, Gleek ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley

... though I believe them not, Who say you meddle in affairs of state: That you presume to prattle like a busy-body, Give your advice, and teach the lords o' the council What fits the order ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe

... seated themselves on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... he has indeed some very good, and enriched with fine features; but he is too fond of them: for, to leave nothing unsaid, having a subject so full, ample, almost infinite, he degenerates into pedantry and smacks a little of scholastic prattle. I have also observed this in him, that of so many souls and so many effects, so many motives and so many counsels as he judges, he never attributes any one to virtue, religion, or conscience, as if all these were utterly extinct in the world: ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... bring them to heaven against their hearts and wills, and the love that they had to their sins, yet that God was far from infusing any thing into their souls, that should in the least hinder, weaken, obstruct, or let them in seeking the welfare of their souls. Now, men will tattle and prattle at a mad rate about election and reprobation, and conclude that because all are not elected, therefore God is to blame that any are damned. But then they will see that they are not damned because they were not elected, but because they sinned; ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... winds and aromatic odors,—where under fluttering forest-leaves her little face caught its first gleams of thought and tender meanings, like their glinting lights and flying shades, and her little voice seemed intoned by their silvery murmurs, the love-notes of birds and prattle of streams. In remembrance of the sweet spring in the glen, and the shady resting-places on the hill,—of the grand old oaks, and of the violets at ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... man alive, you've done nothing but prattle of Pollyanna ever since you came home from Boston and found she was expected. I thought you were ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter

... prattle, as she took the water bobbingly. Overhead the sky was blue, with wisps of snow. Kit hugged the tiller, shivering ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... marble-mosaic landing by an active boy, and, almost before we could ask for rooms, were shown into a suite of magnificent apartments. I had a glimpse of a garden in the rear,—flowers and plants, and a balcony up which I suppose Romeo climbed to hold that immortal love-prattle with the lovesick Juliet. Boy began to light the candles. Asked in English the price of such fine rooms. Reply in Italian. Asked in German. Reply in Italian. Asked in French, with the same result. Other servants appeared, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... in being appointed to sit in judgment on Billy Prattle, how much more so must I now be when I am bound to inquire with impartiality into every particular which may tend to convict Sally Delia of the charge laid against her. I would, however, recommend you to go through this business with the utmost candour, to advance ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs. Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic if utterly ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... twins were both persistent and clever, and Fairy found herself no match for them when it came right down to business. She had no idea of their purpose,—she only knew that she and Gene were always on opposite sides of the room, the young man grinning savagely at the twins' merry prattle, and she and the professor trying to keep quiet enough to hear every word from the other corner. And if they walked, Gene was dragged off by the firm slender fingers of the friendly twins, and Fairy and the professor walked drearily along in the rear, talking inanely about the weather,—and ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... her prattle:—"I went into Isabella's bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus [the Venus de' Medicis] or the statute in an ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that I ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... 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

... sits apart gazing at a mysterious picture on the wall, the portrait of a pale man clad in black, the hero of the mysterious legend of the Flying Dutchman. The girls rally Senta upon her abstraction, and as a reply to their idle prattle she sings them the ballad of the doomed mariner. Throughout the song her enthusiasm has been waxing, and at its close, like one inspired, she cries aloud that she will be the woman to save him, that through her the accursed wretch shall find eternal peace. Erik, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... Beatrice," she said, "come talk to me, for I know not what to do with my lone self today. Time hangs heavily in this gloomy house. I do verily think this Red Room has an evil influence over me. See if your childish prattle can drive away the ghosts that riot in these dark old corners—ghosts of a ruined and shamed life! Nay, shrink not—do I talk wildly? I mean not all I say—my brain seems on fire, little Beatrice. Come; it may be you know ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... away from Widewood. Was it, she wondered, the noble fear that he might subject her to those social rumors that are so often all the more annoying because only premature? Ah, if he could but know how lightly she regarded such prattle! But she would not tell him, even in impersonal verse. On the contrary, she contributed to the Presbyterian Monthly—a non-sectarian publication—those lines—which caught one glance of so many of her friends and ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... unaccountable affection for this wayward child. How blessed the virtuous parents whose attire Is soiled with dust, by raising from the ground The child that asks a refuge in their arms! And happy are they while with lisping prattle, In accents sweetly inarticulate, He charms their ears; and with his artless smiles Gladdens their hearts[119], revealing to their gaze His pearly teeth ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... after and as yet unborn. But know, O White Man, that I was very sick; and when neither the hunting nor the fishing delighted me, and by meat my belly was not made warm, how should I look with favor upon women? or prepare for the feast of marriage? or look forward to the prattle and troubles of ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... not mere mechanical memorizing, of the Catechism is of paramount import, Luther insisted that the instruction must be popular throughout. Preachers and fathers are urged to come down to the level of the children and to prattle with them, in order to bring the Christian fundamentals home even to the weakest and simplest. In his German Mass Luther concludes the chapter on instruction as follows: "And let no one consider himself too wise and despise such ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... born under an evil star. At once feeble and violent, he unites with very ardent passions a deplorable puerility of mind; incapable of serious thought, the merest trivialities move him to fever heat, and he talks childish prattle with all the gestures of great passion. And what is worse, interesting himself greatly in himself, he thinks it very natural that this interest should be shared by all the world. Do not imagine that his is a loving heart that feels a necessity of spending itself on others. He likes to make his emotions ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... She continued to prattle of the momentous marriage impending, until her complacent chatter was interrupted by the entrance of her half-sister, Mrs. Wynyard, and ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... to this prattle, asked himself, for the third or fourth time, what he ought to think of the virtue of Miss Dimpleton. Sometimes the frankness of the grisette, and the remembrance of the large bolt, made him almost believe that she loved her neighbors merely as brothers ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... Why, he was even restrained in conversation; he did not interrupt her often, instantly apologized and forebore when he did; he poured out none of his wonted sophomoric diatribes, sometimes sensible, more often inane, as the prattle of a great man in his hour of relaxation is apt to be. She had to do most of the talking—and you may be sure that she directed her conversation to conveying under an appearance of lightness many valuable lessons ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... not take alarm at my name (as has indeed been the case in other places, owing to the foolish prattle of the critics), they might try the "Prometheus" choruses there by-and-by. They are to be given almost directly (at the end of October) at Zwickau, and probably later on in Leipzig, where I shall then also ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... 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 ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... the city, about at the end of our first hundred numbered streets. But the road wound around to get out of a low marshy place, a pond in the rainy season, and some rocks that seemed tumbled up on end. They struck a bit of the old Boston Post Road, and that caused the little girl to stop her prattle and think of the old ladies they had never visited. She must "jog" her father's memory. That was what her mother always said when she recalled ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... interchange of wit, the society of the Townshends, the Walpoles, the Williamses, the Edgecumbes; all the jovial, keen wisdom of Gilly, and Dick, and Horace, and Charles, as they called one another, for the meaningless prattle, the merry laughter of this half-English, half-Italian child, It redeems Selwyn in our eyes, and it may have done him real good: nay, he must have felt a keen refreshment in this change from vice to innocence; and we understand the misery he expressed, when the old ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... Mornin's and evenin's came an' went, an' not a "howdy-do" in his pleasant voice. I wasn't surprised; I expected as much for a time. Finally, one of the hired men said he'd gone away. Then I put my lips together in a dogged way an' settled down to a lonesome life, cheered a little by the prattle of little Hannah, an' kept from rustin' by the farm work. I was lonesome, very lonesome, when the evenin' shadows crept over the ground, an' the crickets began to sing, the katydids to scold, an' the hoot owl to give his mournful cry over in the ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

... done before she came, they thought so much of her now. Kitchen and drawing-room, it was all the same. The hard, sad Miss Furnivall, and the cold Mrs. Stark, looked pleased when she came fluttering in like a bird, playing and pranking hither and thither, with a continual murmur, and pretty prattle of gladness. I am sure, they were sorry many a time when she flitted away into the kitchen, though they were too proud to ask her to stay with them, and were a little surprised at her taste; though to be sure, as Mrs. Stark said, it was not to be wondered at, remembering ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... complaining of Michelangelo's sensitiveness. "One favour I would request of you, that is, that you should come to learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every little thing, and remember that eagles do not prey on flies. Enough! I know that you will laugh at my prattle; but I do not care; Nature has made me so, and I ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... 194, 195.—Pericles and Sophocles also prattle about Queen Caroline! vol. 2, p. 106, 107.—In another place the judgment and style of Johnson being under sentence, the Doctor's judgment is "alike in all things," that is, "unsound and incorrect;" and as to style, "a sentence of Johnson is like a pair of breeches, an article of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... day nor night, through the threatenings of death or the allurements of fame, one thought was paramount in Collingwood's mind. A yearning for a peaceful garden he had left behind—to him a veritable garden of Paradise—for the innocent prattle of his children, the sweet companionship of his wife. A dream of reunion tormented and sustained him. "Whenever I think how I am to be happy again my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth," he wrote. Incapable of a dramatic appeal to sympathy, his letters to Stanhope, ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... bull-necked Lakamba, listening with pouted lips without the sign of a smile, without a gleam in his dull, bloodshot eyes, shuffled slowly across the courtyard between his two guests. But suddenly Bahassoen broke in upon the old man's prattle with the generous enthusiasm of his youth. . . . Trading was very good. But was the change that would make them happy effected yet? The white man should be despoiled with a strong hand! . . . He grew excited, spoke very loud, and his further discourse, delivered with his ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... with another man, which so irritated John Clare that he, in his turn, paid his attentions to a young damsel of the neighbourhood, known as Betty Sell, the daughter of a labourer at Southorp. Betty was a lass of sixteen, pretty and unaffected, with dark hair and hazel eyes; and her prattle about green fields, flowers, and sunshine, of which she seemed passionately fond, so intoxicated John that he got enamoured of her on the spot. It was a mere passing fancy; but to revenge himself upon Patty for coquetting, as he thought, with others, he did not go near her, and, at the end of the ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin

... one of the deep, quaintly barred windows of the hacienda that Miss Keene gazed thoughtfully on the night, unable to compose herself to sleep. An antique guest-chamber had been assigned to her in deference to her wish to be alone, for which she had declined the couch and vivacious prattle of her new friend, Dona Isabel. The events of the day had impressed her more deeply than they had her companions, partly from her peculiar inexperience of the world, and partly from her singular sensitiveness to external causes. The whole quaint story of the forgotten and isolated ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... Martin Parker at hawthorn-tide Prattle in Devonshire lanes, Let all his pedlar poets beside Rattle their gallows-chains, A tale like mine they never shall tell Or a merrier ballad sing, Till the Man in the Moon pipe up the tune ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... unconscious and to beauty blind. 60 Say, does her language your ambition raise, Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase, Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds, And maims the cadence of poetic sounds? Say, does your humble admiration choose The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse, While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear, Charged to say nought but what the king may hear? Or rather melt your sympathising hearts Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts, 70 Where old and young declaim on soft desire, And heroes ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside

... clerks have miss'd the mark Why human buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. —Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss: Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells, and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... that was a cracker!" remarked Quin, who had been listening to the boy's prattle with an amused expression, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... talk about things they have seen from the outside with the same magisterial authority the talking dynasty pretended to. The sturdy old moralist felt grand enough, no doubt, when he said, "He that is growing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war or peace." Benjamin Franklin was one of these idlers who were electrifying bottles, but he also found time to engage in the trifling prattle about war and peace going on in those times. The talking ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... stayed her hour and then obediently went away, in spite of Jed's urgent invitation to stay longer. She had asked a good many questions and talked almost continuously, but Mr. Winslow, instead of being bored by her prattle, was surprised to find how empty and uninteresting the shop seemed after she had ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was served ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... teach yourself to fret, and the consequence is, or will be, that you wither. No constitution can stand it. All the ladies here take an interest in Parliamentary affairs. They can talk to men upon men's themes. It is impossible to explain to you how wearisome an everlasting nursery prattle becomes. The idea that men ought never to tire of it is founded on some queer belief ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the ladies' bustles with their very undisguised expression of something very abominable, the faces of the idle rich, longing for cheap adventures, the smell of perfumery instead of the scent of the cedars and the sea, the miserable dirty pier, the melancholy lights far out at sea, the prattle of young ladies and gentlemen who have crowded here in order to admire nature of which they have no idea—all this taken together produces such a depressing effect and is so overwhelming that one begins to blame oneself for being biassed and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... surrounded by productive fishing grounds and potentially large oil reserves. In 1932, French Indochina annexed the islands and set up a weather station on Prattle Island; maintenance was continued by its successor Vietnam. China has occupied the Paracel Islands since 1974, when its troops captured a South Vietnamese garrison occupying the western islands. However, the islands are still claimed by ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... more pathetic figure. Every circumstance that could contribute to this effect is skilfully seized and emphasised: Charles's incredibly selfish weakness, the implacable sternness of Pym, the triste prattle of Strafford's children and their interrupted joyous song in the final scene, all serve to heighten our feeling of affectionate pity and regret. The imaginary former friendship between Pym and Strafford adds still ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... oration! Good 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. But ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the staunchest of friends, he is not among the most sociable of authors. His writings are seldom in the vein either of tenderness or of merriment. We know of the tenderness of Swift only from a rare anecdote or from the prattle of the Journal to Stella. As for his laughter, as Mr. Whibley rightly points out, Pope was talking nonsense when he wrote of Swift as laughing and shaking in Rabelais's easy chair. Swift's humour is essentially of the intellect. He laughs out of his own bitterness rather than to ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... would sit there together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again. The old servant, Marguerite, was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us. Gay and daring, she always knew how to make the men laugh with her prattle, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably so; but I would not let her ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... 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 ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... him. He could think of her now in but one setting—a great empty church at the end of springtime, crowds passing outside, a desolate man behind a closed door, and a little child, with the face of an angel, sitting alone in a carven pew. He could hear her answer him in her childish prattle, could feel her cool little hand slip into his as she asked about the lonely man within. Then he remembered the kiss. The floods dried up. Mark's sorrow was beyond ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... absorbing this prattle, the visitor gazed about him. The bed had been unslept in, and here and there were evidences of a hasty and unpremeditated leave-taking. Upon an open desk lay a half-finished poem, obviously intended for no eyes save the writer's. Several dainty ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... father, she could not suppress her 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 ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... prattle immensely, and they were on the best terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling, as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could do Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... and 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

... children. 'Twould better become thee to prattle of frocks and fixings for my Lady Penwick. Your Lordship will see to it at once?" It was a happy ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... disappointment of finding that he did not bestow on her so much attention as she thought she deserved. The family were a good deal surprised at the silence into which she had retired. Emilie generally displayed all her arts for the benefit of newcomers, her witty prattle, and the inexhaustible eloquence of her eyes and attitudes. Whether it was that the young man's pleasing voice and attractive manners had charmed her, that she was seriously in love, and that this feeling had worked a change ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac

... prattle, the guileless mind, the childish innocence. He recognises that as yet she is undeveloped—he mentally reviews her. She is absurd, improbable, and therefore fascinating. She is like a book with the best chapters ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... selfe some hurts, and say I got them in exploit: yet slight ones will not carrie it. They will say, came you off with so little? And great ones I dare not giue, wherefore what's the instance. Tongue, I must put you into a Butter-womans mouth, and buy my selfe another of Baiazeths Mule, if you prattle ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... 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

... said, "all your servants love you, but it beseems them not to flaunt it before your face, so high are you placed above them. You order their fortunes and their lives, and surely 'tis nobler work than meddling with this idle love-prattle." ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... presses, holes, stains, and oldness in their Stuffs, and make them shop-rid: May they keep Whores and Horses, and break; and live mued up with necks of Beef and Turnips: May they have many children, and none like the Father: May they know no language but that gibberish they prattle to their Parcels, unless it be the goarish Latine they write in their bonds, and may they write that false, and lose ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... paid 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 ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... stranger's 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

... shores leafy woodlands and prairies alternate; On the vine-tangled islands the flowers peep timidly out at the white men; In the dark-winding eddy the loon sits warily, watching and voiceless, And the wild goose, in reedy lagoon, stills the prattle and play of her children. The does and their sleek, dappled fawns prick their ears and peer out from the thickets, And the bison-calves play on the lawns, and gambol like colts in the clover. Up the still flowing Wkpa Wakn's winding path through the groves ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... for Naradia was almost hysterical and was willing to prattle on. Kahn Meng smiled tenderly. "Naradia," he continued, lowering his voice gently, "now that Peter Moore and I are at last together, will you excuse us? You must be exhausted, my dear—after this unpleasant affair. Will you retire? Remember, little Chaya, in another week ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... he, "please have a large dish of California oranges on the table if you have nothing else." Despite a certain stiffness of manner and speech, he was a man of kindly heart and simple, unworldly nature. After the first ice was broken, the most unintellectual person might prattle away to him at ease, for his sympathies were of the broadest. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson had a deep affection for him, and "no matter who else was there, the ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez



Words linked to "Prattle" :   speak, smatter, tittle-tattle, yack, palaver, verbalise, mouth, prattler, cackle, yak, babble, tattle, blether, prate, idle talk, chatter



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