She delivers certain lines with relish – when she tells her would-be suitor Gabriel Oak: "I hate to be thought men's property" and, when faced with another, William Boldwood, she murmurs pointedly: "It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs".
And there were anxious murmurs from the sector earlier this month when Eco-Actif – a community interest company spin-out and sub-contractor providing support for the long-term jobless in south- east London – went into voluntary liquidation, claiming its banks considered the Work Programme too financially risky.
"Laughing gas as a pestle and mortar," Laura Mitchison, an oral historian, murmurs with wonder.
I have another fear, related to all this, that murmurs in the background.
If the polls show Mr Bush doing badly with, say, suburban women because of his "southern" stands on stem cells and gay marriage, a few murmurs may be heard even from libertarians.
Regarded by his staff with adoration ("Ted is magical, really smart, really courageous," murmurs Mr Heyer), Mr Turner has relinquished his treasured independence in exchange for the job of vice-president of the merged monster.
A few days later the courts provoked further murmurs when they released some right-wing suspects charged with violence for lack of evidence.Right-wing extremism and racist violence are a continuing concern.
There have been murmurs of disapproval in America for the way the monkeys are trained and the fact that they are constantly kept on leashes and do not breed.
But it got murmurs of approval from the Catalan nationalists, who run their own region, and those of Galicia, in Spain's north-west.And the PNV has a dream: let King Juan Carlos help to arrange a deal.
