"Buzz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comparatively low, rocky hills, forming valleys here and there, supplied with trees, and herbage, and water. We are now in a really uninhabited spot; scarcely a bird is seen, or a lizard, or a beetle, or any living thing, save a few flies that still follow the caravan on unwearied wing, and buzz with moderated ferocity about ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... infinite care has examined the inside of the mosquito-curtains to make sure none are lurking, and then, satisfied, has dived into bed and tucked the curtain carefully round, and is just going off to sleep—buzz-z-z sounds the hateful thing, and all hope of a quiet night is gone. The other night I woke and found G. springing all over her bed like a kangaroo. At first I thought she had gone mad, dog-like, with the heat, but it turned out she ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... which followed could not be measured by the ordinary line and rule of pulpit eloquence and power,—could not be described by most of the words which buzz down the aisles after a popular sermon. There was not the "newness of hand" of a young preacher—for almost from boyhood Mr. Linden had been about his Master's work. To him it was as simple a thing to deliver his message ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... around. At Sceaux, at Genevilliers, at Brunoy, at Ile-Adam, at Rancy, at Saint-Ouen, at Colombes, at Saint-Germain, at Marly, at Bellevue, in countless places, they form a crown of architectural flowers, from which daily issue as many gilded wasps to shine and buzz about Versailles, the center of all luster and affluence. About a hundred of these are "presented each year, men and women, which makes about 2 or 3,000 in all;[2104] this forms the king's society, the ladies who courtesy before him, and the seigniors who accompany him in his carriage; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... voices blent In the bland buzz of cultured chat; intent Set faces mutely watching From cushioned corner or from curtained nook; Hands that about old ears attentive crook, The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... crawls, Hums, a heaving hive, Scrapes and scrawls— Such a buzz and burst! Here just one thing's not alive, One that was at ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Hence the buzz of talk rose loud, and the criticism stung the wife. She determined herself to learn the truth of these tales. Hitherto they were but the scandalous talk of people. Wife of the karo[u], naturally her ladyship did not require ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... considerable trepidation, in a very audible whisper, to Adorni and the Landgrave. The buzz of agitation attracted instant attention; the whisper was loud enough to catch the ears of several; the news went rapidly kindling through the room that the company was too many by one: all the ladies trembled, their ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... finished speaking, and arrangements were being made in the usual manner for the drawing, a buzz of excitement arose among the Sisters. Suspense was written on every face, but no one showed any fear. Custom and habit, which govern so completely the feelings of people, prevented the Sisters from feeling wounded or alarmed at being disposed ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... when the buzz of talk ceased after repeated efforts on the part of M. de Bargeton, who, obedient to his wife, went round the room much as the beadle makes the circle of the church, tapping the pavement with his wand; when silence, in fact, was at last secured, Lucien ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Sunday-school excursion was to take place on the following Wednesday, the place being a beautiful oak wood about a mile from the church, in the opposite direction from Mill Bank Farm. As little groups clustered together on leaving the church door, there was a general buzz of talk about ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... he knew was the call of a bugle, tense and shrill as the buzz of a mosquito close to his ear. And he laughed aloud to think how so small a thing ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... heard Sunny's voice raised in song, and he listened intently, wondering the while if the loafer had any idea of its quality. It was harsh, nasal and possessed as much tune as a freshly sharpened "buzz-saw." But his words were distinct. Far too distinct Bill thought ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous; this is their office, which I trust they will faithfully perform long after we (that is all that is mortal of us) are mouldered in our graves.... To conclude, my ears are stone dead to this idle buzz [of hostile criticism] and my flesh as insensible as iron to these petty stings and; after what I have said, I am sure yours will be the same I doubt not that you will share with me an invincible confidence that my writings ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... pew. I thought it was his ghost at first; but when I looked again there he was still, with a kind of question in his eyes, as if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I wonder I didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round, and the words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... strain in his nature. Possibly, had he stopped to think, he might have weakened and fled. But the excitement of the chase still dominated him, and he had given himself no time for consideration before plunging in. Now, the buzz of talk and laughter sounded all about him; somebody slapped him on the back with a laugh of astonishment, and he began to realize what an impossible sort of thing ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... after the first buzz of surprise and excitement had spent itself, people settled down, and reluctantly accepted the official explanation furnished by the newspapers—namely, that the popular actress had suffered considerably in health from the strain of several ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... The buzz of the ball-room soon caught up the ugly scandal, and tossed it wildly from lip to lip. "Mr. Jillingham caught cheating at cards!" Everyone said, of course, they had suspected it all along; now every one ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... was in a traveling suit, but Rose was radiant in robe and train and orange wreath, and a buzz of admiration at her exquisite beauty followed her all the way to her ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... watching an engine and truck going down with a white-flag flying, bringing back poor Colonel Chisholme's body for burial. Suddenly on the left from the top of a mountain side beyond a long rocky ridge I saw the orange flash of a big gun. The next moment came the familiar buzz and scream of a great shell, the crash, the squealing fragments, the dust splashing up all round us as they fell. I have never seen men and horses gallop faster than in our rapid right-wheel over the open ground towards ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... like with my whole heart that funny Buzz Clendenning, who has the reddest hair, the largest brown speckles on his face and the widest mouth that I have ever beheld. Also, his laugh is even wider than is his mouth and overflows the remainder of his face in ripples of what is ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... rest in this prison this 'nymph' will gnaw her way out and swim through the water on her back, by means of that fringed tail and paddles, till she reaches the bank and the upper air. There, under the genial light of day, her skin will burst, and a four-winged fly emerge, to buzz over the water as a fawn-coloured Caperer— deadliest of trout flies; if she be not snapped up beforehand under water by some spotted monarch in search ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in general ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... from the sideboard. She was very careful not to let Arnaud know. These were her escapades. Then during the days when the light was dim, and also sometimes on lovely sunny days,—(outside the blue sky would shine, and the noise of the street would buzz round the dark silent rooms; like a sort of mirage enshrouding the soul),—she would sit in her favorite corner, with her feet on her hassock, her knitting in her hands, and go off into day-dreams while ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... ledge. From the extreme end of the canyon below the Cat's Paw came the crash of a track-torpedo, answered almost instantly by a second, above the break. It was the warning signal to get into the clear. There was a buzz of rapid movement among the laborers. In twos and threes and dozens, a ragged procession of lanterns and torches, they retreated, foremen urging the laggards, until only a single man at each end of the broken track kept within sight of the tiny red lantern on the ledge. Again it swung in a circle ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... for from behind came a loud crashing noise, caused by some floor falling, and a buzz of wonder and admiration arose as the glowing windows suddenly belched forth flame, spark, and glowing flakes of fire, in so many eddying, whirling columns, which rose up and up to mingle and gild the lower surface of the cloud of smoke which glowed with orange ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... our cool little parlor, Where no sunbeam e'er shines, and no sultry breath ever enters Through its thickness of wall. There mother will bring us a flagon Of our old eighty-three, with which we may banish our fancies. Here 'tis not cosey to drink: the flies so buzz round the glasses." Thither adjourned they then, and all ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the day's toil. The workers in the factory, a small army of men and women, boys and girls, poured forth from the doorways of the huge buildings, swarmed up the street, laughing and chattering, and dispersed to their several homes. The buzz and jarring of the machinery have ceased and silence fills the place. Even the offices are deserted, with the exception of one from which issues the steady click, ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... the head of the stairs, ostensibly to be nearer a light, and took out his purse. While counting out the bills, he cast frequent glances down into the lower hall. The buzz of conversation came up from ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... represent a shroud, and mourns over it like Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. Moreover, she takes a dozen or more other grasshoppers, and having removed some of their superfluous legs and wings she lays them about their dead and shrouded fellow. The buzz of the tortured insects and the agitated motions of their mutilated limbs represent the shrieks and contortions of the mourners at a funeral. After burying the deceased grasshopper she leaves the rest to continue their mourning ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the aisle, with portentous impressiveness as of a stately ocean liner coming to berth, a man advanced whose presence seemed to fill the room and give it the feeling of being unpleasantly crowded. A buzz went through the seats. "The Rector! The Rector!" The evangelist gazed upon the approaching form and stood as if incapable of proceeding until this impressive personage should come to rest. Deliberately the Rector advanced to ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... a breezy buzz of voices, laughter, the snap of ivory fans spreading, the whisk and rustle of petticoats. I leaned a moment over the rail which circled ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... was seated on a bank overhanging the river, which, being shallow at this spot, brawled loudly over its pebbly bed, some parts of which were dry. It was at such a distance from the city, that all the noises common to its streets were united into one buzz or hum, and the whole scene was well adapted to suggest meditations upon private matters, or the affairs of the world in general. Yet Bruin did not seem influenced by any such reflections: if one might venture ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... me have a squint through yer glass," and Terrence, assuming a liberty which he only could, took the glass from his hand. The screaming shell and whistling shot continued to come from the Xenophon. "Faith, thim bees buzz nicely round a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... had happened in the ground-floor bargain square. The wasps' nest had suddenly turned into a beehive. The buzz of rage had lulled to the hum of industry. Fred Thorpe, the "aisle manager," was blessed with the tact which only some secret sympathy or great natural kindness can put into a man; and it had kept him at a distance from Miss Stein ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... control turret came an audiphone buzz, and Drac's voice: "Am I headed right? The swing ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... drained. But the place would be too damp for a dwelling-house. It's all right as offices. They burn enormous fires. The rooms are quite charming. This is what happens to the stately homes of England—they buzz with inky clerks, or their equivalent. Stateliness is on its ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... Wal, I tried for a spell to settle down and live like other folks, but 'twa'n't no use. I was'nt used to the life, and I couldn't stand it. For ten years I haven't heard the sound of a human voice, and now they was buzz, buzzin' all the time; it seemed as if there was a swarm of wasps round my ears the everlastin' day. Buzz! buzz! and then clack! clack! like an everlasting mill-clapper; and folks starin' at my brown face and white hair, and askin' me foolish questions. I couldn't stand it, ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... the company, and then there was a buzz of secular talk, general rapture being expressed at the stolidness of Ezekiel's demeanor. Cups of tea were passed round by the lovely Leah, and the secrets of the paper bags were brought to light. Ephraim Phillips talked horses with Sam Levine, and old Hyams quarrelled with Malka ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... departed down the flagged path than back flitted the bevy of girls again into the study, until the small room was full to overflowing. It was like seeing a company of fat bumble-bees, their portly bodies resplendent in black and gold, buzz heavily out of a room, and a gay flight of pale-blue and lemon butterflies flit back in their places. All the daughters fell upon their father, Margaret, Bridget, Isabel, Sarah, Mary, and Susanna; ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... the entrance of the side-avenue, and peered out at the main avenue they had just left. And now that avenue began to buzz with traffic. ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... following his own sweet will in dressing. They had gone through with the minuet and the pantomimes; and Charlotte, in a peaked hat and a big flowered brocade gown rich with tambour lace, had sung "like a nightingale," as more than one declared, and now the room was in a buzz of applause. ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... the night, and I can write no more. Countless flying insects gather about us with a hateful buzz, and bite us beyond endurance. They are a pest ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... window to those of the butcher's back yard, and from the galled place on your cab- horse's back, to the brown spot in the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry republican buzz—what freedom is like his? ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... you will keep yourself to yourself, if you please, in the mean time. The bar parlor will no longer be open to you, until you have proved your right to be there. And I don't mean to promise any thing certain by that, neither; but what with your fast talking and fine speaking I'm all in a buzz." ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... or were needed, for even in February the heat upon the shores of the Red Sea is very great; and as the evening went on the buzz of talk and laughter died out, and the troops lay down and slept under the ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... divergence, would seem to be the inevitable degeneration which comes from haste, mercantile pressure, imitation and lack of commanding authority. There is plenty of technique, comparatively little personality. Yet it may be unfair to the present to make the comparison, for the incompetents buzz in our ears, while time has mercifully stilled the bogus romances of G.P.R. James, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... the listeners. That same buzz came irritatingly to the ears of a none-too-sprucely dressed young man who lay, with eyes shut, under the shifting shade of a giant palm, a hundred yards away. He had not caught the phrase which inspired the applause—thanks to the confusion of street sounds and the multiple ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... himself together with a sharp effort and entered into the conversation that had begun again to buzz round him. Moreover, he entered into it with keen pleasure, for the Brothers—there were perhaps a dozen of them in the little room—treated him with a charm of manner that speedily made him feel one of themselves. This, again, was a very subtle ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... parties on the line is by listening to the rattling noise which the drop armature makes. In the case of the Monarch drop the adjustable spring tension on the armature is intended to provide for such an adjustment as will permit the armature to give a satisfactory buzz in response to the alternating ringing currents, whether the line be ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... is so far from being a quiz in a buzz wig, that he is, I think, one of the men I should most choose for an agreeable companion in a post-chaise. Whether he is prepared to undertake so formidable an expedition as you speak of, I should have some doubt, and the rather because he has usually some project of his own for ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... up to the chancel-rail, beckoning to the other officers to accompany him. When the Mass was finished, and the Host had been placed behind the crystal shield in the processional sun, the celebrant and his ministers retired to the sacristy to change their vestments, and a little buzz of whispered conversation broke out through the church. Montanelli remained seated on his throne, looking straight before him, immovably. All the sea of human life and motion seemed to surge around and below him, and to die away into stillness about his feet. ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... company was large now, and the buzz of tongues considerable; though nothing like what had been in Mrs. Starling's parlour. So soon as the two new-comers were fairly seated and at work, Mrs. Flandin took up the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... you can tell when spring is here. How pleasant the air feels as it blows in through the window! It seems to kiss us with its warm breath. You can hear the birds chirping as if they were happy. Perhaps a bee will buzz into the room. Many of the children will bring to school the dainty little spring flowers, anemones, blood ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... months of July and August, the tree called bois immortel, very common in Demerara, bears abundance of red blossom which stays on the tree for some weeks; then it is that most of the different species of humming-birds are very plentiful. The wild red sage is also their favourite shrub, and they buzz like bees round the blossom of the wallaba tree. Indeed, there is scarce a flower in the interior, or on the sea-coast, but what receives frequent visits from one or ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... from the window by the heels. He didn't mean it, to be sure; but young Gourlay grew white at the very idea o't—he shook like a dog in a wet sack. 'Oh,' he cried, shivering, 'how the ground would go flying past your eyes; how quick the wheel opposite ye would buzz—it would blind ye by its quickness; how the gray slag would flash below ye!' Those were his very words. He seemed to see the thing as if it were happening before his eyes, and stared like a fellow in hysteerics, till Dan ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... conspicuous, yu' may say, as when Old Faithful Geyser lets loose. Yu' see, one batch o' tourists pulls out right after breakfast for Norris Basin, leavin' things empty and yawnin'. By noon the whole hotel outfit has been slumberin' in its chairs steady for three hours. Maybe yu' might hear a fly buzz, but maybe not. Everything's liable to be restin', barrin' the kid. He's a-watchin' out. Then he sees the dust, and he says 'Stage!' and it touches the folks off like a hot pokeh. The Syndicate manager he lopes to a lookin'glass, and then organizes ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... was thoroughly easy and courteous, after which he begged them to leave him to himself, and to give their undivided attention to the young, whose special evening it was. Curiosity once gratified, the suspended buzz of eager talk broke out again, and allowed Mr Tankardew to make his way to Mrs Franklin and her daughter. These he saluted very heartily, and added, "Let an old man sit by you awhile, and watch the proceedings of the young ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning. In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... sympathies drooped towards the ground like an untrained honeysuckle—and but for one, in my own house—but of this I cannot speak. It was a lonely life, growing green like the grass around it. Books and dreams were what I lived in—and domestic life only seemed to buzz gently around, like the bees about the grass. And so time passed, and passed—and afterwards, when my illness came and I seemed to stand at the edge of the world with all done, and no prospect (as appeared at one time) ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the inhabitants of our shanty. The peculiar delight of a mosquito is to arrive just at the moment when you are falling off to sleep, properly fatigued with your day's work. You hear a long, threatening boom, which finally ends with a sharp jerk, like buzz-z-z-z-z-z-zup. Then you wait in anxious expectancy for what you well know will come next. It does come, a sharp prick on some part where you least expected it. You slap angrily at the place, and hurt yourself, but ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... and the genius of woman. I can understand that those little spiders, Mademoiselle de Belor, Mademoiselle de Trans, and others, after working so long at their webs without catching a fly, without so much as hearing a buzz, should be furious; I can even forgive their spiteful speeches. But that you, who can marry your daughter when you please, you, who are rich and titled, you who have nothing of the provincial about you, whose daughter is clever and possesses fine qualities, with beauty ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... the fine cook she is!" She ran out to the landing (she had never known he was so nice). Mr. Philip found that her absence acted curiously as a relief to an excitement that was beginning to buzz in his head. Then she came back with the tray, her cheeks bright and her mouth pursed, for she and the caretaker had been sandpapering each other's temperaments with a few words. "Be thankful she thought ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... life, this unknown husband. All, surely, could not be like this one. He might have been handsome, witty, distinguished, attractive, such as, no doubt, her old companions of the convent had married. What were they doing now? In town, with the noise of the streets, the buzz of the theatres and the lights of the ballroom, they were living lives where the heart expands, the senses bourgeon out. But she—her life was cold as a garret whose dormer window looks on the north, and ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... privileges of the noblesse and of the clergy, and gave his mind anxiously to the instruction of the people, whose condition and welfare he wanted to simultaneously elevate and augment; already there was a buzz of murmurs against him, confined as yet to the courtiers, when the dearness of bread and the distress which ensued till the spring of 1775 furnished his adversaries with a convenient pretext. Up to that time the attacks had been cautious and purely theoretical. M. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... towards midnight, to meet whom the head-waiter himself came hurrying from the further end of the room, and whose arrival created a little buzz of interest. The woman who formed the central figure of the little group had for two years known no rival either at Court or in Society. She was the most beautiful woman in England, beautiful too ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and there was such a pain in my head as I began to remember it all once more, that I could not ask any more questions. Presently my head began to buzz and the pain in it to get worse, and then for a week I had a fever that came near to taking me off. But I pulled through"—he squeezed his wife's hand, that again had been laid in his—"and in three weeks I was back with the ...
— For The Honor Of France - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... hear that?" asked Joe, after a pause, during which he and his chum could hear the low buzz of conversation ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... commence to buzz about us, and bite our hands and necks sharply. Just as we are thinking of breakfast, we meet some buffaloes grazing by the path; but they make off in a heavy gallop at the sight of man. We fire, and the foremost, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... door was opened no more than was necessary for the passage of a human body; and there entered at the same moment a louder buzz of talk, and the redoubtable President of the Suicide Club. The President was a man of fifty or upwards; large and rambling in his gait, with shaggy side whiskers, a bald top to his head, and a veiled grey eye, which now and then emitted a twinkle. His mouth, which ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... third night, the telephone beside her pillow gave a buzz, more terrifying than a shout of fire, an earthquake, a knife at the throat. Brantome was speaking. Parr had returned to the house in Greenwich Village. Lawrence Teck had sailed secretly, that day, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... only a bluebottle on the fly-paper besides Faithful, Jimmy says, so that it wasn't very crowded; but by the buzz the bluebottle kept on making you would think it owned the fly-paper. Jimmy says his bloodhound had never shared a fly-paper with a bluebottle before, and he kept stopping to answer the bluebottle back instead of keeping to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... a loud whirr of wheels, a buzz of internal mechanism, and all the little figures would stop dead with arms outstretched, whilst the beheaded doll rolled off the board and was lost to view, no doubt preparatory to going through the same ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... finances, with which nothing but the undaunted courage and administrative abilities of Cato could have successfully grappled. He was disturbing a nest of hornets, and all his future life was troubled by their buzz, and their attempts to sting. But, though he was accused no fewer than forty-four times during the course of his life, it was only once that his enemies prevailed against him. His enactments against luxury were severe and stringent. He levied a heavy tax upon expensive slaves ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... proposition, so they gathered up their supplies and moved along the hollow to where a passage had been cut through. They had gone barely a hundred yards when a screech, like a buzz-saw when it strikes a nail, sounded overhead. Looking up they saw a black disk hurtling through the air, to drop almost where they had been standing a moment before. There was a terrific explosion that sent ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... she slept together on the first night, so as to be able to buzz until morning, as they had used to do in their young days, when one of them was allowed to go on a visit to the other and stay overnight. There ensued a very orgy of talk, a going over of all that had happened since their ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Among them, in the centre of the room, stood a samovar or tea-urn, humming and emitting clouds of steam. On the walls hung all sorts of coats and cloaks, among which there were even some with beaver collars or velvet facings. Beyond, the buzz of conversation was audible, and became clear and loud when the servant came out with a trayful of empty glasses, cream-jugs, and sugar-bowls. It was evident that the officials had arrived long before, and had already finished their first glass ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... What a buzz that shakes the skies!— These must be the great May-beetles Of the nation's dawning Spring, With a ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... the alarm, And from cottage and farm, The natives buzz'd out like the bees when they swarm; And off ran the folk,— It is such a good joke To see the descent of a ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... before us. Let the honorable gentleman continue with the same manly independence, aloof from party views and local prejudices, to pursue the great interests of his country, and fulfil the high destiny for which it is manifest he was born. The buzz of popular applause may not cheer him on his way, but he will inevitably arrive at a high and happy elevation in the view of his ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... behind him. In this vehicle were pent up, first, the stately figure of Mr. Oldbuck himself; secondly, the scarce less portly person of the Reverend Mr. Blattergowl, minister of Trotcosey, the parish in which Monkbarns and Knockwinnock were both situated. The reverend gentleman was equipped in a buzz wig, upon the top of which was an equilateral cocked hat. This was the paragon of the three yet remaining wigs of the parish, which differed, as Monkbarns used to remark, like the three degrees of comparisonSir Arthur's ramilies being the positive, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... later Frank dropped off in front of police headquarters. And no sooner had he alighted than the lad discovered that there was a buzz of excitement about the place, for several men were conferring and the chief himself seemed disturbed. He looked eagerly at Frank as the boy came forward and started to relate what had occurred on the preceding night out ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... the first part of the program, and there was a buzz of conversation which softened into silence as the school orchestra filed on the stage. It was warmly greeted, for this was its first public appearance, and the proud parents of the performers were anxious to hear the results of their practice together. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... disturb Ruth, who was evidently praying, and, by her quiet breathing, receiving grave and solemn influences into her soul. At length she rose up, calm and composed even to dignity. The chapel was still and empty; but Miss Benson heard the buzz of voices in the chapel-yard without. They were probably those of people waiting for her; and she summoned courage, and taking Ruth's arm in hers, and holding her hand affectionately, they went out into the broad ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... would sit calm and smiling, coatless, a corncob pipe between his teeth, and read "copy" with the speed of two ordinary men. The excited night city editor would rush about, shouting orders and countermanding them; reporters would dash in and out; telegraph instruments would buzz; the nerve-wracking whistle of the tube from the composing room would shrill at sudden intervals, causing everybody to start involuntarily each time and to curse with vexation and anger; the irritable night editor, worried lest he miss the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... a very satisfactory explanation. I made no further inquiries, and we continued our way in silence until we arrived at the school door; there was a terrible buzz inside. Ben tapped, the door opened, and a volume of hot air burst forth, all the fresh air having been consumed in repeating the fresh lessons for the day. Ben walked up between the forms, and introduced me to the schoolmaster, whose name was Mr Thadeus ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... at once. 'Bad news?' said he. 'My dear boy, I'm delighted. God bless you both.' Then he made me tell him how it all happened, and listened without a word. I thought I'd faint. He pulled some gag about Daniel and the lion; then his voice got far away and the blamed wire began to buzz, so I hung up and beat it back here. I'm ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... Felix lay still in his hut, dozing, and just vaguely conscious of a buzz of a mosquito close to his ear, he was aroused by a sudden loud cry outside—a cry that called his native name three times, running: "O King of the Rain, King of the Rain, King of the Rain, awake! High time to be up! The King of the Birds ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... given, the men piled their arms and seated themselves on the short turf. Presently Ralph heard a sudden exclamation of surprise and satisfaction as one of the men tasted the contents of his water-bottle, and in a minute there was a buzz of talk. Before scarce a word had been spoken; the men had been marching in a sort of sulky silence, disgusted at being taken from their beds for work they disliked, and at their long march through the damp night air; but their satisfaction at this ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... modified: [The honey bees buzz in the clover]; one may be modified and the other unmodified: [Bees buzz ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... It is, therefore, the last subject in the world to be approached academically. Yet most of the approach to the problems of labor is academic. Men in sanctuaries forever far removed from the endless hum and buzz and roar of machinery, with an intellectual background and individual ambitions forever far removed from the interests and desires of those who labor in factory and mill, theorize—and another volume is added to ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... marvel, since there is a compulsory school law in Germany; but perhaps to-day is a holiday; or maybe, after school hours, it is customary for these unhappy youngsters to repair to the road-sides and blister their hands with cracking flints. "Hungry as a buzz-saw" I roll into the sleepy old town of Rothenburg at six o'clock, and, repairing to the principal hotel, order supper. Several flunkeys of different degrees of usefulness come in and bow obsequiously from time to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... in saffron shirts, their huge naked axes swung over their shoulders, their long hair streaming behind them, their great hairy mantles dangling nearly to their heels. So attended, and in such order, Shane presented himself before the queen, amid a buzz, as may be imagined, of courtly astonishment. Elizabeth seems to have been equal to the situation. She motioned Shane, who had prostrated himself, clansman fashion upon the floor, to rise, "check'd with a glance the circle's ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... cried the announcer, amid a buzz of approval, after the measurers of the course had done ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... consideration in one respect. In the midst of her teaching, and preparations for her wedding, she had planned a lovely dress for Maria. It was unquestionable but the realization of her own loveliness, and her new attire had an alleviating influence upon Maria. There was a faint buzz of admiration for her when she entered the church. She looked as if enveloped in a soft gray cloud. Ida had planned a dress of some gray stuff, and a soft gray hat, tied under her chin with wide ribbons, and a long gray plume floating over her golden-fleece of hair. Maria had ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that body, which inspired him with an anticipatory fear. However, on arriving at power he dared not oppose himself to the exigencies of the moment, and he consented for a time to delude the ambitious dupes who kept up a buzz of fine sentiments of liberty around him. He saw that circumstances were not yet favourable for refusing a share in the Constitution to this third portion of power, destined apparently to advocate the interests of the people before the legislative body. But in yielding to necessity, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... her away from me. I guess I scared her. She is in Vera's car with them. If you don't enjoy my society, stop the buzz buggy and I will get out and walk. I may lose a pound or two, even if ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... buzz of voices that followed, Marcia commenced a lively colloquy with Greenleaf, as though she desired to leave him under the impressions with which the evening commenced. The amusements of summer were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... down till she sat on the floor at her granny's feet, her head resting against granny's knee. "I think so too," she said wistfully. Silence fell between them, broken only by the crackling of the fire within and the buzz of insects, and the calling of the birds, ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... some large tropical wasp advancing angrily towards me, as I have witnessed a hundred times, not exactly flying, but moving rapidly, half running and half flying, over the ground, with loud and angry buzz, the glistening wings open and agitated; beautiful beyond most animated creatures in its sharp but graceful lines, polished surface, and varied brilliant colouring, and that wrathfulness that fits it so well and seems to give ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... of the intrusive crowd. Without a sigh or sign of impatience, He 'welcomed them'—a difficult thing to do, and one which few of us could have achieved. The motives of most of them can have been nothing higher than what leads vulgar people of all ranks and countries to buzz about distinguished men, utterly regardless of delicacy or considerateness. They want to see the notoriety, no matter what it costs him. But Jesus received them patiently, because, as Mark touchingly tells, He was ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was succeeded by a buzz, a murmur, suppressed almost as soon as heard. Tom Channing's face turned scarlet, then became deadly white. It was a cruel blow. Huntley, with an impetuous step, advanced a few paces, and spoke ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... people; Air Force brass, technicians, observers, enlisted men of indiscernible purpose. The room hummed with the muted buzz of low, serious conversation. ...
— Sound of Terror • Don Berry
... hank'cher, and you'd better believe—I want it quick. I found it, and I'm gwine to give it up; and you have got no right to jeppardy my life, if you are fool enough to resk your own stiff neck. Gim'me that hank'cher! Fantods is played out. I would ruther play leap frog over a buzz-saw than—than—pester and rile Marse Alfred, and have the cunstable clawing ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... been treated to it again and again, of course, even if we have never stirred from home; but that is only a reason the more for catching at any freshness that may be left in the world of photography. It is in Venice above all that we hear the small buzz of this vulgarising voice of the familiar; yet perhaps it is in Venice too that the picturesque fact has best mastered the pious secret of how to wait for us. Even the classic Salute waits like some great lady on the threshold of her saloon. She is more ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... atmosphere it does not desire a single finger-breadth more than what is necessary for its sails to turn round in. But this space must be left free and unimpeded. Gnats, beetles, wasps, butterflies, and the whole tribe of ephemerals and insignificants, may flit in and out and between; may hum, and buzz, and jar; may shrill their tiny pipes, and wind their puny horns, unchastised and unnoticed. But idlers and bravadoes of larger size and prouder show must beware, how they place themselves within its sweep. Much ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the handle of her sunshade. This summons eliciting no response, she repeated it; but by-and-by the opening of a door within the house let out upon her the sound of Sennacherib's voice, hitherto audible only as an undefined and surly buzz. ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... this fact is becoming generally recognised. You cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less confused and contradictory talk on this subject—nor can you fail to notice that, in one point at any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like discussions in former days. Nobody outside the agricultural ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... reported upon the Zululand border, while Viljoen had succeeded in crossing the Delagoa line and winning back to his old lair in the district north of Middelburg, from which he had been evicted in April. The commandos were like those pertinacious flies which buzz upwards when a hand approaches them, but only to settle again in the same place. One could but try to make the place ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... drawings—the picture—of the thing. But the itch must be present in the man. And, like the desire within him to figure, it must make itself manifest within him early in life. If a young man be of those who early like to crawl in under the family buzz-wagon; tinker there for half a day at a time; emerge in a thick coating of grease and dust and with joy in his eye—such a young man has the necessary qualifications for a successful engineer. He may never do this—as I say—in all his engineering ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... brick-coloured faces, and sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a mythological subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, of linseed-oil and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and the windows. A daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from behind the looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here—and ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... and a buzz behind her, as if all the bees in the world were humming, and the little old man cries out, 'There go your bees a-swarming and a-going off ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... beautiful saddle horse—his gait a natural single foot—and I sometimes ride him, but most of my outings are on the electric cars. I might as well be on them, since I have to hear their buzz and clang both day and night from our rooms here in the hotel. The other morning, as I was returning from a ride across the river to Council Bluffs, I heard the shrill notes of a calliope that reminded me that Forepaugh's ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the rattling of plates, the coming and going, the buzz of conversation, these two men chatted good-naturedly over their meal. At its conclusion, they ordered coffee, cigars and liqueurs, and leant back comfortably in their chairs. Hundreds of others there, ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... when he reached the long cross street that led to the lane of the cottage, and the buzz of the passing cars no longer disturbed the hoarse chorus of frogs. Sommers crept up the lane stealthily to the dark cottage, afraid for what he might find, chilled by the forbidding aspect of the place. Instead of entering the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... followed—the buzz of expostulation; tones louder and louder—words so distinct that to prevent her anxious ears from listening, Violet began to practise Johnnie in all his cries of ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the last word seemed to be spoken, and the leaves and the lamps and all the little dear things seemed emptied of their glory. There were the nights of labour: dull nights of stress and struggle, under the hard white lights, the crashing of the presses, and the infuriating buzz of the tape ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... wings among the trees, and observed that they were teasing a Hawk about as large as themselves, which was also on the wing. Presently all three had risen above the branches, and were circling higher and higher in a slow spiral. The Crows kept constantly swooping at their enemy, with the same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly the lead. They seldom struck at him with their beaks, but kept lumbering against him, and flapping him with their wings, as if in a fruitless effort to capsize him; while the Hawk kept carelessly eluding the assaults, now inclining ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... head. The bees came flying out, and the Queen-bee asked him if he had a stiff neck, since he held his head so awry? "Alas, no," answered the tailor, "something quite different weighs me down," and he told her what the King had demanded of him. The bees began to buzz and hum amongst themselves, and the Queen-bee said, "Just go home again, but come back to-morrow at this time, and bring a large sheet with you, and then all will be well." So he turned back again, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... their books; or, more naughty still, shooting paper bullets at old Hobby's wooden leg as he eat dozing behind his high desk of a drowsy summer afternoon,—our George, with his hands to his ears to keep out the schoolroom buzz, would be studying with all his might; nor would he once raise his eyes from his book till every word of his lesson was ready to drop from his tongue's end of its own accord. So well did he apply himself, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... which absorbed it in reality more than anything else. Before he knew it he had not only answered the particular question, but had gone on to describe the picture of desperate life in the tenement district. The buzz of conversation in the other rooms gradually ceased. The group about the minister grew, as others became aware that something unusual was going on in that particular room. He unconsciously grew eloquent and his handsome face lighted ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate! Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer 10 My lady eyes some maid of humbler state, While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest, Prattles accordant ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... shields, as men smote each other with their swords and spears pointed at both ends. A man had need of good eyesight now to know Sarpedon, so covered was he from head to foot with spears and blood and dust. Men swarmed about the body, as flies that buzz round the full milk-pails in spring when they are brimming with milk—even so did they gather round Sarpedon; nor did Jove turn his keen eyes away for one moment from the fight, but kept looking at it all the time, for he was settling ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old. The flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a notebook. ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... bright fall morning when this particular call came through. I hadn't heard the phone ring, nor did I hear Mr. Spardleton answer it in response to Susan's buzz. But some sixth sense brought me upright in my chair when I heard Mr. Spardleton say, "Well, how are things out in the ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... very cruel, dear Buzz," said little Hum; "let us take him to our Queen, and she will tell us how to show our anger for the wicked deeds he did. See how bitterly he weeps; be kind to him, he will not ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... Edgeworth passes from the Reception Room, across the Hall, leaning on Mr. Rayne's arm, and into the Ball-room. No one makes any pronounced interruption to their occupation as she enters, but somehow the buzz seems to abate considerably, and the voices seem to ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... the eye could reach. But no! That was a circular spot against the brilliant white of the clouds, and it was rapidly coming closer. In a few minutes it resolved itself into the Comet, fast relief ship of the Terrestial, Inranian, Genidian, and Zydian Lines, Inc. With a low buzz of her repulsion motors she drew alongside. Hooks were attached and ports opened. A petty officer and a crew of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... over the unlimited plains on his margin, reminded me that the sun would be shortly sunk, and that I had still above fifteen miles to go. Gathering a purple iris that grew upon the bank, I wore it to his honour; and have reason to fancy my piety was rewarded, as not a fly or an insect dared to buzz about me the ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... curiosity became impatient of the silence and mystery, and he ventured once more to explore the house. Opening his bedroom door, he found himself again upon the deserted corridor, but this time he could distinctly hear a buzz of voices from the drawing-room below. Assured that he was near a solution of the mystery, he rapidly descended the broad staircase and made his way to the open door of the drawing-room. But although the sound of voices increased as he advanced, when he entered the room, to his ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... last filled with internal care and anxiety. Formerly in her prayers she had offered to Christ a heart calm, and really pure as a tear. Now that calmness was disturbed. To the interior of the flower a poisonous insect had come and began to buzz. Even sleep, in spite of the two nights passed without sleep, brought her no relief. She dreamed that at Ostrianum Nero, at the head of a whole band of Augustians, bacchantes, corybantes, and gladiators, was trampling crowds of ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Excited men left Beale and rallied round me. Charlie, rising to his feet, found himself dethroned from his position of man of the moment, and stood blinking at the setting sun and opening and shutting his mouth. There was a buzz ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... He even assumed, when he wished, an excellent manner; but this cavalier, his own master from his childhood, knew no other law but his own pleasures and desires. He had made people talk about him in his earliest youth; he awoke the same buzz of scandal now that he was fifty. Madame de Maintenon, hoping to reform him, and wishing to constrain him to beget them an heir, made him consent to the bonds of marriage. She had just discovered a very pretty heiress of very good family, when he married secretly the daughter of a mere 'procureur ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his right and the doctor to his left. Eighteen other guests now reclined upon their cushions to left and right, so that we were all arranged in a direct line, facing the lower terrace whence came the feminine buzz. Directly opposite each of us was an ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... consulted together for a minute or two in the jury box, and then expressed their desire to retire. A buzz of talk arose in the court, when they had left. Opinion was divided as to what the verdict would be. When the counsel for the defence sat down, the general opinion was that the prisoner would be certainly acquitted; but the speech of the counsel for the ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... clucking of their wheels, the yells and oaths of the drivers, the cracking of whips, mingled with the braying of mules, the neighing of the horses, the commands of the officers engaged in drilling the men, the incessant hum and buzz of the camps, the blare of bugles, and the roll of drums,—all these made up a prodigious volume of sound that lasted from the coming-up to the going-down of the sun. But this morning was strangely still. The wagons were silent, the mules were peacefully munching their hay, and the ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... in the other room, talking to Jastro, a buzz of voices came from the hall through the thin pine panels of the door. All day long a sixty-mile gale had twisted the snow of the lane into whirling, fantastic columns and rattled the windows of Franco-Belgian Hall. But ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the speaker sat a grey-haired man in spectacles, and Lemuel knew that he was in the court-room, and that this must be the judge. He could not see much of the room over the top of the railing, but there was a buzz of voices and a stir of feet beyond, that made him think the place was full. But full or empty, it was the same to him; his shame could not be greater or less. He waited apathetically while the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... personage, conducted him to the desk, and placed for him the official chair, which he shortly refused, I lifted my eyes, "prepared for any fate," to observe what might be the condition of my turbulent flock, and lo—all the tops, and Jews-harps, and apples, and whirligigs, and miniature buzz-saws had disappeared, and there was an array of pallid faces bent over another array of books—many of the latter were upside down, but the effect was unbroken. Even Estella, moved by some sudden divine ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... during a profound silence. But as soon as it was finished, the buzz was redoubled through all the drawing-rooms; the brilliant sums, the rolling millions which were to be at the command of the two young people, and which crowned the display of the wedding presents and the young lady's diamonds, which had been made in a room entirely appropriated for that ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not taken many steps, on the chance of finding their hostess, when a slight buzz arose, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Infamous! sit down, and compose yourself, my love;—the gentleman and I shall soon come to an understanding. One word, sir: [Mary sits at the back of the Scene, the Men advance.] I have lived long in India;—but the flies, who gad thither, buzz in our ears, till we learn what they have blown upon in England. I have heard of the wretch, in whose house you meant to place ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... head out of the hole you have a nose-breadth escape. If a hundredth part of the providential deliverances told in Ladysmith were true, it was a miracle that anybody in the place was alive after the first quarter of an hour. A day of this and you are a nerveless semi-corpse, twitching at a fly-buzz, a misery to yourself and a ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... multiplication table of no avail, I summoned up a grayish image of chaos in a sort of sliding fluidity, and was just falling into a nap on the strength of it, when I heard a solitary and distinct buzz. The hour of my calamity was at hand. One blended hum, the creature darted into the canoe like a small swordfish; and I out ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... repudiated the notion of his being "a genius," attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation. John Hunter said of himself, "My mind is like a beehive; but full as it is of buzz and apparent confusion, it is yet full of order and regularity, and food collected with incessant industry from the choicest stores of nature." We have, indeed, but to glance at the biographies of great men to find that the most distinguished inventors, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... laugh on Ralf Percy's face, and a sneer on that of the stout English porter, Malcolm felt doubly wretched as he was ushered into the hall and the buzz of talk and the confusion made by the attendance of the worthy knight and his many sons, one of whom, waiting with better will than skill, had nearly run down the shy limping Scotsman, who looked wildly for refuge at some table. In his height of distress, a kindly ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... That buzz was maddening. For three long hours I had to sit there and listen to the children as they droned over and over their lessons. Yet this was my life's work. To my care Six Stars had intrusted her young, and I should be ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... a lively little war of words with a yellow-haired young person near the door. Anna picked up an ancient magazine, and began to turn over the pages in a leisurely way. The conversation which her entrance had interrupted began to buzz again all around her. A quarter of an hour passed. Then the inner door opened abruptly. A tall, clean-shaven man came out and walked rapidly through the room, exchanging greetings right and left, but evidently ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... feathers and fur were tense and nervous. The birds were singing only a few broken snatches, and flying around, seeking places of shelter. One moment everything seemed devoid of life, the next there was an unexpected whir, buzz, and sharp cry. Inside, a pandemonium of growling, spatting, snarling, and ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... nest of wasps about my ears. The French fops, here, all buzz and swarm around her; each making love to her, with all the shrugs, grimaces, and ready made raptures of which he is master; and to which I am obliged patiently to listen, or shew myself an ass. These fellows submit to every kind of monopoly, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... smoke of my own breath, Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs, The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color'd sea-rocks, and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... this white, glaring-eyed, drawn-faced woman the one who had gone for Neale? Allie began to shake. She saw and heard with startling distinctness. The woman's cry had turned every face toward the stairway, and the buzz of ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... other voices that would command, and hush them that you may listen to Him. It is always difficult enough for Christian men to ascertain, in perplexed circumstances, the clear path of duty; but it is impossible if, along with His voice, we let the buzz of the crowd be audible in our ears. There is only one way by which we can hear what our 'Lord the King appoints,' and that is by making a great stillness in our souls, and neither letting our own yelping inclinations give tongue, nor the babble of men round ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... condoling with myself, vowing the whole problem a plague and a cheat. This idle wandering might have lasted until dawn, had it not been for my neighbour in the room to my left, who began to talk with a low buzz as of a night-insect humming in a bed-curtain. The surging of the voice amused me; I lay quite still and listened to it. Now it rose loud—I gleaned a word, and was pleased; now it fell—and I fretted; but anon another voice was added to the first, and, if the one had pleased me, the second ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Commons blossomed to-night like a rose-garden. Yesterday, and for days before, empty benches and a fagged remnant wrestling with routine votes. To-night House crowded, and buzz of excitement filled chamber. GLADSTONE going to move hostile Resolution on Government proposal to proclaim Land League. Every Member in town early in his place. Members from afar arrived post haste. Even RANDOLPH, temporarily returns. Old Morality smiles ghastly smile of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... was the swimming ease of the acting, on the stage, where virtue had its reward in three easy acts, perhaps it was the excessive light of the house, or the music, or the buzz of the excited talk between acts, perhaps it was youth which believed everything, but for some reason while Philip was at the theatre he had the utmost confidence in life and his ready ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lain so long and so forbodingly, the body of John Wilkes Booth, sealed up in the brick floor, had long been mouldering. If the dead can hear he had listened many a time to the rattle of their manacles upon the stairs, to the drowsy hum of the trial and the buzz of the garrulous spectators; to the moaning, or the gibing, or the praying in the bolted cells where those whom kindred fate had given a little lease upon life lay waiting ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... inclined to settle on it. Guido put up his hand to catch the butterfly, forgetting his secret in his desire to touch it. The butterfly was too quick—with a snap of his wings, disdainfully mocking the idea of catching him, away he went. Guido nearly stepped on a humble-bee—buzz-zz! the bee was so alarmed he actually crept up Guido's knickers to the knee, and even then knocked himself against a wheat-ear when he started to fly. Guido kept quite still while the humble-bee was on his knee, knowing that he should not be stung if he did not move. He knew, too, that ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... heard the machine comin' in the yard I knowed somethin' was wrong an' I guess it couldn't be no worse," added Mary, beginning to cry. "You hadn't no right to do ut, Bill. Hookin' a buzz-buzz an' a kid an' when we wuz playin' the white card! You ought t' 'a' told me, Bill, what ye went to town fer, an' it bein' Christmas, ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... throng Round Krindlesyke, as bees about a thistle! And I'm to set the peelers on my son? If he'd gone with Peter, they'd have tracked his hobnails ... It snowed that night ... The snowflakes buzz like bees About the prickling thistles in my head— Big bumblebees ... I ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... were busy ones, and confusing as well. Wall Street was a-buzz with curiosity and from all sides poured questions. "The Street," it was evident, had awakened to the fact that the situation in Amalgamated disclosed a different line-up of conditions from that which it had anticipated. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... peace of Canon's Yard when he left Bodger's Street was almost dramatic. All that penetrated there was a subdued buzz with an occasional shrill note as it might be on a penny whistle. The Yard was dark, lit only by a single lamp, and the cobbles uneven. Lights here and there set in the crooked old windows were secret and uncommunicative: the Cathedral towers seemed immensely tall against the dusk. It would not ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... his distressing habit of allowing the office to interfere with his pleasures. He was planning a little trip to the Polo Grounds, in which Mr. Pett, his father, and a number of pop bottles were to be his companions, when his reverie was interrupted by a sudden cessation of the buzz of talk. He looked up from his plate, to find the entire company regarding Willie Partridge open-mouthed. Willie, with gleaming eyes, was gazing at a small test-tube which he had produced from his pocket ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... New-Yorker's speech, I should say monotone. Notice any one of our young men—you will find his conversational voice pitched in the same key. Sumner goes on at the same uniform growl, Edwards in an unvaried buzz. When I first landed in England, I was struck with the much greater variety of tone one hears in ordinary conversation. Your women, especially, seemed to me always just going to sing. And I fancied the address of the men affected—just as, very likely, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various |
