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More "Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... because I hear the humming of the harpoons on the outside. My officers are talking about ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the seas, Among the winds at play; Among the lowing of the herds, The rustling of the trees, Among the singing of the birds, The humming ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... growing all over the old home, catching its lithe tendrils into the roof and making cathedral lights in all the windows. It has been the home of generations of robins. It has hung full of purple, bell-shaped blossoms on coral stems that have attracted a thousand humming birds and honey bees by their fragrance. It has changed into a veritable cloth of gold in early September, and in late October has flamed into scarlet against the gray roof, like a blaze that quivers athwart a stormy sky. It has been the joy of my life and the ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. "What are they about?" He waited patiently. At last all was still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. "How is it they all make such a noise?" flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... by the children, but by the grown-up people at some of their games. They sometimes serrate the edges of two strips of whalebone and whirl them round their heads, just as boys do in England to make the same peculiar humming sound. They will dispose one piece of wood on another, as an axis, in such a manner that the wind turns it round like the arms of a windmill; and so of many other toys of the same simple kind. These are the distinct property of the children, who ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... wander about in the simmer glens, wi' naething but the warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters streaming ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow sick wi' the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all colours, and wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in joy and thankfulness—Ye never kent, maister, what it was to wake in the still morning, when, looking out, ye saw the snaws lying for miles round about ye on the hills, breast deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the car swung east by south; the cold-jet rotors began humming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from the fort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the coastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of the second growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrow dirt ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... more real democracy exists anywhere in the world than in this country of mine. We are a small people, but," he said, with a sweep of his hand toward the west and the north, "the future is with us. The day is coming when along this waterway great cities shall be, with factories and humming industries. These plains, these flowing hills will be the home of millions of men, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... some forebodings, returned home an hour later. To a man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills was not of a reassuring nature. He hesitated on the doorstep for a few seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly, hung his hat in the passage ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... pristine purity, innocence, vigor. That which is both an original and natural product of a soil or country is said to be indigenous; that which is actually produced there is said to be native, though it may be of foreign extraction; humming-birds are indigenous to America; canaries may be native, but are not indigenous. Immemorial refers solely to time, independently of quality, denoting, in legal phrase, "that whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary;" as, an immemorial custom; an immemorial ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... echoes he could not tell. To settle the question he kneeled down, and placed his ear against one of rails of the west bound track. It was cold and silent. Then he tried the east bound track in the same way. This rail seemed to tingle with life, and a faint, humming sound came from it. It was a perfect railroad telephone, and it informed the listener as plainly as words could have told him, that a train was ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... a rehearsal the next day—on Sunday, I think. The company stood about in groups on the stage while Henry walked up and down, speechless, but humming a tune occasionally, always a portentous sign with him. The scene set was the Brocken Scene, and Conway stood at the top of the slope as far away from Henry as he could get! He looked abject. His handsome face was very red, his eyes full ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... his teeth half savagely, the little witch tantalizing him with the swiftness of her speech, the coy archness of her manner. To his slower mentality she was like a humming-bird darting about from flower to flower, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... they encamped, the old chief and his privy counsellor, the guide, had another mysterious colloquy, after which the guide mounted his horse and departed on some secret mission, while the chief resumed his seat at the fire, and sat humming to himself in a ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... wagon had arrived this morning, a shell had exploded in the road and it was all over with the kitchen-wagon. How long ago that seemed! And the bees keep on humming. Bang! that hit the sergeant right in the middle of the forehead. Is this never going to stop? Never? You chew sand, you breathe sand, burning dry sand, which passes through your intestines like fire. And then that horrible, faint, sickening feeling ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... out her dish towels by that time, for she wasn't much of a housekeeper, I'll say that, though as pretty as a picture, and I never looked up. She walked round the hut, humming to herself to show how calm she was, but I noticed that when her broom fell over she kicked ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thing. Two great panes of plate glass were so set in a frame that a space of some three or four inches separated them. In this space, in every variety of position, were suspended on invisible wires some twenty humming birds, of different kinds; and whether the light fell upon this screen in front or came through it from behind, the display was in either case most beautiful and novel. Betty at last wandered to the chimney-piece, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... the shadow of the great trees. Overhead innumerable birds sweeten the air with their trilling; and far below, down the steps behind us, I still hear the melancholy chant of the priests, faintly, like a humming of bees. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... playing when you came in? (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... laurel-tree, and then I wake with joy in my heart and verses humming in my brain. They vanish when I try to set them down, but they sweeten ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of satisfaction—this mood that comes too seldom in the artist's life—she knew it was wise to let him alone. And he lighted his pipe and went to work. She heard him now and then, singing or whistling or humming; she scented his pipe, then cigarettes; then, at last, after two hours, he called in a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... week, and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown, was a fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day she would overhaul the cupboards containing her grandfather's old charts and other rubbish, humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people the while. But on Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and it was always on a week-day that she read the Bible, that she might be unoppressed with a sense of doing ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... whilst other birds, not thus decorated, make no such display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner. As women everywhere deck themselves with these plumes, the beauty of such ornaments cannot be disputed. As we shall see later, the nests of humming-birds, and the playing passages of bower-birds are tastefully ornamented with gaily- coloured objects; and this shews that they must receive some kind of pleasure from the sight of such things. With the great majority of animals, however, the taste for the beautiful ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... dense darkness of just before dawn. The division we relieved gave us hardly any instruction, but beat it on the hot foot, glad to get away and anxious to go before sun-up. As we settled down in our cosey danger spots I heard Rolfie, the frog-voiced baritone, humming one ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... was amiss with the man, they too stepped to the balustrade and looked down—as up the leafy path came the very woman of their speculations—Vashti, faultlessly arrayed, trailing a neat parasol and humming a song as she ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... discouraged; she made a personal remark next: "Excuse me—but you do look wretchedly pale." I thought she seemed to enjoy the defect in my complexion; I really believe it raised me in her estimation. "We shall get on better in time," she said; "I am beginning to like you." She walked out humming a tune. Don't you agree with me? Don't you think ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... "Higher! Lift!" whispered the boatswain, fiercely.—"He won't go," stammered one of the men, shakily, and both appeared ready to drop everything. Mr. Baker waited, burying his face in the book, and shuffling his feet nervously. All the men looked profoundly disturbed; from their midst a faint humming noise spread out—growing louder.... "Jimmy!" cried Belfast in a wailing tone, and there was a second ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... The niece, who followed her, presuming on "Auntie's" high spirits, was flounced out of the apartment with small ceremony, and retired, smarting and half tearful, to bury her woes in the byre among the hay. Still humming, Christina divested herself of her finery, and put her treasures one by one in her great green trunk. The last of these was the psalm-book; it was a fine piece, the gift of Mistress Clem, in distinct old-faced type, on paper that had begun ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the nurse of the baby who had been the light of the eyes of the whole quarter-deck ever since we left Southampton—God bless it, and its mother, and beautiful Mon Nid, where she dwells beneath the rock, as exquisite as one of her own humming-birds. We were so scolded about this poor little green apple that we set to work to find put what it was, after promising at least not to eat it. And it proved to be Thevetia neriifolia, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... very closely the Russian road proposed in 1874 by Tachkend, Kouldja, Kami, Lan Tcheou, Singan and Shanghai. This railway did not run through the populous central provinces which can be compared to vast and humming hives of bees—and extaordinarily prolific bees. As before curving off to Lan Tcheou; it reaches the great cities by the branches it gives out to the south and southeast. Among others, one of these branches, that from Tai Youan to Nanking, should have put these two towns of the Chan-Si ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... meditating still on this careworn life, playing still internally with ideal fancies and desires unrealized, there returns upon him there, in the manifold and spontaneous mimicry of nature, a living show of all that is transpiring in his own bosom; in every flower some bee humming over his laborious chemistry and loading his body with the fruits of his toil; in the slant sunbeam, populous nations of motes quivering with animated joy, and catching, as in play, at the golden particles of the light with their tiny fingers. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Easton, Pennsylvania; Conly, Jones and myself, and it was the finest trip I ever took. Perfectly splendid! We got the balloon full about twelve o'clock, and the crowd held her down until we were ready. Then I gave the word and they let go, and we went a-humming into the air. One man got caught in a twist of the rope as she gave her first spurt upward, and it slammed him up against a fence as if he'd been shot out of a gun. Smashed in three or four of his ribs, I believe, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... round in ecstasies of admiration and wonder as they heard of the dark brown atives, the curious expedients by which barter was carried on; also of cruel Spaniards, and of savage fishes, with all the marvels of flying-fish, corals, palm-trees, humming birds—all that is lesson work to our modern youth, but was the most brilliant of living fairy tales at this Elizabethan period. Humfrey and Diccon were ready to rush off to voyage that instant, and even little ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as he gently took me in his arms, hollowed his shoulder for a place for my head, and leaning against the old gate he began to swing me gently to and fro, his cheek against my hair and humming Aunt Dilsie's ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... so light, so airy, so playful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itself an owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers than of its innocent heart; but Georgiana—what is she? Secretly an owl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing to me. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness that is rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon and her father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know that a younger one has been talking about her. I merely ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... curve of triumph and disdain upon her lips, she seats herself in the attitude of an idol, raises her long, dark-colored sleeves, and begins. The first hesitating notes are murmured faintly and mingle with the music of the insects humming outside, in the quiet air of the warm and golden twilight. First she plays slowly, a confused medley of fragments which she does not seem to remember perfectly, of which one waits for the finish and waits in vain; while the other girls giggle, inattentive, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... fellow,—ungrateful for not seeing through the stone walls how she had been employed all the morning; and making it up. So she bathed her red eyes, made a great alteration in her dress, and came dancing into the room humming an ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... seemed so jolly after the long winter. My jonquils are just coming out, and one or two other things. In the elm tree two bright yellow birds were cheeping. I mean to plant scarlet-runners to attract the humming birds. It is something to see fireflies and humming birds in the ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... him! The woods—how shady and green they rose before him! The little log fort—how dull and lonesome it lay behind him! The little log grist-mill down there on the banks of the river at the foot of the hill—how tiresomely it went on creaking and humming and droning, forever repeating, "What a pity! what a pity! what a pity!" or, "Clip it, Bushie! clip it, Bushie! clip it, Bushie!" according to the tune one's fancy might chance to be singing at the moment. The Tempter was creeping upon him apace. The melodious strains ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the edge of his cave and is scarcely winking as he watches us down here. Oh, Bossy, I'm the most miserable girl in the whole world." Her breath caught in her throat, and winking back despairing tears she stooped to gather the expected thick handful of grass when a humming sound came faintly across the stillness of the field. She paused with listless curiosity and listened. The buzzing seemed suddenly to fill all the air. It increased, and her upturned face beheld an approaching aeroplane. ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... Working Man or respectable Tradesman—where the wife is allowed to turn her back upon her husband, while pursuing her household avocations—there are at least intervals of quiet, when the wife is neither seen nor heard, except for the humming sound of the continuous Peace-cry; but in the homes of the upper classes there is too often no peace. There the voluble mouth and bright penetrating eye are ever directed towards the Master of the household; and light itself is not more persistent ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... Olivier sweeping out the church, cheerful, humming a cradle-song of the French peasants. He was glad to see us, though my companion was avowedly a pagan. Dwelling alone here with his dying charges, the good priest could not but feel a common bond with any white man, whoever he ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... watched you not save under my hand as you rode away upon Black Darnaway, and then I turned me to the seat by the wall to listen to the cavillings of Dame Barbara, the humming of the bees, and the other comfortable and composing sounds ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... and the houses of Auteuil were visible. Slowly driven coupes, with their elderly passengers, crawled along the road, and the wet-nurses pushed their perambulators. A motor-car broke the silence of the Bois with its humming. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... where all these doors led, but was so busy dressing I had no time, so must leave it for my amusement to-morrow. Uncle says it's a very Radcliffian place. How like an angel that man did play!" chattered Amy, and lulled herself to sleep by humming the last air ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... its center panel what seemed to be a small window, covered by a black grille. At the other end of the room another door, open, from which came a flicker of cool light, the soft pad of footsteps and the sound of a voice humming some curious Oriental air. Marishka did not get up at once, but sat among the pillows, her fingers at her temples as she tried to collect her thoughts. She knew that she must think. Everything seemed to depend upon the clearness with which her mind emerged from the fog of dreams. Slowly, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... great building two sounds deafened an unfamiliar ear: a steady roar, deep and persistent, and through it, like a staccato pulse, a louder, more painful, more penetrating din. The bass to this harsh treble arose from humming belts and running wheels; the crash that punctuated their deep-mouthed riot broke from the drawing heads ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Heard of all the misdemeanors, All the malice and the mischief, 5 Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis. Hard his breath came through his nostrils, Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered Words of anger and resentment, Hot and humming like a hornet. 10 "I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis, Slay this mischief-maker!" said he. "Not so long and wide the world is, Not so rude and rough the way is, That my wrath shall not attain him, 15 That my vengeance shall not reach him!" Then ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... spirits, being absorbed in the contemplation of his own splendid future. At last he seemed to recollect her presence at his side, glanced at her, made as though to say something, checked himself, and began humming snatches from an old opera. But either his musical memory did not serve him, or his humour changed all at once, for he suddenly was silent again, and after glancing once more at Vjera's downcast face ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... storm he will complacently sit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bombshell,—a picture of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... late had no chance of a view now. He was the Bishop's coachman, a lanky Bechuana, and he stood humming the hymn's air with his back to a window a window near the western door. Suddenly he started. Somebody was striding up to the porch. Surely there was no mistaking Mr. Conyers Smythe's fine shoulders in that ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... HAVE business," responded Selden. "That's what's the matter. It's the up-to-date machines that set things humming. A slow, old-fashioned typewriter uses a ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... like the summer-house upon Mr. Emerson's lawn, "lacks technical arrangement", and the wild winds play with these architectural toys of fancy, like lions with humming-birds. They are gradually falling, shattered, and disappearing. Fine locust-trees shade them and ornament the hill with perennial beauty. The hanging gardens of Semiramis were not more fragrant than Hawthorne's ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... retreated a few rungs. Phillips could hear the others scrambling further down. He got his head out of the way before pulling the switch that opened the hatch. With a subdued humming of electric motors, the massively constructed door swung down. One after another, they pulled themselves up ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... round, however, she would have seen that she was followed by a very different creature from a bear. It was a curious creature, made like a fish, but covered, instead of scales, with feathers of all colours, sparkling like those of a humming-bird. It had fins, not wings, and swam through the air as a fish does through the water. Its head was like the head of ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... promoted. And I must do extra drills as punishment, Because, while the others, in accordance with orders, Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them, As we were marching under the red sun Across the shining fields, I squinted carefully at the little pilot Who was humming above me like a bee In ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... as when he was on the sea; and if he couldn't go to sea, he sat alone at home in the croft mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... cloak over his shoulder and walked away, his footsteps sounding loud in the passages. Gabord began humming to himself as he tied the bandages, and then he reached down for the knife to cut the flying strings. I could see this out of a little corner of my eye. When he did not find it, he settled back on his haunches and looked at me. I could feel ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... transport her to where saddle-horses were waiting in the Park. Sometimes it would turn up about lunch-time and stand impatiently chugging while she changed into sport's clothes, after which it would dash away with her, humming contentedly, into the depths of the country. It was the magic-carpet which obeyed all her desires. After war-days, with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... bushes sat an almost endless variety of birds, especially small ones, many of them covered with the most elegant plumage; among which were the humming-bird. Of insects too there was a great variety, and some of them very beautiful; but they were much more nimble than those of Europe, especially the butterflies, most of which flew near the tops of the trees, and were therefore very difficult to be caught, except when the sea-breeze blew fresh, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... silently, For, oh, the dawn is coming; I creep along, for I have heard A flint-tipped arrow, humming; And I have heard a snapping twig, Above the wind's low laughter; And I have known—and thrilled to know, That swift ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying, "Wait, let me do that for you," and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks—all I had—and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow—atonements for swindles practised upon him formerly, as I learned later, and probably no longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These things touched him, and he could not have believed that ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... as he could afford to do. Berrington could hear him humming as he clapped in the whistle, and then silence fell again. The letter was finished and sealed at length, and pushed under the door as Sartoris had directed. A little later and there came the sound of a footstep outside and a gentle scratching ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... was content to "scriggle" through the sketchers, and humming a little tune, she passed up to the churchyard. ("Scriggle" was one of her own words, highly popular; it connoted squeezing and wriggling.) There she carefully concealed herself under the boughs of the weeping ash tree directly opposite the famous south porch of the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... little distance, but away I went, happy in her service, swinging the heavy bucket and humming to myself, as care-free and light-hearted as any youth in Christendom, and presently reached the pool. I was stooping, in the act of filling the bucket, when I paused, arrested by a sudden, vague indefinable sound that puzzled me to account for and set me idly speculating whence it came and what ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... lizard under microscopical examination and then watched it slowly develop has said that it seemed as if some hand was tracing the outlines of the tiny vertebrae, and then building up around it. Think for a moment of the development of the germ within the egg of the humming-bird, or the ant, or the gnat, or the eagle. Every second a change may be noticed. The germ cell draws to itself nourishment from the other part of the egg, and then it grows and reproduces another cell. Then both cells divide—then subdivide until there are millions and millions and ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... flashes, as of seams opening and reclosing over a white surface. It spits spray in a ceaseless drizzle. Sometimes it reaches up and slaps the side of the steamer with a sound as of a great naked hand, The wind waxes boisterous. Swinging ends of cordage crack like whips. There is an immense humming that drowns speech,—a humming made up of many sounds: whining of pulleys, whistling of riggings, flapping and fluttering of canvas, roar of nettings in the wind. And this sonorous medley, ever growing louder, has rhythm,—a crescendo and diminuendo timed by the steamer's regular ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... repeated them to himself that he might remember them, they sounded so sweet and comfortable heard for the first time just when he most needed comfort. Miss Celia saw a new expression in the boy's face as she glanced down at him, and heard a little humming at her side when all stood up to sing the cheerful hymn with which they ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... dreadful silence—Spout realising his appalling error endeavoured to pass it off by humming the Jewel Song from Faust. For a moment his nonchalance amazed everyone then as though a veil had been suddenly snatched from their eyes they gave a great cry: 'This is Spout! What Humour! What Roguery! Spout ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... celebrating their reprieve, and after supper the Shepherd got out his bagpipes and played "The Blue Bells of Scotland" until the rafters rang again. Jean stepped busily about the kitchen in tune to the music, humming the ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... conversation in the kitchen resembled the resonant humming of bees, and again, when it became animated, it sounded like the distant cackling of geese. Then there would come a pause; and it would begin again with sibilant whispers, and end in a chorus of dry laughter that somehow suggested the crackling of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... humming As clear as the wood wind rings; And here were the air-boats coming And here ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... a sight better off than some, I s'pect. It's been pretty tough on all of you, but if you fellows only work like you fought you'll have things a humming before long." ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the corner of his mouth and humming something resembling an air, the senior partner dashed into his day's work with the ardor of ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... Our humming marts, our iron ways, Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, The calm, broad Ocean of the West, And Mississippi's torrent flow, And ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... ruddy through the woods. A green fly appeared, buzzing about the dead man. Another zig-zagged through the sunshine, lacing it with streaks of greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not search the dead and take from it that for which ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... quitt'st thy song, As the welkin's shadows low'r; Whilst the beetle wheels along, Humming to the twilight hour. Not like thee I quit the scene, To enjoy night's balmy dream; Not like thee I wake again, Smiling with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... case, from which he selected a cigar with anxious care and much sniffing; then he bade me a ceremonious adieu and departed down the stairs, blithely humming a melody ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... been firing, I have stood for half an hour with Birdie, watching and drinking in encouragement. About one bomb a minute was the rate of fire and as it buzzed over our own trenches like a monstrous humming bird all the naked Anzacs laughed. Then, such an explosion and a sort of long drawn out ei-ei-ei-ei cry of horror from the Turks. It was fine,—a real corpse-reviving performance and now the W.O. have let the stock run out, because some ass has forgotten to order them in advance. Have ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... brain, anxious and impatient as he was, the Famine Theme recurred to his mind, and the servant, coming back with the shoes, found him singing it softly to himself. The words died away into inarticulate humming, as Thayer bent over to fasten the straps. Then, buttoning his coat closely and pulling his cap down over his eyes, Thayer opened the door for the second time and went striding away across the gray, tempestuous darkness which had shut down again impenetrably between himself ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... ultimate quintessences—pines reduced to a drop of honeyed delight; bananas whose life lay in points of bewildering sweetness; enormous steamboat puddings compressed within the compass of a thimble, exclusive of the sauce; chocolates, oceans of which lay in mimic lakes, each of which the bill of a humming-bird might expand; tongues of most melodious singing birds—the nightingale, the thrush, and the goldfinch; lambs en supreme, each eliminated of earthly particles, and spiritualized in scarcely tangible results. Over all hovered the memories of exquisite beverages, which became realities ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... distressed. Should she go? Should she ring again? Presently words came from his lips at intervals, abrupt, disconnected, and now a ribald laugh, and now a tearful sigh. And then he was a student humming: ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... acacias, cedars; and, towering over all, the great almendrons, with their smooth, silvery stems, bearing aloft noble clusters of pure white blossom. The forest was haunted by myriads of gay insects, butterflies with wings of dazzling lustre, birds of brilliant plumage, humming-birds, golden orioles, toucans, and a host of solitary warblers. But the glorious sunsets seen from his cottage-porch more than all astonished and delighted the young engineer; and he was accustomed to say that, after having witnessed ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... course, never come to see her any more, but at least now she would be able to think about him. She would be allowed to remember. Her brain was drowsy, her eyes half closed. Through the humming air something was coming; the dark curtains were parted, the light of the late afternoon sun was faint yellow upon the opposite wall—there was a little breeze. Drowsily, drowsily, her drooping eyes felt the light, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... the automobile leave. He guessed that he and Aunt Liza were now alone in the tumbledown house. During the long hot afternoon she left him pretty much to his own devices. He could hear the bees humming outside, and the twitter ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... ain't no matter. From humming he soon got to a full cry, and from that to shouting. His antics overcame us all. The doctor gave the first key-note. "Oh, oh, that man will be the death of me," and again rubbed himself round the wall, in convulsions of laughter. Peter ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... is derived from Turkish beg armudi, prince's pear. With beg, prince, cf. bey and begum. The burden of a song is from Fr. bourdon, "a drone, or dorre-bee; also, the humming, or buzzing, of bees; also, the drone of a bag-pipe" (Cotgrave). It is of doubtful origin, but is not related to burden, a load, which is connected with the verb ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... is to have sins upon one's conscience!" sighed the venturer. "Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts." And he fell to humming ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... but just "turned out," and was "feeding" on the right wing and left breast of a lark, the leg of a canary, "a dozen fried" humming bird eggs—her customary ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... luncheon and, guileless man that he has already shown himself to be, promptly offered to "convoy the two little cruisers to Annapolis." His offer was accepted with so many gushing responses that the poor man looked about as bewildered as a great St. Bernard which has inadvertently upset a cage of humming birds, and finds them fluttering all about him. Lily and Helen were of a different type from the girls he knew best, but he accepted the situation gracefully and enjoyed himself hugely with the others, ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... No need of a mirror to tell her that. Her youth and her good looks had been her stock in trade, and yet this evening she appraised her features most critically, and as with light fingers she touched her hair, now in one place and now in another, she found herself humming a gay little tune and she realized that she ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... through a fog." Whatever mental treasures he may or may not have laid up from Browning there was assuredly a deep gratification in the discovery of those splendors of "stars and suns" and the flashing "humming-birds," as there must also have been in pointing out those wonders to the little circle of devout listeners. It all ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... almost drowned by the fierce hissing, which was now mingled with a deep bass formed by a loud humming, throbbing sound such as might be made by a Brobdingnagian tea-kettle, just upon ready for use. Then came loud cracking and spitting sounds, and the dull ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... basement; it was damp and dark and reeking with tobacco smoke, tar and a musty odor. In front of Gavrilo, at another table, was a drunken sailor, with a red beard, all covered with charcoal and tar. He was humming, interrupted by frequent hiccoughs, a fragment of a song very much out of tune. He was evidently not ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... in June when the rich, thick, amber light of afternoon seemed to float in the air. Warm summer lay on the land. The bees were humming in the rose vines over the porch. Mrs. Iden, who evidently heard Lane's step, appeared in the path, and nodding her gladness at sight of him, she ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... science. You also—but you will forgive me. I have held on to life for your sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your notebook. Subjective sensations, swimming in the head, light flashes before the eyes, soothing torpor, some touch of coldness, constriction of the temples, humming in the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table beside ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... so long at length approaching. Gay, Mr. Joseph, you have thrown off the fetters of town and work and dull care and responsibility, and here you are free and untrammelled as the air, good humored, cheerful, humming your Old Country tunes as usual, brisk, debonnair, untouched by thought of present trouble or evil, unthinking and unsuspecting! Gay Mr. Joseph, urbane Mr. Joseph, what have you got in your hand this time? Last time it was a bunch of the red field lily. Now it is, or it ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... constructed a large wooden trough, which I kept filled with water; and each day it was visited by the most extraordinary flocks of birds of every size and variety of plumage—from emus down to what looked like humming-birds. Huge snakes, ten and fifteen feet long, bustled the kangaroos away from the life-giving trough; and occasionally the crowd would be so excessive that some of the poor creatures would have to wait hours before their thirst was satisfied,—and ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and having waited another half-hour in vain, our midshipman returned to his bed, humming the air which had so pleased his ear. It haunted him during his sleep, and rang in his ears when he awoke, as it is well known any new air that pleases us will do. Before breakfast was ready, Gascoigne had put English words to it, and sang ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... chimney swallows disporting themselves up there in the breezy depths. No hardening in vegetation yet. The moist, hot, fragrant breath of the fields—mingled odor of blossoming grasses, clover, daisies, rye—the locust blossoms, dropping. What a humming about the hives; what freshness in the shade of every tree; what contentment in the flocks and herds! The springs are yet full and cold; the shaded watercourses and pond margins begin to draw one." Go to the top of the ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... told in pictures, and pictures for the most part of squab, spring chickens, and canvas-back ducks, would, I fear, prove arduous reading. Moreover I am but an indifferent draughtsman, and I suspect that when the precise thought that I have in mind can best be expressed by a portrait of a humming-bird, or a flamingo, my readers because of my inexpert handling of my tools would hardly be able to distinguish the creature I should limn from an albatross, a red-head duck, or a June-Bug, which would lead to a great deal of obscurity, and in some ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... by these successes, we knelt down so as to break through a wider extent of the calcareous stratum; but our torches began to burn palely, and the close chamber, now filled with a thick smoke, was no longer bearable. Sumichrast complained of humming in his ears, and I also felt uncomfortable; so, much against our inclination, I gave the signal of departure. The lamp was dying out, and was filling the outer chamber with a nasty smell, which gave the finishing-stroke to our unpleasant feelings. L'Encuerado and Lucien were the first to ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... each rustic porch the humming-bird Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred, The Old World ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and no verdure. Oathsome fleshy shrubs, the colour of mouldy copper, dotted the slopes, and a wilderness of rocks through which we could scarce find a road. There was no living thing in it but carrion birds. And serpents. They dwelt in every cranny of stone, and the noise of them was like bees humming. We lost two stout fellows from their poison. The sky was brass above us and our tongues were dry sticks, and by the foul vapours of the place our scanty food was corrupted. Never have men been nearer death. I think we would have retreated but for our captain; ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... was to be heard on board save the footsteps of the solitary watchman who slowly paced the deck, and now and then beguiled the tedium of his vigil by humming a snatch of a ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the King had suddenly spurred hot-foot through the town, and alighted at the shop of Maitre Jehan le Tellier, with the stupefying request for the hand of his only daughter Alice in marriage, by virtue of the King's command signed and sealed in his pocket. The belfry-fountain was humming like a swarm of bees as all the chambermaids and goodwives in the street rushed up to fill their pitchers at the very moment when Le Tellier's housemaid happened to ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... on shore out of Kingston before; the night season in the country in dear old England, we all know, is usually one of the deepest stillness—here it was any thing but still;—as the evening closed in, there arose a loud humming noise, a compound of the buzzing, and chirping, and whistling, and croaking of numberless reptiles and insects, on the earth, in the air, and in the water. I was awakened out of my first sleep by it, not that the sound was disagreeable, but it was unusual; ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... other insects were humming around them; a butterfly fluttered over the fence and alighted on a dandelion almost at her feet; meadow larks were whistling their limpid notes in the adjoining fields, while from the trees about the house beneath them came the songs ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... lever—there was a dull snap as a relay in the power room responded—the lights wavered—dimmed—then the generator was once more humming smoothly—working on the atmosphere of Venus! In a moment the power units were again operating, and now as they sucked a plentitude of power from the surrounding air, they produced a force that made the men cling to their holds with almost frantic force. Around them the rapidly increasing density ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... fairly on their way once more, Alexander and his companions were so daring that, whenever they could do it unobserved, they pelted the damsels with the remains of the corn, or sprinkled them with wine-drops. Glaukias had the art of imitating the pattering of rain and the humming of a fly to perfection with his lips; and when the girls complained of the tiresome insect buzzing in their faces, or declared, when a drop fell on them, that in spite of the blue and cloudless sky it was certainly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... people became greater and greater until it seemed impossible to admit another person without filling the center of the ballroom and the royal space. As there was no music, the chatter of voices made an insistent humming din. At last! the Prefetto di Palazzo sounded three loud strokes, with the ferule of his mace, upon the floor, the sound of voices ceased, the doors into the royal apartments were thrown open, the ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... convulsion of nature. Some birds were still hurrying home into the depths of the copses with a frightened straightness of flight, as if they were afraid they would not get back in time, and all the insects that are so gay with their humming and booming had disappeared under leaves and stones and grasses. Elinor saw a bee burrowing deep in the waxen trumpet of a foxglove, as if taking shelter, as she walked quickly past. The Hills—there were two middle-aged sisters of them, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... bed, and saw that Rose's eyes were just closing. Still humming the last lines of the lullaby, she cast about in her mind for something else; and there came to her another song of quaint old Thomas Dekker, which she loved even more than the other. ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... fragrance of tropical shrubs; and sometimes, in the solemn old wood, beneath the boughs of trees that had stood for uncounted ages. And the interruptions! Repeatedly the book and the slate would be cast away, and we would start up, as if actuated by a single spirit, and chase some singularly beautiful humming-bird; sometimes, the genius of frolic would seize us, and we would chase each other round and round the old mahogany-trees, with no other object than to rid ourselves of our exuberance of happiness; but the most frequent interruptions were when she would close ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... rest, but is met by the procession pouring in upon the stage. There is a great din and humming of talk. Speransky and Tony approach the body cautiously, bend over it on their knees, one on each side, and stare ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... belonged—the "Begging Tradesmen." A few things, tied to a blue handkerchief, rested on one side of his head; and a parcel of ballads, his whole stock-in-trade, lay on the other. Before the fire, warming his back, stood a short, thick-set man, humming the air of a vulgar ditty; his hands were thrust into the pockets of a velvet shooting-jacket, ornamented with large ivory buttons, such as are commonly worn by cabmen and other tap-room blackguards. His countenance was by far ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... the warrior class. A Prince of Shirakawa jots down his random thoughts, and among them is the following: "Though they come stealing to your bedside in the silent watches of the night, drive not away, but rather cherish these—the fragrance of flowers, the sound of distant bells, the insect humming of a frosty night." And again, "Though they may wound your feelings, these three you have only to forgive, the breeze that scatters your flowers, the cloud that hides your moon, and the man who tries ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... her in some trifling converse, and Mrs. Hamilton was telling her of something she wished her niece to do for her the next morning. Ellen was standing in the shade as her aunt spoke; all had left the room except Edward and themselves, and humming a lively air, the former was departing, when, turning round to wish his sister good night, the light flashed full upon her face, and there was something in its expression, in its almost unearthly paleness, that made him suddenly ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... Twice, whilst their six precious mortars have been firing, I have stood for half an hour with Birdie, watching and drinking in encouragement. About one bomb a minute was the rate of fire and as it buzzed over our own trenches like a monstrous humming bird all the naked Anzacs laughed. Then, such an explosion and a sort of long drawn out ei-ei-ei-ei cry of horror from the Turks. It was fine,—a real corpse-reviving performance and now the W.O. have let the stock run out, because some ass has forgotten to order them in advance. Have cabled ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... and chatter of bird-like voices, which told me that a covey of Jenny's pretty young street birds had just alighted there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and nodding humming-birds, and made one or two errands in that direction only that I might gratify my eyes with ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he thought of other days, and then lay listening to the humming noise made by the mosquitoes—wondered whether Rachel Linton was asleep or awake—whether, if she was awake, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... of delight and the lesson had to be given up for that time. Zeppa was gifted, however, with patient perseverance in a remarkable degree. He renewed his efforts, but changed his plan. From that time forward he took to humming hymns in a low, sweet voice, as if for his own amusement. In a short time he had the satisfaction of hearing Lippy attempt, of her own accord, to sing one of the hymns that had taken her fancy. She went wrong in one or two notes, however, ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... to type a score of tempestuous raids upon the market had been planned on paper in the inner room of the offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never carried out. Blackbeard would quell the mutiny of his old self within him and go soberly down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of "Spanish Ladies," perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the markets how a coup worth a million to the depredator might have been made. "Seems ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... her and listening with intense interest. "How sorry you must be to leave it all!" he remarked sympathetically. "I'd love to lie in a garden with flowers, and the bees humming, and no noise of rattling carts and milk-cans. Oh, Jessie!" but to his dismay Jessie buried her face in her ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... high-pressure cylinder. "Whack her up, boys. They've given us five pounds more steam"; and he began humming the first bars of "Said the Young Obadiah to the Old Obadiah," which, as you may have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not built for high speed. Racing-liners with twin-screws sing "The Turkish ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... this paragraph we have very vague indications of humming birds, rattlesnakes, and of the animal ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... sung. She gave the song such a second birth, indeed, that a tolerable judge might have taken it, so hearing it for the first time, for what it was not—a song with some existence of its own, some distinction from a thousand other wax flowers dipped in sugar-water for the humming-birds of society. The moment she ended, she rose ashamed, and going to the window looked out over the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... these and other better thoughts, the visitor, lightly humming a tune, now began indifferently pacing the poop, so as not to betray to Don Benito that he had at all mistrusted incivility, much less duplicity; for such mistrust would yet be proved illusory, and by the event; though, for the present, the circumstance which had provoked that distrust remained ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... some mysterious corner and, sitting down on the floor, cross-legged like a little Turk, a mere mite almost lost in the semi-obscurity of the room, she polished it assiduously upon the corner of the table cloth until it shone free from specks of dust; all the time humming very lightly like a bird, or a housewife whose heart is in her work. A strange song, a curious bit of melody that seemed to spring from some dark past and to presage ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... clump of plumed grass close to the veranda. The house blazed with lights, and servants moved about tables dressed with flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forth came an Englishman, dressed in black and white, humming a tune. It was too dark to see his face, so Kim, ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your notebook. Subjective sensations, swimming in the head, light flashes before the eyes, soothing torpor, some touch of coldness, constriction of the temples, humming in the ears, a ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... bank, with the insects ticking in the grass, the bees humming in the air, the sea fowl screaming in the sky, the broad sea in front, and the little bay below, where the tide, which was going out, had left behind it a sharp reef of black rocks covered ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... locust, was sitting in a bush, and he was singing too, for he was getting pretty dusty and the weather was very hot, and so he, too, was praying for rain. He has a very nice song for rain, and it goes this way. (Note: Here came a lovely little humming song whose words could not be interpreted, since they were but syllables and sounds having no meaning in English. However, these sounds had a definite order and rhythm. At this point the husband smilingly joined in the song, and the unison of both sounds ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... and sidelong glances wise Wherewith the jay hints tragedies; All piquancies of prickly burs, And smoothnesses of downs and furs Of eiders and of minevers; All limpid honeys that do lie At stamen-bases, nor deny The humming-birds' fine roguery, Bee-thighs, nor any butterfly; All gracious curves of slender wings, Bark-mottlings, fibre-spiralings, Fern-wavings and leaf-flickerings; Each dial-marked leaf and flower-bell Wherewith in every lonesome dell Time ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... wash my hands of you," concluded the woman defiantly. "Make your choice, my child," she added with a meaning laugh and moved away, humming a snatch from a French chanson which brought the hot ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant to ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... singer came out of the house and stood on the white steps below between the lions, still humming. It was Molly Glendenning, in her rose-coloured hat and dainty ruffled dress of palest ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Prairie Horned Lark Baltimore Oriole Orchard Oriole Whip-poor-will Night Hawk Pigeon Hawk Sparrow Hawk Mourning Dove Rose-breasted Grosbeak Evening Grosbeak Purple Finch Red-winged Blackbird Rusty Blackbird Bobolink Mocking Bird Starling Purple Grackle Humming Bird Yellow-breasted Chat Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Tufted Titmouse Brown Creeper House Wren Marsh Wren Brown Thrasher Wood Thrush Hermit Thrush Wilson Thrush Water Thrush Chimney Swift Bank Swallow Rough-winged ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... discouraged a less resolute and resourceful character, but with the contents of his ink-well he artfully colored his white yarn socks where they showed though the rifts in the leather. This the judge did gaily, now humming a snatch of song, now listening civilly to Mahaffy, now replying with undisturbed cheerfulness. Last of all he clapped his dingy beaver on his head, giving it an indescribably jaunty slant, and ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... It had been too like the low humming of a human voice for him to have been misled. Perhaps he had ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... give your coffee to the cat, You stroke the dog for coming, And all your face grows kinder at The little brown bee's humming. ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... a mournful enough lounging place in which to spend convivial evenings. However, it seemed that when the sergeant-major had decreed amusement the non-commissioned officers' mess overlooked all trifles in brave determination to obey. They marched in, humming tunes (each a different one, and nearly all high tenor) and took seats in a room at the rear of the building with their backs against a mud-brick wall that was shiny from much ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... o' Lincoln, Hermit Thrush, Vesper Sparrow, Robin Redbreast, Song Sparrow, Scarlet Tanager, Summer Redbird, Blue Heron, Humming Bird, Yellowbird, Whip-poor-will, Water Wagtail, Woodpecker, Pigeon Woodpecker, Indigo Bird, Yellowthroat, Wilson's Thrush, Chickadee, Kingbird, Swallow, Cedar Bird, Cowbird, Martin, Veery, Chewink, Vireo, Oriole, Blackbird, Fifebird, Wren, Linnet, Pewee, Phoebe, ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... fountain, too, dripping melodiously under the trees; I heard the breathless humming of a spinning-wheel from one of the low houses of gray stone which enclosed the square, and a young girl singing, and the drone of bees in ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... eyes, that he had an idea. In this mood of satisfaction—this mood that comes too seldom in the artist's life—she knew it was wise to let him alone. And he lighted his pipe and went to work. She heard him now and then, singing or whistling or humming; she scented his pipe, then cigarettes; then, at last, after two hours, he called in ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... among cushions, and gently to ride out along streets and roads that she had so often tramped in every kind of weather, was enough to intoxicate Jenny. She heard the soft humming of the engine, and saw lamps and other vehicles flashing by, with a sense of effortless speed that was to her incomparable. If only she had been mentally at ease, and free from distraction, she would have enjoyed every ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... know which way to turn. He was fairly bewildered by all the living wonders that surrounded him; the glancing, gleaming, humming world of the rose-garden. Here a golden beetle crept across the lawn; there the air seemed full of gayly colored butterflies. On the edge of the fountain sat a golden-green lizard in the sun. Over on the hedge a great variety ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... hide for your bed," said the chief to White Plume. Next came a cry, "the eagle, the eagle." From the north came an enormous red eagle. So strong was he, that as he soared through the air his wings made a humming sound as the rumble of distant thunder. On he came, and just as he circled the tent of the chief, White Plume bent his bow, with all his strength drew the arrow back to the flint point, and sent the blue arrow on its mission of death. ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... his friends reached civilization, with a large supply of gold. Tom regretted very much the destruction of the airship, but he at once set to work on another—a monoplane this time, instead of a combined aeroplane and dirigible balloon. This new craft he called the Humming Bird and it was a "sky racer" of terrific speed. In it, as we have said, Tom brought a specialist to operate on his father, when, because of a broken railroad bridge, the physician could not otherwise have gotten to Shopton. He and Tom traveled through the air at ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... gate with her, and was saying the last good-bye, when the stillness was broken by the humming of a motor-car. In a cloud of dust, an automobile came up the road; it was upon them almost in ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... she were to escape Justin's suspicions. But, in spite of her efforts, her eyes retained a sweet unruffled expression when the lad bullied her; she was no longer able to put on her old black look of indignant anger. One morning he heard her humming to ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... about her; rain and wind must have ceased. Suddenly she was walking all bathed in a ruddy light. She felt this light like something that causes pain, and she narrowed her eyes and bowed her head lower. Gradually the light became golden, there was a flaming radiance and flicker everywhere, and a humming began in the air, and a rustling in the moss. Billy felt how a busy life had awakened about her, and she walked faster: it was like a race with this Day, that was advancing so calmly and wakefully ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... it ironical that my flowers bloom, that gay humming-birds hover over my Mas de Perse, that I have enough to eat, that sleep comes to me, and that ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... the place I should choose, ordinarily, to do a bit of sight-seeing. The German shells were still humming through the air above us, though not quite so often as they had. But there were enough of them, and they seemed to me close enough for me to feel the wind they raised as they passed. I thought for sure one of them would ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... fish, which chiefly afford subsistence both to the natives and the Russians, the best are herrings, salmon, and cod, of which there is a superfluity. There is no great variety of birds native to this coast; but the beautiful white-headed eagle, and several sorts of pretty humming-birds, migrate from warmer climates to build their nests in Sitka. It is extraordinary that these tender little creatures, always inhabiting hot countries, should ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Kate humming, "Somewhere the sun is shining," solely, I believe, because she knew it aggravated me. At any other time I should probably have thrown a pillow at her, but just now I was too eager to see if Jim ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rest while waiting for Ben, who had gone nutting with a party of boys. When they played house, Bab was always the father, and went hunting or fishing with great energy and success, bringing home all sorts of game, from elephants and crocodiles to humming-birds and minnows. Betty was the mother, and a most notable little housewife, always mixing up imaginary delicacies with sand and dirt in old pans and broken china, which she baked in an oven ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... object to object, asking questions, not waiting for answers, seeing everything, commenting on everything while the two young men stood side by side on the hearth rug and watched her. She was like a humming-bird ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... had, my dear; no light, no fire; the unfriendly elements forget thee utterly, nor have I time to bring thee hallowed to thy grave, but must cast thee scarcely coffined into the sea, where for a monument upon thy bones the humming waters must overwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple shells. O Lychorida, bid Nestor bring me spices, ink, and paper, my casket and my jewels, and bid Nicandor bring me the satin coffin. Lay the babe upon the pillow, and go about ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... began humming the hymn, "When I can read my title clear," adding some variations of his own. "That 's the solo for my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... they were all in the breakfast-room, and no Prince Bulbo as yet. The urn was hissing and humming: the muffins were smoking—such a heap of muffins! the eggs were done, there was a pot of raspberry jam, and coffee, and a beautiful chicken and tongue on the side-table. Marmitonio the cook brought in the sausages. Oh, ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the lane, swinging her light willow basket carelessly on her arm, and humming a joyous air all the way. Just as she opened the outer lawn gate, the great Newfoundland dog came towards her with a low growl; it changed directly though into ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... indeed, this monstrosity full-blown in his time. He finds it 'in the civil streets,' 'talking plain cannon', 'humming batteries' in the most unmistakeable manner, with no particular account of its origin to give, without, indeed, appearing to recollect exactly how it came there, retaining only a general impression, that a descent from the celestial ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... tub for her Monday morning siesta. She was humming a strange tune over the cascade like another Minnehaha. And from the behavior of the dining-room chandelier and the plates on the sideboard she ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... feel at all sure the Professor's way of getting to the point was not a good one. You see, he had had a good deal to do with young men in early academical phases of existence—tutorships and the like—and had no idea of humming and hawing and stuttering over their affairs. Besides, it was best for Bradshaw, as was shown by the greater ease with which he went on speaking, and began telling the Professor all ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... room humming to himself, and looking vaguely at the pictures. He has his back to the door as DINAH comes in. She is nineteen, very pretty, very happy, and full of boyish high ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... a jest of every thing, even of the misfortunes which pinched him the sharpest, when told of the desertion of his comrades, amused himself by humming the words of a popular ditty: - "The wind blows the hairs off my head, mother: Two at a time, it blows them ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... weather began, as if it lingered but to make a severer workday, with the school-books opened earlier and later; that beam of June sunshine, at last, as he lay awake before the time, a way of gold-dust across the darkness; all the humming, the freshness, the perfume of the garden seemed to lie upon it—and coming in one afternoon in September, along the red gravel walk, to look for a basket of yellow crab-apples left in the cool, old parlour, he remembered it the more, and how the colours struck upon him, because a wasp ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... strange inebriate stood swaying over the prostrate girl, making a grave, drunken effort to grasp the situation, then the Italian proprietress came into the room humming a cheerful strain, and carrying a burden of fried sausages. She beheld the horror, uttered a piercing scream, and dashed up the narrow stairs. Nickie went up the stairs after her, anxious to explain. The horrified people pressing at the front ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the automatic quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in the hell-blizzard from this thing—each shell no bigger than a large walnut, but flying in strings of a score—and men and gun were destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air was humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful. The men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too happy if some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And always, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... good,—the simplest, easiest of objects to tackle. All one had to do was not to let it weigh on one, to laugh rather than cry. They trotted along humming bits of their infancy's songs, feeling very warm and happy inside, felicitously full of tea and macaroons and with their feet comfortably on something that kept still and didn't heave or lurch beneath them. Mr. Twist, too, was gayer than he had ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... moor-hen scuppers across the water, the mechanics having assisted her initial progress by pushing the lower stays and then ducking under the planes, as she gathered way, and just missing decapitation. It's a way they have. She took a run for it, her engine humming like a top, and then rose, and gradually climbed the sky. Peter gazed at her wistfully. "And he promised to take me up some day," ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... white moonlight which bathed part of the bare room; her round dimpled arms were lifted as she unwound the soft dusky coils of her hair, to which there yet clung a few stars of jasmine. There was the shadow of a smile on her lips, and she was humming a tune. ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a distant humming in Betty's ears. Senator North had entered and taken his seat. He apparently settled himself to listen to the speech, and he looked as calm and ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the night of the private theatricals, would have done any man good. To hear her sing any of my little ballads, "Knowest Thou the Willow-tree?" for instance, or "The Rose upon my Balcony," or "The Humming of the Honey-bee," (far superior in MY judgment, and in that of SOME GOOD JUDGES likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul's ballads,)—to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping bird of Paradise. ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bird," commented Pinac, and he went out humming the latest music-hall ditty which he was playing nightly to the patrons of the cafe. Poons went along; he had no more idea of his benefactor's condition than the man in the moon. The three men had not seen much of him lately, for they always left him to himself when he signified by his silence ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... thirty years. The sun shines down brightly, and the frosty air is fall of gladness; for Santa Claus, with his untold wonders, has come and gone. Ecstasies over dolls and transports over tea-sets, screams of delight at hobby-horses and enthusiastic exclamations at humming-tops, have passed. Paint-boxes and writing-desks, leaden soldiers and tin trumpets, at last, are reduced to blissful matters of course. The streets, which all the morning have been thronged with laughing groups of happy children, ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... in and out, talking as freely of him as if he were a log of wood, and how perfectly happy he was when, one morning Alice came in and sat by him, placing her tiny gold thimble upon her delicate finger, and bending over her bit of dainty embroidery, humming occasionally a sweet, mournful air, which showed that her thoughts were wandering back to the cottage by the river, where her mother lived and died. While she was sitting there Mrs. Worthington joined her, and a moment after a letter ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... of air when they went on deck after dinner, and with the exception of the throbbing and humming of the engine and propeller, and soft whish of the sea as it was divided and swept along the sides, all was wonderfully still. But the silence was soon after broken by a sharp call from somewhere forward, a clear musical voice rang out, and then, ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... brushes buzzed and fizzled, and the air churned steadily, whoo! whoo! whoo! between their poles. One was loose in its foundations and kept the shed vibrating. But the big dynamo drowned these little noises altogether with the sustained drone of its iron core, which somehow set part of the ironwork humming. The place made the visitor's head reel with the throb, throb, throb of the engines, the rotation of the big wheels, the spinning ball-valves, the occasional spittings of the steam, and over all the deep, unceasing, surging note of the big dynamo. This last ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... back was turned, Betty impulsively snatched up my hand and kissed it, dropping it instantly, blushing intensely and covering her tracks by humming the refrain of a French lullaby. I longed to return the caress, but did not, and took great credit to myself because of my self-denial. Betty understood my sacrifice and appreciated it, feeling sure that she need not thereafter ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... that we might find it hard to get rid of him. But this was not so. After listening with gratification to our repeated thanks, he bowed with the same grotesque flourish, and marched off as grave as a Spaniard, humming— ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Humming a blithe little air, Blensop moved into Lanyard's field of vision and stopped between him and the safe, deftly pigeonholing therein the docketed papers and Mrs. Arden's jewels. Then, closing the door, he shot its bolts, gave the dial a brisk twirl, located a lever in the side of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... that afternoon, humming snatches of the violin part of the duet, my heart beating with pleasurable excitement over the fact that I was going to be near her, to have her attention placed directly upon me; that I was going to be of service to her, and in a way in which I could show myself to advantage—this last ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... loudly the air of Elsa's "Brautzug," as we paced across the Lindenallee. We had not many paces to go. The lamps were lighted, the people were thronging thick as in the daytime. The air was full of laughter, talk, whistling and humming of the airs from the opera. My ear strained eagerly through the confusion. I could have caught the faintest sound of Courvoisier's voice had it been there, but it was not. And we came home; Vincent opened the door with his latch-key, said, "It has not been very brilliant, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... clamor of the city was forcing itself on her attention, until at length she became engrossed by it. The theaters had just been closed, and the streets resounded with the humming of motors, the drumming of hoofs and the rattle of wheels. They also were flooded with what seemed to her garish light, for she had swept through many a wooden town lying wrapped in darkness beside its railroad track. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... toilings? Speak, weaver!—stay thy hand!—but one single word with thee! Nay—the shuttle flies—the figures float from forth the loom; the freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... parcels into the next room, and the artist heard him pottering around and humming. He came out presently in his shirt-sleeves. His spectacles were mounted on the gray tufts. "I've got a chowder going'," he said. "You take another pill and then you'll be about ready to eat some of it, ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... admirer of the sex. Suppose any gentleman going to be married, and full of love and admiration, should, on going to the house of his beloved bride on the appointed morning, to take her to church, humming to himself that sweet song, "She Wove a Wreath of Roses," finds her beautiful nose become a big rosy nosegay—would he not be apt to suppose she had over night been making pretty free sacrifices, not to the little ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... some little time they went humming merrily along, just "eating up the miles," as ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... out humming a tune, while Cynthia hung the boiler from the crane and mixed the corn-meal dough in ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... he was, for my mind was full of the gloriously-plumaged bird we meant to shoot, and there in imagination I peopled the flower-decked bushes with flashing humming-birds whose throats and crests glowed with scale-like feathers, brilliant as the precious stones—emerald, topaz, ruby, and sapphire—after which they were named. The great forest trees would be, I felt sure, full of the screaming parrot tribe, in their uniforms of leafy green, faced with orange, ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... manifested enthusiasm of his friends had kept his spirits from suffering any natural reaction. Their demand for his companionship was almost peremptory, and his thoughts turned to them as he stood on his balcony looking down on the waning throngs: the great stone buildings were humming like hives, and figures were passing busily to and fro behind the open windows. It astonished him a little. True, it was his first play and he was very popular. But he had a vague uneasy idea they were overdoing ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... birds' eggs, and have about one hundred varieties, but I need eggs of hawks, owls, eagles, whip-poor-wills, quails, partridges, prairie-hens, terns, snipes, plovers, gulls, finches, divers, loons, and other birds, and also the nest and egg of the humming-bird. I have a collection of nearly six hundred stamps, which I will exchange for birds' eggs ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to his wife while driving through a beautiful bit of nature and humming all manner of ideas that came ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... would she go then? Farther south it was darker and more unfriendly, with great stretches of shade and silence. She paused for a moment on the corner and watched the throng about the steps across the street. People were hurrying in and out; motors were humming; trolley gongs were clanging. She felt a sudden fear of it, that familiar neighbourhood with the tea room less than a block away. Hot, flushed, nervous, excited, she wanted to run somewhere, slink down into ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... squares, and he was apparently covering them with pictorial designs—strange-looking figures. He worked rapidly and attentively, sometimes threw back his head and held out his drawing at arm's-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding humming and whistling. The lady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts were voluminous. She never dropped her eyes upon his work; she only turned them, occasionally, as she passed, to a mirror suspended above the toilet-table on the other side ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... infraction of the order. One man was declared to have been killed for defying the order intentionally or from ignorance, but of this I cannot say anything definitely. Rumour was just as rife and startling among us on the field as among the millions of a humming city. But we understood that two or three men went raving mad, several were picked up unconscious, one Belgian committed suicide by hanging himself with his belt, while another Belgian was found dead, to which ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... frightful noises of the woods, when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth. The noise resembled that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and hollow buzz which this being emitted. Nothing could now convince him that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the voice of undiscovered murder was groaning ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... The thresher stood humming and palpitant, its great bulk painted a dull pinkish colour like a locust, but faded and stained with rust. Upon its trembling roof the piles of oats, thrown by the men on the stack alongside, showed a pure golden; above the sky was dazzlingly blue, and ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... prelude was played with a firm, elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... lay through a broad valley, clothed with dense brambles and young trees, and shadowed by lofty mountains. The wild pine-apples by the roadside were very fair to see; they were not quite ripe, but tinted of the most delicate red. Beautiful humming-birds flashed through the air like "winged jewels," and studded the dense foliage with ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... 33. Humming a tune to ourselves, drumming with our fingers on the table, making a noise with our feet, and such like, are all breaches of good manners, and indications of our contempt for the persons present; therefore they should hot ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... plunged through the long grass, bushes, late summer flowers, moths, and caterpillars, vexed with himself that he had come there, since Paula was so inscrutable, and humming the notes of some song he did not know. The tunnel that had seemed so small from the surface was a vast archway when he reached its mouth, which emitted, as a contrast to the sultry heat on the slopes of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she had for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which I could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for America in the near future and her good humor ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... monstrosity full-blown in his time. He finds it 'in the civil streets,' 'talking plain cannon', 'humming batteries' in the most unmistakeable manner, with no particular account of its origin to give, without, indeed, appearing to recollect exactly how it came there, retaining only a general impression, that a descent from the celestial regions had, in some way, been ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... gardener told him, to the centre of the earth. A whiff of perfume from the laurustinus in the drive came back, the scent of hay, and with it the sound of the mowing-machine going over the lawn. He saw the pony in loose flat leather shoes. The bees were humming in the lime trees. The rooks were cawing. A blackbird whistled from the shrubberies where he once passed an entire day in hiding, after emptying an ink-bottle down the German governess's dress. He heard ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... out," and was "feeding" on the right wing and left breast of a lark, the leg of a canary, "a dozen fried" humming bird eggs—her customary fodder of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... came about in the most natural way. We catch our first glimpse of the boy when he sat in a little log school-house, without windows or floor, one of a humming score of shoeless boys, where a good-natured, irritable, drinking English schoolmaster taught him to read, write, and cipher as far as Practice. This was the only school he ever attended, and that was all he learned at it. His widowed mother, with her seven young ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... wave of the hand, he went off in the direction of the fountain, humming the charming pastoral of Philippe Desportes beneath ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... indifferent to me. I don't know where other people are. I don't feel the joy of the little animals playing, the freedom of the flight of birds, the ghostly plucking of the growing grass, the sweet stab of the mating lust of the wild-horned apigator, the humming of bees working to build a hive, and the sleepy stupid arrogance of the giant cabbage-eating deuxnez. I can feel nothing without the Skin I have worn ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... ancient harms Moans behind, the hills among, Like the humming of the swarms That unseen the forest throng. Now I meet the shining rain From a cloud with sunny weft; Now against the wind I strain, Sudden burst ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... with him; he went home, and to his own room without meeting any of his family. But as he passed Bibbs's door he heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... venture near this gate, for it looks out upon the street, and I care not to be seen by any Indian or half-breed Spaniard who might go loitering by; but as I stood in the vine-covered arbour in the centre of the garden I heard a man's voice from the direction of the gate, humming a stave of a maritime air that I had heard sung oft and again by the sailors on the sloop, in which some unknown fair one is ardently ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... and slithered, and an orange dust-cloud boiled up from its broad tires and wafted away across the sculpted sand. The desert stretched away, silent and empty, to the distant horizon; the groundcar the only humming disturbance of its silence and emptiness. The steel-blue sky shimmered above, a ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... She ran downstairs, humming a little tune to herself, as blithe as a young girl. I heard a momentary whispering with Joseph in the hall. Then the house-door closed—and there was an end of Madame ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... and a book full of pressed and dried seaweed, and stuffed birds in cases. I don't care for stuffed birds: they look too alive, and it seems horrid for them not to be able to fly about and sing. Peterkin took a great fancy to some of the very tiny ones—humming-birds, scarcely bigger than butterflies; and, long afterwards, when we went to live in London, Mrs. Wylie gave him a present of a branch with three beauties on it, inside a glass case. He has it now in his own room. And she gave me four great big shells, all coloured like a ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... exhausted with the fatigues of the drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, "How merrily we live that soldiers be!" and between each bar comforting himself with a spoonful of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for Oldbuck, who declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he did not feel inclined to break his habit ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... rock. She stood and watched it, and presently she lost herself in a thicket of night thoughts, and forgot where she was and why she had come there. She was recalled by hearing a very faint voice singing, scarcely more than humming, beneath her. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Presence? In the days when Courtland used to sit and kick his heels in the old family pew and be reproved for it by his aunt, he never remembered any Presence. Doctor Bates's admirable sermons had droned on over his head like the dreamy humming of bees in a summer day. He couldn't remember a single thought that ever entered his mind from that source. Was that all that came of studying theology? Well, he would find out, and if it was, he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... but although the mine was conveniently near the town it was a cold and cheerless spot for a rendezvous, Foster surmised from this that secrecy was important, but after all there was nothing to indicate that the matter had anything to do with him. As he went back he heard a musical humming in the tops of the pines and a lump of wet snow, slipping from a branch, struck his face. The humming grew louder until the wood was filled with sound, and he began to feel clammy and hot. A warm Chinook ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... even worse and remained idle in the sunny shelter of the grape arbor. Here on a rude bench constructed from a discarded four-poster he would often sit for hours, smoking his corncob pipe and softly humming to himself; but when genius went awry and his courage was at a low ebb, strings, wires, and pulleys having failed to work, he would neither smoke nor sing, but with eyes on the distance would sit immovable as if carved ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... no such display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner. As women everywhere deck themselves with these plumes, the beauty of such ornaments cannot be disputed. As we shall see later, the nests of humming-birds, and the playing passages of bower-birds are tastefully ornamented with gaily- coloured objects; and this shews that they must receive some kind of pleasure from the sight of such things. With the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the Chevalier, who hated German music with all his heart, and was now humming an ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... undecided. There was evidently no place for him in the town. He had a deepening sense of being not wanted. The town was humming with life, but in that life there was no place for him. Awakening a strange sense of fellowship the word came to him, "He was rejected ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... fugitive sunshine were brightening Piccadilly when Geraldine and her escort left the Ritz. The momentary depression occasioned by the dramatic little episode of a few minutes ago, seemed already to have passed from the girl's manner. She walked on, humming to herself. As they paused to cross the road, she glanced as though involuntarily at her companion. His dark morning clothes and rather abstracted air created an atmosphere of sombreness about him of which she was ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... coming, Oh Thomas Moore! The Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore! Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and strumming, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Count kept an anxious eye upon him. He was becoming decidedly restless. At one moment he would rave about the glorious scenery; the next, plunge into a brown study of the Tulliwuddle rent-roll; and then in an instant start humming an air and smoking so fast that both their cases were empty while they were yet half an hour from Torrydhulish Station. Now the Baron took to biting his nails, looking at his watch, and answering questions ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... stupidly staring, for an instant. And as I regarded him with fascinated horror, there came upon his heavy gray face a look of dawning comprehension. And I heard Snap's startled intake of breath. He moved to the spectro, where the zed-ray connections were still humming. ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... there came to her the careless humming of a British voice, the free, confident tread of ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... asked Alick; "if you know it, let us hear it, and don't stand humming and hawing as if you were ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the ground. At night-time, when the moonlight falls, pearly grey, on the indeterminate crest of the forests, the trees look like an army of phantoms in long, trailing veils. In the daytime a crowd of large, beautiful butterflies, brilliant humming birds, and blue-winged jays and parroquets come and cling to the moss, which then resembles a white tapestry embroidered with splendid ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sandstone, and presenting on two of its sides sandy declivities. He watched beside it for an hour and a quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the camp before I met with pigeons, and some of them alighted in the bushes very near me. I cocked my pistol, and raised it to my face, bringing the breech almost in contact with my nose. Having brought the sight to bear upon the pigeon, I pulled trigger, and was in the next instant sensible of a humming noise, like that of a stone sent swiftly through the air. I found the pistol at the distance of some paces behind me, and the pigeon under the tree on which he had been sitting. My face was much bruised, and covered with ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... of the forest crowning the hill were silver coroneted. The unfolding leaves had hidden the new cabin from the bridge, but the driveway shone white, and already the upspringing bushes hedged it in. Insects were humming lazily in the perfumed night air, and across the lake a courting whip-poor-will was explaining to his sweetheart just how much and why he loved her. A few bats were wavering in air hunting insects, and occasionally ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... penny a knock. The house was as quiet as possible. There was only one low sound to be heard—it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen's boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a buzzing noise, in wretched mockery of humming a tune. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in all the interview, Dora found herself troubled and perplexed. Here was nothing to soothe, nothing to combat, nothing to answer or to silence; and her womanly sympathies fluttered about this manly reticence like a humming-bird around a flower frozen into the heart ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... life. Birds of beautiful plumage, and every variety of note, were perched on the branches, or flying above our heads; butterflies of many hues were flitting about in all directions; and reptiles and insects innumerable were crawling along the ground. More beautiful than all were the humming-birds, which, like flashes of coloured light, appeared and disappeared as they flew by us; and surpassing his brethren in gorgeousness of hues, was the golden-tailed humming or fly bird, numbers of which haunted every glade we passed. From many of the shady ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... making ready to rush on the nearest sentry, disarm him, gag him, and drag him off to the boat, when the ring of metal and the sound of singing in a low voice fell on my ears. A man, carrying a great tin pail, was coming to draw water, humming a song as he went; we quickly went down again to the river to hide under the branches, and as the Austrian stooped to fill his pail my grenadiers seized him by the throat, put a handkerchief full of wet sand over his mouth, and placing ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... temperature of the carbon tips is lower than that of the positive tip of a direct-current arc, with the result that the luminous efficiency is lower. These arcs have been made of both the open and enclosed type. They are characterized by a humming noise due to the effect of alternating current upon the mechanism and also upon the air near the arc. This humming sound is quite different from the occasional hissing of a direct-current arc. When ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Polly, looking dreamily at the humming-birds hovering over the honeysuckle; "and if we should, everything would be different. Bless dear old Bell's heart! What a lovely summer she must be having! I wonder ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the Night about me. Yet, as you shall see, this served not to prevent me from going forward into the fearfulness of that which did haunt all the void; for, sudden, as I went carefully, I heard a faint humming noise come downward from the night a little unto my rear; and the humming noise did grow more plain, as that a door were opened slowly above, and did let out that Sound ever more loud. And surely, after I did hear that, I could not doubt that a ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... he yawned, and walked away to the window, and stood there humming a little tune. I could see that he was already getting tired of me, and sorry that he had let me in, and though the thought that he was looking upon me as an awful nuisance would have made me awfully nervous if I had let it, I just said to myself, 'here is ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... account, but whose bloom is a gift sent straight from heaven to gladden the hearts of men and beasts, birds and bees. The big double doors in the ivy-grown flint wall of this inclosure stood wide open. Humming bees sailed booming to and fro, like ships in a tropical trade-wind. And through the lattice-work of the gray old apple-trees' branches (so virginally clothed just now) clean English sunshine dappled all the earth and grass in moving checkers ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... had crimsoned her cheek flowed back tumultuously to her heart, as she heard a voice she could not mistake, humming very softly the notes of a sad and touching air, which she and Lewie had often sung together. This plaintive singer could be no other than her brother. But why here, at night, and in this clandestine ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... studied the dance I told you to?" he demanded, humming the tune and stressing the accented parts to impress it upon them. "Now then," he said, "let's hear what you can do." He raised his bamboo cane like a conductor's baton and said ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... went the stranger with the careless speed of youth, humming to himself in a soft tenor, his brown face turned to the sun. The pleasant smile was still upon it. He had the look of one in whose eyes ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... attached themselves, with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming to herself. "I presume you will go in ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... returned home an hour later. To a man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills was not of a reassuring nature. He hesitated on the doorstep for a few seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly, hung his hat in the passage and ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... hath hindered thee from telling me of all that thou hast done for my garden, even to those fair and sweet everlasting flowers, the like of which I never saw before, which thou hast set in the east border, and where even now I hear the bees humming in ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... aqueduct trailing, thousand-footed, through the brush. It is not a wilderness; it is rather a preserve. And, fitly enough, the centre of the maze is not a hermit's cavern. In the midst, a little mirthful town lies sunlit, humming with the business of pleasure; and the palace, breathing distinction and peopled by historic ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the periods make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgements, such ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... object of considerable interest. It is simply a means to an end. The kind of interest which we think is so valuable for instruction is direct and intrinsic. The life of Benjamin Franklin calls out a strong direct interest in the man and his fortunes. A humming bird attracts and appeals to us for its own sake. Indirect interest, so called, has more of the character of desire. A desire to restore one's health will produce great interest in a certain ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... creek whispering through the grove and away to where it was defiled by trampling hoofs in the corrals and pastures beyond, and with the roses which Phoebe Hart kept abloom until the frosts came, and the bees, and humming—birds which somehow found their way across the parched sagebrush plains and foregathered there, Peaceful Hart's ranch betrayed his secret longing for girls, as if he had unconsciously planned it for the daughters he ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... her spinning, casting from time to time a furtive and uneasy glance at the soldiers. Nothing was to be heard save the humming of the wheel, the crackling of the fire, and the singing of the water in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... near right as one can be. Show the Captain where to direct the boat and we'll soon set things humming." ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the conclusion decisively. For was not their present situation the net result of a concrete endeavor to strike a balance between the best of what both the wilderness and the humming cities had to offer them? It seemed treason to Bill to long for other voices and other faces. Yet she could not help the feeling. She wondered if he, too, did not sometimes long for company besides her own. And the thought stirred up a perverse jealousy. They two, perfectly mated in all things, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for subjects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and then commit my effusion to paper; swinging at intervals on the hindlegs of my elbow chair, by way of calling ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... she stood for the first time on the balcony overhanging the Corso, which Mrs. Ashe had hired in company with some acquaintances made at the hotel, and looked down at the ebb and surge of the just-begun Carnival. The narrow street seemed humming with people of all sorts and conditions. Some were masked; some were not. There were ladies and gentlemen in fashionable clothes, peasants in the gayest costumes, surprised-looking tourists in tall hats ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... descended to her room humming an air from an old opera, and settled to the task of removing as much as possible all evidences of fatigue and sleeplessness ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... succeed in alleviating them. Never, indeed, had the prospect been more calm and wooing. Silence, bending from the hills, seemed to brood above the valley even as some mighty spirit, at whose bidding strife was hushed, and peace became the acknowledged divinity of all. The humming voices of trade and merriment were all hushed in homage to the holy day; and if the fitful song of a truant bird, that presumed beside the window of Margaret Cooper, did break the silence of the scene, it certainly did not disturb its calm. The forest minstrel sung in ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... WITHIN]: Listen! listen! he is coming, A most hideous discord humming. Drunken, museless, awkward, yelling, Far along his rocky dwelling; 490 Let us with some comic spell Teach the yet unteachable. By all means he must be blinded, If my ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... sat in the shade of a tree at the foot of Mount Ida, while his flocks were pasturing upon the hillside before him. The bees were humming lazily among the flowers; the cicadas were chirping among the leaves above his head; and now and then a bird twittered softly among the bushes behind him. All else was still, as if enjoying to the full the delicious calm ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... into the awful presence of the cook (with our ham and tongue from Bristol as an excuse) and ranged predatory over the lower regions. We scaled back-staircases, and tramped along remote corridors, and burst into secluded lumber-rooms, with accompaniment of shouting from the boys, and of operatic humming from Mr. Migott and myself, who happen, among other social accomplishments, to be both of us musical in a desultory way. We turned out, in these same lumber-rooms, plans of estates from their neat tin cases, and ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... words the message that he still loves her. Then the final tableau of the act with Butterfly, her baby and Sazuki standing at the Shosi facing the distant harbour where his ship has just been signalled. Softly the humming of the priests at worship ceases, and the curtain descends on what must always remain a masterpiece of delicate pathos—a story that will never lose its appeal while woman's trust in man lends its charm ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the same box. Mr Bickersdyke's clothes lay at the head of one of the sofas, but nobody else had staked out a claim. Psmith took possession of the sofa next to the manager's. Then, humming lightly, he undressed, and made his way downstairs to the Hot Rooms. He rather fancied himself in towels. There was something about them which seemed to suit his figure. They gave him, he though, rather a debonnaire look. He paused for a moment before the looking-glass to examine himself, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... had left the bench, and the court was humming with the murmur of tongues suddenly let free, Mr. Pawle forced his way to the side ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... and, except that their hind legs were longer in proportion to their size, the exact shape of that harmless little insect. Their colours are brilliant green, slate, and flamingo red, beautifully lined and variegated. The humming noise produced by these insects is very disagreeable, and fills the surrounding air with murmurs, while the wilderness look of the scene of their depredations has a depressing effect on the mind of the traveller. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. She hoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to himself: ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... we shall caper a-heel and toeing A Newgate hornpipe some fine day With the mots their ogles throwing [20] Tol lol, etc. And old Cotton humming his pray. [21] ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... over and over again, tapping my foot to keep time as I did so. Then Mac would join in, and perhaps another of our company. And before long everyone at the table would catch the infection, and either be humming the absurd words or keeping time with his feet, while the others did so. Sometimes people didn't care for my song; I remember one old Englishman, with a white moustache and a very red face, who looked as if he might be a retired army ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... with pity, lavished money upon them, in spite of the remonstrances of the guide. Clive's sensitive nature shuddered at the spectacle. Frank tried to speak a few words of Italian to them, which he had caught from Michael Angelo. David muttered something about the ancient Romans, while Bob kept humming to ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... told, can boast a father great And honored in the service of the State. Public Instruction all his mind employs— He guides its methods and its wage enjoys. Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand, He waves his ferule o'er a studious land Where humming youth, intent upon the page, Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage, Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask To slake their fervor at his private flask. Arrested by the terror of his frown, The vaulting spit-ball ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... unfriendly elements Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze; Where, for a monument upon thy bones, And e'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse, Lying with simple shells. O Lychorida. Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper, My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say A priestly farewell ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... terrace flagging on the lawn. The lower window shades had been pulled down, but, except in the dining-room, they showed no blur of brightness. Through the walls the chords of the piano were just audible, and the volume of voices was reduced to a formless humming. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... your soul! She would never have thought of such a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Morris replied, and went upstairs to the workroom, where the humming of many machines testified to the last rush of the season's work. Abe joined him ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... gender, written out by Father Claude on a strip of bark. It was nearly an hour later, after the maid had crept to her couch beneath the canoe, and Perrot and Guerin had sprawled upon the bales and were snoring in rival keys, that Danton came lightly down the slope humming a drinking song. He saw Menard, and dropped to the ground beside him, with a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... were ideal, cleanly of body and of mind, with heads filled with sentiment and hearts filled with sympathies; their personal lives were like their homes and their gardens—revealing only the brightest things of this world, the singing, humming, sweet-smelling things which so strongly speak to us of the other world we are yet to know. As workers in the world's vineyards, they labored six days and rested upon the Sabbath, and gave thanks to Him from whom all blessings flow that He allowed them, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... at last Edith went up the staircase, and Ellen, lying sleepless on her cot in the hot attic room, heard the girl softly humming to herself as she undressed, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... teeth half savagely, the little witch tantalizing him with the swiftness of her speech, the coy archness of her manner. To his slower mentality she was like a humming-bird darting about from flower to flower, yet ever ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... and soaps, Pills and dopes, We all must advertise. Copper cents, Not common sense. Are the things we prize. We confess Such a dress Isn't quite becoming, But we suppose Hopkins knows This keeps business humming." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... places where everybody meets everybody, and where lazy hours can be conveniently lounged away, the exhibitions in some sort supply in the afternoon what the Opera and parties do in the evenings. Nearly all through the summer-day, they are crowded with a softly-rustling, humming, buzzing crowd, coming and going perhaps, taking little heed of the nominal attraction, but sauntering from room to room, or ensconcing themselves in colonies or clusters of chairs, and lounging vacantly in cool lobbies. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... who followed her, presuming on "Auntie's" high spirits, was flounced out of the apartment with small ceremony, and retired, smarting and half tearful, to bury her woes in the byre among the hay. Still humming, Christina divested herself of her finery, and put her treasures one by one in her great green trunk. The last of these was the psalm-book; it was a fine piece, the gift of Mistress Clem, in distinct old-faced type, on paper that had begun to grow foxy in the warehouse - ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mount Engelstad in a warm and sunny place, and allowed ourselves on this occasion a little lunch, an indulgence that had not hitherto been permitted. The cooking-case was taken out, and soon the Primus was humming in a way that told us it would not be long before the chocolate was ready. It was a heavenly treat, that drink. We had all walked ourselves warm, and our throats were as dry as tinder. The contents of the pot were served round by the cook — Hanssen. It was no use asking him to ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... continue, but she was silent. As they ascended the steps the orchestra was beginning the waltz, with its dreamy rhythm, which everybody had been humming for a month or two. She led the way through a door at the lower end of the room, where were the palms and shrubbery which concealed the musicians, gathered her gown in her right hand, and stood smilingly ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... absence of men at the front. Picture palaces are crammed nightly, furs and finery have had a wonderful season, any one who has a motor car to sell finds plenty of ready buyers, and second-hand pianos are an article that can almost be "sold on a Sunday." But in the midst of this roar of humming trade, finance, and especially international finance, lies stricken and still gasping from the shock of war. When war comes, the price of all property shrivels. This was well known to Falstaff, who, when he brought the news of Hotspur's rebellion, said "You may buy land now as cheap as stinking ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... big now to be turned to ridicule, and too happy as well. She heard him humming to himself: it was the Norwegian national air. They came back to the town again as from Elysium. All the passers-by looked at them: people quickly detect happiness. Besides Rafael was a head taller than most of them and ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... queen the world had ever seen, and Prince Harweda was their only child. From the day of his birth, everything that love or money could do for him had been done. The pillow on which his head rested was made out of the down from humming-birds' breasts. The water in which his hands and face were washed was always steeped in rose leaves before being brought to the nursery. Everything that could be done was done, and nothing which could add to his ease or ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... Order, where he found the opposite? Nay your very Daymoth has capabilities in this kind; and ever organises something (into its own Body, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and of mute dead air makes living music, though only of the faintest, by humming. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... He had given the invitation first, he said, and nobody could take the privilege from him. So the others yielded gracefully, and in high good humor the eight, saying much and humming little songs, walked across the fields from the camp and into the town. Robert noticed the bustling life of Albany with approval. The forest made its appeal to him, and the city made another and different but quite as strong appeal. The old Fort Orange ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to one of the big steam lathes, and there was a man that looked to be busy about something, so I went up to watch him. Well, what do you think he was doing? He was making one of these here little sticks that a fellow cleans his nails with! The power house was burning tons of coal, and everything humming, and that was what came out of it all. A nail stick! What ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... these lungs that shout, These thews that hustle us about, This brain that fills the skull with schemes, And its humming hive of dreams,-" ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... "Sir Frederick Haldimand is a babbler!" he said, between tightening lips. "Never a secret, never a plan, but he must bawl it aloud to all who care to listen, or sound it as he gads about from camp to city—aye, and chatters it to the forest trees for lack of audience, I suppose. All New York is humming with it, is it ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... last ten years it seemed to him that she had been as indifferent as he was about such things—naturally and frankly indifferent. When the first moment of stupefaction had passed, he opened his mouth to speak, looked at her, said nothing, and, turning suddenly on his heels, went out of the room humming a kind of air to which music and words were about all that ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... ungallant M. de Maupeou had had the politeness to send me in the morning. One of the company proceeded to cut it, when scarcely had he pierced the crust, than its perfidious contents proved to be an immense swarm of cockchafers, which spread humming and buzzing all over the chamber. Zamor, who had never before seen these insects, began to pursue them all over the room, buzzing and humming as loudly as they did. The chase lasted a long time; but ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened yesterday rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm. Humming, I dressed quickly and went ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... began whistling and humming by turns, with the most consummate and provoking indifference. The stranger was evidently disconcerted by this unexpected mode of address, apparently meditating a retreat, from where even victory would have been a poor triumph. He was turning away, when a drop of blood fell ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... his good advice. On this occasion he was anxious not to compromise his dignity as a father. He daintily took a pinch of snuff, cleared his throat two or three times, as if he were about to demand a count out of the House; then he heard his daughter's light step, and she came in humming an ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... died a few days after he uttered these words. His last hours were spent in humming over a Scotch ballad he had learnt ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... in a crowd about the hole, crawling over each other, and going in and coming out. Thorn could hear them humming from where he stood. He swung his torch from his arm; then, hand over hand, ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... she succeeded in making them share the responsibility with her. The boys would amuse themselves quietly for hours rather than disturb little Ellinor; and Letty (usually the most restless and wayward of them all) never grew weary of humming little songs, and otherwise amusing the baby, as she lay in the cot. So they went on better than might have been expected. But what with the close confinement in the house, and the climbing of two or three long flights of stairs, Christie grew pale and thin, and was ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... fellow and warned the yearling back with a savage baring of his teeth and a shake of his head. The foal, with head cocked upon one side, regarded its protector with impish curiosity and was in the act of nibbling at the flowing mane of the stallion when Alcatraz heard a sharp humming as of a wasp; then the sound of a blow, and the foal leaped straight into the air with head flung back. Before it hit water a report as of a hammer falling on anvil burst across the level pond, and then the colt struck heavily on its ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... bees went for honey, And the humming-birds too; And there the pretty butterflies And ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the town,—all grew more remote, then ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Bob. "But the old bean's humming like a top. What happened, anyhow? Where are we? ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a humming of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... popular opinion in favor of intervention kept pace with the trend of diplomatic negotiations. Italy, especially the northern provinces, was a great beehive, humming with patriotic fervor. Evenings in almost any northern town might be seen companies of young men in civilian dress marching in companies and maneuvering with military precision. At first the organizers of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... "It's no use to think of sleep now; and it occurred to me that we might have a pipe, and so spend the few hours that are left of the darkness and the night." With these words he took a clay pipe from the cupboard, and proceeded to fill it slowly and carefully, humming a song to himself; then he rummaged about amongst a heap of papers, until he found a sheet, which he picked out and rolled into a spill and lighted. Blowing the tobacco-smoke from him in thick clouds, he said, speaking ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... wrote of Henry James might be said of Joseph Conrad: "He is exquisitely aware of the presence of others." And this awareness is illustrated in Under Western Eyes and Nostromo—the latter that astonishing rehabilitation of the humming life on a South American seaboard. For Nostromo nothing is lost save honour; he goes to his death loving insensately; for Razumov his honour endures till the pressure put upon it by his love for Haldin's sister cracks it, and cracks, too, his reason. For once the novelist ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... heel and went downstairs humming a tune. I remained with Mrs. Housekeeper who carried out his instructions zealously. I can feel the soreness on my scalp ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... ye quaff with me, my lads, And it's will ye quaff with me? It is a draught of nut-brown ale I offer unto ye. All humming in the tankard, lads, It cheers the heart forlorn; Oh! here's a friend to everyone, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... childbed hast thou had, my dear; no light, no fire; the unfriendly elements forget thee utterly, nor have I time to bring thee hallowed to thy grave, but must cast thee scarcely coffined into the sea, where for a monument upon thy bones the humming waters must overwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple shells. O Lychorida, bid Nestor bring me spices, ink, and paper, my casket and my jewels, and bid Nicandor bring me the satin coffin. Lay the babe upon the pillow, and go about this suddenly, Lychorida, while I say a priestly ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... mountains the light of morning broke; From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of smoke: The city-gates were opened; the Forum all alive With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive: Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing, And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was singing, And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home: Ah! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome! With ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... where moor joins moor from Yorkshire into Lancashire, a coiled chain of wild free places. White with snow in winter, black at midsummer, it is only when spring dapples the dark heather-stems with the vivid green of the sprouting wortleberry bushes, only when in early autumn the moors are one humming mass of fragrant purple, that any beauty of tint lights up the scene. But there is always a charm in the moors for hardy and solitary spirits. Between them and heaven nothing dares to interpose. The shadows of the coursing clouds alter the aspect of ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... patron replied reverently. 'But that is not all—that is not all.' And he began to walk up and down the room humming the 118th Psalm ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... I remember the humming of our bees around the sawdust, and my craze for flower seeds and a ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... UGRIN (humming). Oh once there was a mighty King, Who had a lady fair. This King did love his beauteous dame As though ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... house is situated on the street of a village, the street is beautifully arched with trees for some distance, and my room is very pleasant. One window is wholly shaded by sweet honeysuckle, which is now in blossom, filling the room with its mild fragrance. The little humming-birds visit its flowers frequently without ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... girls, and she had taken lessons such a little while that this seemed a very great thing to her. She was always ready to practise, so that she should be sure to know her part perfectly, and she went about the house humming the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly that she fully expected to hear Ruby singing it in ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... repeat this passage?" she said, humming the air with soft modulations; "I have always regarded the monotonous repetition of this strain" (and she indicated it lightly by a few touches of the keys) "as rather a blemish of an otherwise perfect composition. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... she sought her children; found Louisa humming and singing her little boy to sleep, and her daughter nodding, on a ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... some books she had left on a stand in the hall. He stood with his hands in his pockets, watching her ascent, hearing the swish of her skirts on the stairs: but she did not look back. She was humming softly to herself as she passed out ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Asher pushed the tiny switch that brought his filament points trembling together under the atmospheric pressure so far underground. A tiny spark danced and throbbed through the tiny glass tube before him, beginning to buzz as it started the circuit of increasing coils, and soon humming and vibrating as the helium and vacuum tubes swelled it to full power. Spark after spark, increased almost beyond imagination, followed one after another. The Miner ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... would in any way single them out from the millions about them; and when they had witnessed it from the crest of Bun Hill and seen the fly-like mechanism, its rotating planes a golden haze in the sunset, sink humming to the harbour of its shed again, they turned back towards the sunken green-grocery beneath the great iron standard of the London to Brighton mono-rail, and their minds reverted to the discussion that had engaged them before Mr. Butteridge's triumph had come in ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... yelling to their mules and the street hawkers were crying their wares, but above their noise the children could hear the humming of birds' whistles overhead. The Chinese tie whistles under pigeons' wings, and when the birds fly they make a strange kind of humming or whistling noise. Nelly thought they must be the pigeons that often flew over the Legation compound, and belonged to a mandarin who lived not far away. ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... not believe she was to be purified by suffering. She had never done anything very bad, and humming a part of a song learned from Wilford Cameron, she followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to the house, thinking to herself that there must be something great and good in the suffering which should purify at last, but hoping she was not the one to whom ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Cornelius had sung. She gave the song such a second birth, indeed, that a tolerable judge might have taken it, so hearing it for the first time, for what it was not—a song with some existence of its own, some distinction from a thousand other wax flowers dipped in sugar-water for the humming-birds of society. The moment she ended, she rose ashamed, and going to the window looked out over the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... played with a firm, elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no ordinary ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... jack-boots of large dimensions, and now invited our hero to follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample stair-case, tapping each huge balustrade as he passed with the butt of his massive horse-whip, and humming, with the air of a ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... here; but he listened with considerable curiosity to the strange humming sound that filled the air, rising and falling, as of a beehive. At first he thought it was the working of engines in the ship; but he presently perceived it to be the noise of the streets rising from ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... Our Tartar was humming a plaintive air; Saveliitch, sound asleep, swayed from side to side; our kibitka was gliding rapidly over the winter road. I saw in the distance a village well known to my eyes, with its palisade and church spire on the steep bank of the ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... the little warlike world within! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy, The hoarse command, the busy humming din. When at a word, the tops are manned on high: Hark to the boatswain's call, the cheering cry! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides, Or school-boy midshipman, that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe, as ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... out of the red hammock, showing slim ankles that gleamed like marble through a thin film of bronze-brown silk. As she went into the house humming some Italian air she had picked up, Mary thought how young and innocently gay she seemed. It was almost impossible to believe her the same woman who had sobbed behind a disguising veil in Rose Winter's drawing-room, begging ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... who receive wages like that must expect to have a certain amount of danger to face. Danger is the spice of life." He leant back in his chair, humming a little tune and watched Mr. Foilet with smiling eyes. Mr. Foilet was wondering whether his chief was personally fond of spice, but he knew better than to say more. He left the room with a vague uneasy feeling at his heart. "A nice concern ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... now you are of Knock and Ballavore? Ah, it's ourselves had finer sights than the like of them, I'm telling you, when we were sitting a while back hearing the birds and bees humming in every weed of the ditch, or when we'd be smelling the sweet, beautiful smell does be rising in the warm nights, when you do hear the swift flying things racing in the air, till we'd be looking up in our own minds into a grand ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... heroes. This mound stood in the midst of a camp. Lances were stacked in front of the tents, and golden shields hung from masts, amidst boughs of laurel and wreaths of oak. On the stage all was silence, but a murmur like the humming of bees in a hive rose from the vast hemicycle filled with spectators. All their faces, reddened by the reflection from the purple awning which waved above them, turned with attentive curiosity towards the large, silent ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... reasserting itself in one glad triumphant chorus. Down in the park the slumberous cawing of the rooks triumphed over the lighter-voiced caroling of innumerable thrushes and blackbirds, and mingled with the faint humming of a few early bees, seemed to fill the air with a sweetly blended strain of glad music. It was one of those mornings typical of its own season, in which the whole atmosphere seems charged with quickening life. Summer with its warm luscious ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp, starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps, she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... she-shape by Mode arrayed! The dove that coos in verdant shade, The lark that shrills in ether, The humming-bird with jewelled wings,— Ten thousand tiny songful things Have lent her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... began to fall, and has continued to pour down steadily ever since. The night is gloomy. Adjutant Wilson, in the next tent, is endeavoring to lift himself from the slough of despond by humming a ditty of true love; but the effort is ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... see the broad shoulders of the man as he stooped over on the other side of the fire to throw on more wood. Presently she knew he had thrown himself down with his head on the saddle, but she could hear him still humming softly something that sounded like a lullaby. When the firelight flared up it showed his ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... hedge and hid in a clump of plumed grass close to the veranda. The house blazed with lights, and servants moved about tables dressed with flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forth came an Englishman, dressed in black and white, humming a tune. It was too dark to see his face, so Kim, beggar-wise, tried an ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... meanwhile, seemed to be steadying. Feeling each step, he began cautiously to work his way down. To my wrath he even looked up at me and indulged in a grimace—but his triumph was ill-timed, for at that very instant I beheld, strolling along the street below, humming and swinging his night-stick, as leisurely, complacent, and stalwart a representative of the law as ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... music for it. Then he practises at singing it, and then he sings it. The man of genius, on the other hand, whether he be a great one or a very little one, is known by the fact that he has a song sent to him. He sings it. He has a habit of humming it over afterwards. His humming it over afterwards is his analysis. It is ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... hush at the humming table. The Count grew dead white and looked at his fingernails. Aristide superbly gathered up his notes and gold, and tossing a couple of louis to the croupiers, left the table, followed by all eyes. It was one of the thrilling moments of Aristide's life. He had taken the ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... are arranged the spectators. By the aid of one drum-stick, the person who has been detailed for this duty, keeps up a beating motion on a sort of kettle-drum, the noise of which serves the purpose of marking time. The voices of the dancers make the music. At first the song is a mere humming sound, but after a time, it grows gradually louder, until the participants in the dance, being excited to the highest attainable pitch with interest in the ceremonies, it becomes terribly hideous. Almost naked, with tomahawk and hunting-knife in hand, the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... or any conspicuous place, or stand at the windows of the parlor. She will remember that she is in a public place, where she may encounter all classes of people, so she will not permit herself any of the liberties of a home. She will not go through the halls humming or singing, or take a book or newspaper from the public parlor and carry it off to her room, even if she does shortly return it. She will not, even in her own room, make such noise as will attract attention or ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... wild-brier and the mock-orange. The birds are carolling in the trees, and their shadows flit across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine; while the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the whirring of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle, send up a sound of joy to meet ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... and adoration of his creatures. To the mind yet untainted, there is exquisite loveliness and even godlike repose in such a scene. The universal stillness permits the softest natural sounds to be heard; and the buzz of the bee, or the wing of the humming-bird, reaches the ear like the loud notes of a general anthem. This temporary repose is full of meaning. It should teach how much of the beauty of this world's enjoyments, how much of its peace, and even how much of the comeliness of nature itself, is dependent on the spirit ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... occasion it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, who chanced to march alone in front of the groups, was humming the well-known air,—little thinking of its appropriateness,—"Tender woman! hear the warble of the birds," etc. To some, du Bousquier was a strong man and a misjudged man. Ever since he had been confirmed ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that strain from the Favorita, Miss Minerva, tum, tum, ti ti, tum tum, tee tee," and the delightful Sennaar ambassador, seeing Mrs. Potiphar in the parlor, danced humming away. ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... book-shop humming a little, pretending to read the titles of the books by moonlight, taking off and putting on one of her stained yellow gloves. Now and again she would move up as far as the posters outside the Hall, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... shout. By and by, silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of hoofs on the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking-up, and low, humming voices below, and footsteps mounting the stairs to bed, with now and then a drunken hiccough or maudlin laugh, as some conquered votary of Bacchus was fairly carried ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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