"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assisting an old man to carry in some geraniums and balsams out of the covered cart which had stopped the way. In the hall a crowd of children were gathered round a high stand, on which they were eagerly arranging their flower-pots; and the busy hum of voices was so loud, that when Miss Portman first went in, she could neither hear the servant, nor make him hear her name. Nothing was to be heard but "Oh, how beautiful! Oh, how sweet! That's mine! That's yours! The great rose geranium ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... rambled all along shore gathering the tiniest little shells that ever a wave tossed up—and how she took off her shoes and stockings and dipped her feet in the cool water, and listened to the bees' drowsy hum from the old tree trunk close by, and watched the busy ant stagger home, under the weight of his well earned morsel—and how she made a bridge of stones over a little streamlet to pluck some crimson lobelias, growing on the other side, and some ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... hum and whirr of two high-powered motors chugging in unison stole upon the air and rapidly increased in volume. Ben craned his neck from the window ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... ideal state, and evidently felt that in his leisure hours he could compose, write for magazines, and the like; but the hard, unwonted though self- imposed labor, the peculiar surroundings, the buzz and hum of the large family in which he could not fail to take an interest, distracted him from his purpose. James T. Fields, the publisher, said of him, "He was a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude." He could not put his ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... of the log-fire in the great open fireplace, and the solemn ticking of the gold clock that had stood there, in the same place of honour, for the last hundred years. He passed over to the windows and flung them open; the hum of the town came, with the cold night air, into the room. The stars were brilliant to-night and the golden haze of the lamplight hung over the streets like a magic curtain. Ah! how good it was! The peace of it, the comfort, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... them even with his glasses on, they were so high and looked so small. He knocked on the trunk of the tree, and when I told him that I could see bees pouring out and distinctly hear the hum of those in the tree he was satisfied that I ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... actor give this word "so" its proper emphasis. Shakespeare's meaning is—"lov'd you? Hum!—so I do still," &c. There has been no change in my opinion:—I think as ill of you as I did. Else Hamlet tells an ignoble falsehood, and a useless one, as the last speech to ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... leisure; and, stepping into a boat, rowed along, at first, by the quivering osiers; then, launching out into the midst of the waters, I glided a few moments with the current, and resting on my oars, listened to the hum of voices afar off, while several little skiffs, like canoes, glanced before my sight, concerning which distance and the twilight allowed me to make a thousand fantastic conjectures. When I had sufficiently indulged ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... a hum of voices struck their ears from every side. There was a group of ladies and gentlemen round the fire, and several of them vacated their seats for the convenience of the new comers. A large woman with a very ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... clear that she was going to make a struggle for her life, and to do vicious damage, it might be, before she yielded it up. The watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this. Their wagers, and the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... by rail, in an open carriage, is not the most interesting journey in the world. Whirr, whizz, burr! away we hum through the keen Spring air, between pleasant banks and dark fir-woods, not very rapidly indeed, for we travel under government regulations, but pleasantly enough if it were not for the sparks and the dust. There are few objects of interest on our route, till we perceive the towers ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... arranged around the seats. The men who were at work did not know me, and I was unnoticed, but I should soon take my place upon the softest of those cushions. I walked slowly backwards and forwards on the quay, listening to a hum of voices that came to me from a distance. There was clearly something stirring in the town, and I felt certain that all the movement and all those distant voices were connected in some way with my expedition to the Well of Moses. At last there came a lad upon the ...
— George Walker At Suez • Anthony Trollope
... "Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements." Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of foolscap paper folded into four. This he opened and spread flat upon the table. Across ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... wild beasts, but they had gone clean an' clear. Then I made up my mind the best to do war to get them babies to some shelter, or they'd freeze to deth. I didn't know ef other folks around here war to hum, so I made for this place. When I got to the split hickory I war so tuckered out I set up the ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... champagne. Presently I knew myself descending, leaving, as I felt rather than saw, the stark horror of the gorge and its glimmering snow patches above me. Puffs of a warmer air purred past my face with little friendly sighs of welcome, and the hum of a far-off torrent struck like a wedge into the indurated fibre of the night. As I dropped, however, the mountain heads grew up against the moon, and withheld the comfort of her radiance; and it was not until the whimper of the torrent had quickened ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... ten miles away, and the poor beggars hadn't ten minutes to wait. They knew that, according to their religion, it meant eternal hell for them. Whittenden heard about it, and came running, book in one hand, surplice in the other. The way he made that service for the dying hum was a caution; but he got it done in time, before the first man died." Reed's face was growing scarlet with the excitement of the memory. "It was Protestant, of course; but they didn't know English enough to find it out, and they died ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... hopes were exchanged between the different groups in a sort of gay and formidable whisper which resembled the warlike hum of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and wound about with memories, like twilight, and the song of the thrush; even at its least, it had been the glow that lives behind the northern horizon in midsummer, witnessing to the hidden glory, during darkness, or the wistful glimmer of stars. Now, while the sun went higher, and all the hum of life rose, and the cries of the water-birds, the buzz of insects over the bright lake, became more insistent, and the blue and lovely morning spread and strengthened round her, criticism and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... office seemed to be waiting for her, the pictures regarding her as though they were saying "Where have you been, young lady? We began to think you had gone." Through the window sounded the old symphony, the roar of the falls above the hum of the shops, the choruses and variations of well-nigh countless tools, each having its own particular note ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... smell of sprouting grass! In a blur the violets pass. Whispering from the wildwood come Mayflower's breath and insect's hum. Roses carpeting the ground; Thrushes, orioles, warbling sound: Swing me low, and swing me high, To ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Presently we heard the hum of distant voices shouting, and the fear that the scene of bloodshed had already begun induced us to quicken our pace to a smart run. I never saw a man so deeply affected as was our poor guide, and when I looked at ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... them up without deigning to look at the person who had accosted him, and turning them over in his hand, "One, two, three, hum; there is half-a-dozen. What ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... even of dislike and suspicion, by some fortuitous incident, which might have chanced to two who had every impulse towards each other, not such antagonisms as lay between Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and this Huguenot refugee. She had every cue to hate hum. Each moment of her life in England had been beset with peril because of him-peril to the man she loved, therefore peril to herself. And yet, so various is the nature of woman, that, while steering straitly by one star, she levies upon the light of other stars. Faithful and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... A hum of admiration arose as Carlton, after retiring for a moment, returned with his palette and brush, and approached ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... shoulders of his wife, and had no conception that in so doing he was guilty of an act of moral cowardice. Returning to the studio, he pulled out a clean canvas and began a vigorous drawing of two fauns chasing each other round a tree. Presently, as he drew, he began to hum. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... is with hum of tiny things Held idly, struggling there, As if the golden mist entangled were About the viewless wings, That beat out music ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... up the circular incline in the peak of the tower! We heard the hum of it; and when we went up there, the first thing we saw was a mirror tuned in readiness for us to view the garden we had just left. This strange Tarrano, giving Georg the visible proof that he would keep his word and not harm Elza. We could see ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... woollen mittens, in order to restore some warmth to those almost frozen members. As he walked back and forth, he said several times, half aloud to himself, "I don't b'lieve she's comin' anyway. I s'pose she's goin' to stay ter hum and spend the evenin' with him." Finally he resumed his old position near the corner and ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons, building roofs of gold; The civil citizens kneading up the honey; The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... the City. But one night when I was visiting an Indian grove the barbarians from the North came down and destroyed our shrines and palaces and took our people up to Egypt. Oh, it was desolate, and I shed many tears, for I missed the busy hum of the market and the merry voices of ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... one to partake, though we only drank out of clear glass, not out of silver, as when the mourners are noble. Monsieur Verdon and some familiars of the house, whether friends or relations I do not know, were attending to this, and there was a hum of conversation around; but there was no acquaintance of ours present, and nobody ventured to speak to us, except that Clement said: 'She will be gratified, when she has time to understand.' And then he asked whether I had heard ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the blue fly, Hum, quoth the bee, Buz and hum they cry, And so do we: In his ear, in his nose, Thus, do you see? He ate the dormouse, Else it ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... grown fainter and wearier with every answer, and now there was no answer at all. Again and again I asked Raffles if he was there; the only sound to reach me in reply was the low metallic hum of the live wire between his ear and mine. And then, as I sat gazing distractedly at my four safe walls, with the receiver still pressed to my head, there came a single groan, followed by the dull and dreadful crash of a human ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... agreeable hum of chatter from these early comers when I found myself welcoming Mrs. Judge Ballard and half a dozen members of the Onwards and Upwards Club, all of them wearing what I made out to be a baffled look. From these I presently managed to gather ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... resounded to the hum of its varied labors. Mr. Jarvis, dictating letters to a typist, smiled occasionally as he pictured the arrival of this over-favored young man in the drawing-room of Mrs. Weatherley, attired in the nondescript fashion which his words had suggested. One or two of ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and hoped. The throb of the engine became a monotonous hum and whir, and the crash of the waves like the boom of some big drum. Rob, looking through one ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the river had paused in the valley to rest, dreaming, perchance, of the long cool shadows in the uplands, the far altar-fires of daybreak. There were pleasant things to do in the valley, to lie at full length, basking in the sun, to hum a bit of the old music, to touch gently the harp-strings of the marsh grass and rushes, dimpling with pleasure at the faint answer, to reflect every passing mood of cloud and sky, even to hold the little clouds as a mother might, upon its deep and ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... A hum of excitement went through the crowds that lined the track. It began to look as if the record of Ed Rivers' machine would be hard to beat, but from the determined look on his face and his gritted teeth it was evident that Paul meant to ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... "Hum—yes—pretty enough," he grudgingly acknowledged. "But even so?" the ingrate added, as he turned away, and let himself drop back into his lounging-chair. "My dear good woman, no amount of prettiness can disguise the fundamental banality of things. Your fireflies—St. Dominic's ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... have heard the shot and his cry, and though we made things hum about them, they took time to look into it and bear the ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... boy, let's have a look at this precious little account—hum! ha! hunting-saddle, gag-bit for Lamplighter, head-piece and reins to ditto, 317"racing-saddle for chestnut mare,' etc., etc., etc.; a horrid affair as long as my arm—total L96 18s. 2d.; and the blackguard had charged everything ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... but he continued to hum quietly to himself. The crew around me began to doze off, and I think even I was almost asleep for a time. To tell the truth I wasn't very far from ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... an increasing hum to the powerful motor, the great propellers whirled around at twice their former number of revolutions, and the ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... small boys were gathered about him, and the tinker began to hum an Irish reel, fingers and forearm flying as he played an imaginary fiddle. But, even now, his dignity had not left him. The dance began. All were in the little house or at the two doors, peering in, save Darrel, who sat with his pipe, and ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... and Turks. But the first step to their being read is to make them intelligible to the reader. I long for the day when the husbandman shall sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, when the weaver shall hum them to the tune of his shuttle, when the traveller shall while away with their stories the weariness of his journey." From the moment of its publication in 1516 the New Testament of Erasmus became the topic of the day; ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... to slumber, Which Cuan Na Seilg with its roaring fills. He lov'd the noise when storms were blowing, And billows with billows fought furiously, Of Magh Maom's kine the ceaseless lowing, And deep from the glen the calves' feeble cry; The noise of the chase from Slieve Crott pealing, The hum from the bushes Slieve Cua below, The voice of the gull o'er the breakers wheeling, The vulture's scream, over the sea flying slow; The mariners' song from the distant haven, The strain from the hill of the ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... and shook her head. "My tongue cannot be held for that," she said, beginning to sway again and hum. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... attributed to the fact that there had been a death in the family, and the funeral was to be held that morning; but I discovered afterwards that an eternal Sabbath stillness reigns in a Shaker family—there being no noise or confusion, or hum of busy industry at any time, although they are ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... timber, iron-studded door that let in at the foot of what seemed a donjon keep. The floor was cement, and doors let off in various directions. One, opening to a Chinese in the white apron and starched cap of a chef, emitted at the same time the low hum of a dynamo. It was this that deflected Forrest from his straight path. He paused, holding the door ajar, and peered into a cool, electric-lighted cement room where stood a long, glass-fronted, glass-shelved ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... cabin standing in the center of a small forested moraine four boys of about seventeen were grouped together. The one door and the two windows of the structure were covered with mosquito wire. The hum of insect life came into the room with the monotony of the murmur of the sea. Although it was after ten o'clock in the evening, the sun still ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... I don't believe there is a mountain on the face of the globe lofty enough to lift its head above that flood. Hum, hum! It's no use thinking about mountains! The flood will be six miles deep—six miles from the present sea-level; my last calculation proves it beyond all question. And that's only a minimum—it may be miles deeper, for no mortal man can tell exactly what'll happen when the earth ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the best pleased, but he was always a silent man, very pious, and not saying much as he sat at his bench, for he had been brought up to the shoemaking and was very respected among Pevensey folks. He would hum a hymn or two at his work sometimes, but he was never a man of words. When young Barber went back to London, Ellen, she began to lose her pretty looks. I had never thought much of young Barber. There was something common about him—not like the labouring ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... note instantly, and, so delicate is the perceptiveness of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was mentioned or a reason given for ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... new-mown hay, fanned her pale cheek and feverish brow, and allayed her agitation and excitement. The perfect stillness, broken only by the lowing of the cattle in the adjoining pastures, by the drowsy hum of the dor-fly, or the rippling of the beck in the valley, further calmed her; and the soothing influence was completed by a contemplation of the serene heavens, wherein were seen the starry host, with the thin bright crescent of the new moon in the midst ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in ships should rejoice at his good works and call him brother lighthouse-keeper, and glorify God their Father when they walked again upon the grass, harking to the pleasant song of birds and the hum of bees. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... self-imposed darkness, with nothing to do but listen, fancied she could hear the low hum of quiet voices in the room beneath, carrying on a more or ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... idlers who were wandering about the balconies or through the hotel grounds; while laughs and little shrieks, uttered by the children as their pursuing nurses caught them up for bed, mingled not unpleasantly with the silvery hum arising from the fashionable crowd and the festal clang of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... "Hum! We should not have reckoned that fair play when we went to Master Sniggius's," observed Humfrey, as he heard his companion's ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cathelineau could see the crowds of hurrying royalists rushing along the road, wherever the thick foliage of trees was sufficiently broken to leave any portion of it visible, and he could hear the eager hum of their voices both near him and ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... have liked to possess them all, and to have walked gravely at the head of a procession, with his crush hat under his arm and his breast covered with decorations, radiant as a star, amid a buzz of admiring whispers and a hum of respect. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the Beasts along, By sweet Rhetorick of his learned Tongue, 'Twas deafness made the Adder sin; and this Caus'd him, who should have hum'd the Poet, hiss. ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... near quietly. The wood was filled with people, and a continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... passed, for in the blindness of her tears it was as if dark night had fallen. She turned about and in her ears his words rang, and again strong-set to be brave, the misty night was winked away. Hearing the hum of the old negro's tuneful spirit, she called him and he came to ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... his neck so as to command a sight of the doorway. He obstructed my view, and only by his tense attitude and some subtle wave of excitement which he communicated to me did I know that a new arrival was entering. The hum of conversation died away, and in the ensuing silence I heard the rustle of draperies. The newcomer was a woman, then. Fearful of making any noise I yet managed to get my eyes to the level ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... counsel for defense, the celebrated Fetyukovitch, entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court. He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale fingers, clean-shaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin lips that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would have ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... snow lay between the two clumps of woods. It was not worth while for either side to try to get possession of the intervening space. At the first movement by either French or Germans the woods opposite would hum with rifle fire and echo with cannonading. So, like rival parties of Arctic explorers waiting out the Arctic winter, they watched each other. But if one force or the other napped and the other caught him at it, then winter would not stay a brigade commander's ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... court. Richard Hare, the exile—the reported dead—the man whose life was in jeopardy! The spectators rose with one accord to get a better view; they stood on tiptoe; they pushed forth their necks; they strained their eyesight: and, amidst all the noisy hum, the groan bursting from the lips of Justice Hare was unnoticed. Whilst order was being called for, and the judge threatened to clear the court, two officers moved themselves quietly up and stood behind the witness. Richard Hare was in custody, though he might know it ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... from his memory? For the robin cherups his mate to please, The blue bird pipes in the poplar trees, The meadow lark warbles his jubilees, Shrilling his song in the azure seas, Till the welkin throbs to his melodies; And low is the hum of the humble bees, And the Feast of the Virgins ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... hundred and fifty nine, When Hawke came swooping from the West, The French King's Admiral with twenty of the line, Was sailing forth, to sack us, out of Brest. The ports of France were crowded, the quays of France a-hum With thirty thousand soldiers marching to the drum, For bragging time was over and fighting time was come When Hawke ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... angrily at safe distance, and the more innocent squirrel peeps down upon you from a bough of the canopy, and, hoisting his tail, glides into the obscurity of the loftiest umbrage. You still continue to see and hear; but the sight is a glimmer, and the sound a hum, as if the forest-glade were swarming with bees, from the ground-flowers to the herons' nests. Refreshed by your dream of Dryads, follow a lonesome din that issues from a pile of wooded cliffs, and you are led to a Waterfall. Five minutes are enough for taking an impression, if ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Michael hum'd and ha'd a few times, but at last he overcame his scruples and said, "he didn't know but what it wor for th' best, and if it wornt, if it had to be done they might as weel have th' honor o' doin it as ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... narrow little bed; and was determined that, before they got her conveyed to their savage home in the North, she would make one more effort for her freedom. Then she heard the man at the helm begin to hum to himself "Fhir a bhata, na horo eile." The night darkened. And soon all the wild emotions of the day were forgotten; for she ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... The hum of wheels has ceased; the crowd of labourers hurry out to their morning's meal; a few short minutes, and the discordant whistles again shriek out their call to work. Tom and Susy, where are they? The gates will soon be ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... merchandise we had for sale or would buy. But, more than all, my father and I alike sailed for the love of ship and sea, caring little for the gain that came, so long as the salt spray was over us, and we might hear the hum of the wind in the canvas, or the steady roll and click of the long oars in the ship's rowlocks, and take our chance of long fights with wind and wave on our ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... myself, as I overheard a person inquire of the servant at the door, in an unmistakeable voice and tone, "Is the Squire to hum?" that can be no one else than my old friend Sam Slick the Clockmaker. But it could admit of no doubt when he proceeded, "If he is, tell ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... through which to stroll in the gray morning while the early worm is getting his just desserts. There, in the midst of a great city, with the hum of industry and the low rumble of the throbbing Boston brain dimly heard in the distance, nature asserts herself, and the weary, sad-eyed stranger may ramble for hours and keep off the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... she wept bitterly, silently, under the starry banner, beside the dead. I heard the hum of many voices, and now and then a cry of pain, and knew they were all helping the sufferers. Then I turned to her again. Her streaming hair swept the ground, golden in the light. Her fair face was hidden on the cold dead face. And I dared not speak to her. Oh, that picture! ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... eye of Dr. Silence, and stopped. He put his pipe back into his pocket and began to hum softly—that underbreath humming of a nondescript melody I knew so well and ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... for my brothers, of course. Godfather Gilpin says I should find far more bodies than I do if they were not burying all along. I often wish I could understand them when they hum, and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... quiet that followed, broken only by the hum of the arithmetic-tape, Sam wondered at himself. As kids went, Mark had never been a nuisance. Certainly Rhoda had never had any trouble with him. But Rhoda had been altogether different. Sam was tough and he ...
— Dead Man's Planet • William Morrison
... em a alta costa onde se criam primores mais que rosas; 9 planta soes & caminheyra, que ainda que estais vos his donde viestes; vossa patria verdadeyra he ser herdeyra da gloria que conseguis, anday prestes. [p] Alma bemauenturada, dos anjos tanto querida, nam durmais, hum punto nam esteis parada, que a jornada muyto em breue he ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... laughing and casting scornful looks at him and his companions. They went on without stopping to rest or take any food; sometimes up hill, sometimes down, across valleys, and over rocky ground, until, as evening was approaching, the hum of human voices was heard. Some little distance ahead a kraal was seen on the side of a hill, while in the valley below were assembled a large concourse of men employed in various ways; some formed into regiments were marching ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... that he was a messenger of God sent on earth to restore the religion of Abraham, which the pagan Arabs had polluted with idolatry, the Jews in corrupting their holy books. At the same time he heard a Voice, and sometimes he felt a noise in his ears like the tinkling of bells or a low deep hum, as if bees were swarming round ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Hum-a-bum buzz! As I went over Tipple-tine I met a flock of bonny swine; Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed! They were the very bonniest swine That ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... 3rd. There was a touch of autumn in the air and the wind had changed slightly. Amid the shrieking of shells and the hum of bullets the bark of a distant farm dog could be heard distinctly. And so from day to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... dressed in the robes of state, and pale as a statue of marble, leaned against a pillar, careworn and wretched. Folding his arms upon his breast, with his eyes fixed upon vacancy, he stood in gloomy silence. It was a funereal scene. The low hum of mournful voices alone disturbed the stillness of the room. A circular table was placed in the centre of the apartment. Upon it there was a writing apparatus of gold. A vacant arm-chair stood before the table. The company gazed silently ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods, with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine. And all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and how conducive to amiable discussion and the acceleration of friendship. Henry tried ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... motor type myself and having a fairly good untrained ear for music, I find that to memorise a melody, whether played by an instrument or by an orchestra, I must either try to sing or hum that melody in order to fix it in my memory. Every time I do this, association processes are being set up in the brain between the auditory centres and the centres of phonation; and when I try to revive in my silent thoughts the melody again, I do so best by humming aloud ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... with the universal smiling. There are certain days when nature seems to laugh aloud; in this hour of noon the entire universe, all we could see of it, was on a broad grin. Everything moved, or danced, or sang; the leaves were each alive, trembling, quivering, shaking; the insect hum was like a Wagnerian chorus, deafening to the ear; there was a brisk, light breeze stirring—a breeze that moved the higher branches of the trees as if it had been an arm; that rippled the grass; that tossed the wavelets of the sea into such foam ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... I s'pose," said the old woman, with a sigh. She laid the letter down, but very reluctantly, beside the wash-tub, and plunged both hands among the suds again. "Quebec!" The word recalled a silly old song of the sailors; she had heard her boy hum it again ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The terrible punishment inflicted on the rioters in 1863 seemed to have been forgotten by the mob, and it had evidently resolved to try once more its strength with the city authorities. Around the Orange head-quarters a still deeper excitement prevailed. The hum of the vast multitude seemed like the first murmurings of the coming storm, and many a face turned pale as the Orangemen, with their banners and badges, only ninety in all, passed out of the door into the street. John Johnston, their marshal, mounted on a spirited horse, placed himself at their ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... "Hum! hum! you are mistaken, Bergenheim; my boyish love adventures have disposed me to indulgence. 'Debilis caro', you know! Shakespeare has translated it, 'Frailty, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the warehouse-doors of their respective owners in the open thoroughfare, which is at this part very wide. Auctioneers were here busily engaged in the disposal of their merchandise, which comprised every variety of produce and manufacture, home and foreign, from a yard of linsey-woolsey, "hum spun" as they termed it, to a bale of Manchester long cloth, or their own Sea-Island cotton. The auctioneer in America is a curious specimen of the biped creation. He is usually a swaggering, consequential sort of fellow, and drives away at his calling with ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... temples bright, in shining white, fly open at thy nod! A lucky sun doth shine; nor voice, nor thought of ill, be stirr'd To tempt the time; the happy day demands the happy word. No brawls assail the ear; cease now the harsh-vex'd forum's hum, And calumny with eager tongue, for once thy spite be dumb! Lo! where the pure and fragrant flame from every altar round Upwreathes, while ears devout receive the saffron's crackling sound! The wandering flame, far darting, strikes the golden-fretted roof, And with the tremulous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... along the streets of Benton, and presently Neale became aware of a low and mounting hum, like a first stir ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... branches looking in the distance like huge squirrels, were pleasant objects to the mountain ramblers. Huskers could be discerned in the nearer cornfields, and the great yellow ears glistened momentarily in the light, as they were tossed into golden heaps. There was no hum of industry as from a manufacturing village, or roar of turbulent life as from a city, but only the quiet evidence to the eye of a life kindred to that which nature so silently and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... multiply itself, and to flit in various figures around me, bearing the same lineaments as she herself did. I remember also that the discordant noises and cries of those without the cottage seemed to die away in a hum like that with which a nurse hushes her babe. At length I fell into a deep sound sleep, or rather, a ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... placed in the hollow of a coil or bobbin of insulated wire, would emit an audible 'tick' at each interruption of a current, flowing in the coil, and that if these separate ticks followed each other fast enough, by a rapid interruption of the current, they would run together into a continuous hum, to which he gave the name of 'galvanic music.' The pitch of this note would correspond to the rate of interruption of the current. From these and other discoveries which had been made by Noad, Wertheim, Marrian, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... gayest season of that fashionable watering-place. At this time the hotels are thronged with summer tourists returning homeward from the more northern resorts. Though the broad piazzas of Cozzens's great hotel were crowded by the elite of the city, there was a hum of admiration as Christine first made her round on her father's arm; and in the evening, when the spacious parlor was cleared for dancing, officers from the post and civilians alike eagerly sought her ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... twenty-five cents for our boat the lock-master told us would be collected at Chambly Basin. It was a pull of nearly six miles to St. Denis, where the same scene of comfort and plenty prevailed. Women were washing clothes in large iron pots at the river's edge, and the hum of the spinning-wheels issued from the doorways of the farm-houses. Beehives in the well-stocked gardens were filled with honey, and the strawthatched barns had their doors thrown wide open, as though waiting to receive the harvest. At intervals along the highway, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... the hum, or ha; these petty brands, That calumny doth use;— For calumny will sear Virtue itself:—these shrugs, these bums, and ha's, When you have said, she's goodly, come between, Ere you can ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... Saints, which was in no way prejudicial to our order. She lived in prayer alone, would remain in ecstasy before the altar of the virgin, which is on the side of the fields, and pretend so distinctly to hear the angels flying in Paradise, that she was able to hum the tunes they were singing. You all know that she took from them the chant Adoremus, of which no man could have invented a note. She remained for days with her eyes fixed like the star, fasting, and putting no more nourishment into her body that I could into my eye. She had made ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... that and evrybody else doesnt. he asted me if we become crasy to get back about the time we heard of the picknic and i sed no not exackly then, for we had always felt like that way but we was more crasier when we heard of that. all he sed was hum. that can meen most ennything you know. i am going to that picknic sumhow. i wish that old sheep was ded. if i see a bear climing the fense to kill that sheep and take off her skin and rap it up in a neet roll the way bears do and then eat it, i mean the ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... blazing with lights, directing their steps toward the East River, Fremont turned about and glanced with varying emotions at the brilliant scene he was leaving. He was parting, under a cloud, from the Great White Way and all that the fanciful title implied. He loved the rush and hum of the big city, and experienced, standing there in the night, a dread of the silent places he was soon to visit under such ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... little dream of a big sugar plum, And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... there awakes in Nature, and the soul of man can see and comprehend it, an expectation and a longing for a future revelation of God's majesty. It awakens, also, when in the fulness of life, field and forest rest at noon, and through the stillness is heard only the song of the grasshopper and the hum of the bee; and when at evening the singing lark, up from the sweet-smelling vineyards rises, or in the later hours of night Orion puts on his shining armour, to walk forth in the fields of heaven. But in the soul of man alone is this longing ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... than I'll believe; and, to speak my mind plainly, I believe that you are an arrant, bamboozling hum-bug!" cried Tom. "No offence, though. You ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... woodbine climbing over the brown stone wall, the wicket-gate, and the cherry-tree with its fruit hanging red against the whitewashed cottage? Ah, if I could only paint it so truly that you could hear the drowsy hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the flax, his head as yellow and his ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... faintness &c adj.; faint sound, whisper, breath; undertone, underbreath^; murmur, hum, susurration; tinkle; still small voice. hoarseness &c adj.; raucity^. V. whisper, breathe, murmur, purl, hum, gurgle, ripple, babble, flow; tinkle; mutter &c (speak imperfectly) 583; susurrate^. steal on the ear; melt in the air, float on ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... necessary to take greatly lengthened the distance. And as they were never in a hurry, they would be very likely, when coming to one of the many lovely valleys on the banks of the Holstein, or the Clinch river, to be enticed to some days of delay. Where now there are thriving villages filled with the hum of the industries of a high civilization, there was then but the solitary landscape dotted with herds of ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... a bow, like a springle-riser; line on the hum, like the string of Paganini winch on the gallop, like a harpoon wheel, Pike, the head-centre of everything, dashing through thick and thin, and once taken overhead—for he jumped into the hole, when he must have lost him else, but the fish too ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... for your things upstairs," said the captain. "They'll be ready—either up there or on the sidewalk. Now, my—hum—thief," with deliberate and dangerous calmness, "I'm comin' out into that yard. If I was you I'd be somewhere else when I get there. That's ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Hum! I'll have to see about that," said Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I suppose the circus people will want him back, for he must be valuable. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... in a new direction, Unorna guiding her companion by a gesture. They were near to the Jewish quarter, and presently were threading their way through narrow and filthy streets thronged with eager Hebrew faces, and filled with the hum of low-pitched voices chattering together, not in the language of the country, but in a base dialect of German. They were in the heart of Prague, in that dim quarter which is one of the strongholds of the Israelite, whence he directs great enterprises and sets in motion huge financial ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... and then one would bend forward and whisper to his neighbour, who answered with a grunt or a motion of his head; but for the most part, and for mile after mile, we all sat silent, listening only to the horses' gallop, the chime of the swingle-bars, the hum of the night wind in our ears. The motion and the strong breeze together lulled me little by little into a doze. My neighbour on the right wore around his shoulders a woollen shawl, against which after a while I found my cheek ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... joke writing by a bad lantern with a groggy hand and your glasses mislaid. Not that the hand is not better, as you see by the absence of the amanuensis hitherto. Mail came Friday, and a communication from yourself much more decent than usual, for which I thank you. Glad the WRECKER should so hum; but Lord, what fools ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Store and hotel keeper, citizens in white shirts and broadcloth, jostled blue-shirted cattle men, while here and there a petty politician consulted with the representative of a Western paper. The smoke of cigars drifted everywhere, and the listless heat was stirred by the hum of voices eager and strident. It was evident that the assembly was in an expectant mood, and there was a murmur of approbation when one newspaper ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... returned, rather impudently. She continued to sing and hum until the last note was smothered in her little nose. Then she spoke: "However—it means a different thing to me from what it means ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the plan of a very moral and aristocratical novel she was preparing for the press, and continued holding forth, with her eyes half shut, till a long-drawn nasal tone from the reverend divine compelled her suddenly to open them in all the indignation of surprise. The cessation of the hum of her voice awakened the reverend gentleman, who, lifting up first one eyelid, then the other, articulated, or rather murmured, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... the distant hum, The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnish'd arms, The braying trumpet, and the hoarser drum, Unite in concert ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... now if ye'd kept yer hands to hum, Jake," he stated. "But I ain't holdin' up anythin' against ye for what ye done. Now I got money, Tess'll be all the gladder. I air goin' to take 'er over to Seneca Lake. I got a job on there. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... direct falsehood: the old and new cap were both in his chamber, for he had been trying them on and asking me which looked the best. Hector winked his eye, lolled his tongue, and said to me—'That's the way, d——n me, to hum the old ones.' ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... all! It was enough! The tension of those last two days was broken. No matter what the news, it was a relief. And we drove away 'mid the rising hum of hundreds of tongues, loosened ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... me his different employments at school, and afterwards desiring me in my turn to relate to him all manner of things about Germany. He repeats his amo, amas, amavi, in the same singing tone as our common school-boys. As I happened once when he was by, to hum a lively tune, he stared at me with surprise, and then reminded me it was Sunday; and so, that I might not forfeit his good opinion by any appearance of levity, I gave him to understand that, in the hurry of my journey, I had forgotten the day. He has ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... linen-chest, which she would take with her when she married, and now she bestirred herself to replenish the stores of the house she would leave, for the comfort of her father and brothers. Long before dawn the gentle hum of her spinning-wheel began, although the days were lengthening, and many a time she sat plying it on her solitary hearth until after midnight. She spent days at the great loom in the north chamber, marching back and forth before it, a straight, resolute figure of industry filling human needs, ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... up a hostile hum, rocked, and advanced upon the police commissioner. He noticed it and jumped away, snatching his saber from ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... A hum of conversation and joking arose from every side, and, with some exceptions, you could not have found such a cheery gathering anywhere. The immediate strain of battle had passed, and friends meeting friends compared notes of their experiences in the "show." Here a ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... behind, Tom saw with pleasure that some more boats had been obtained, and that strong reinforcements would soon be across. The whistling of the bullets and the hum of the round shot were incessant, and Tom acknowledged to himself that he felt horribly uncomfortable—much more uncomfortable than he had any idea that he should feel under fire. Had he been actively engaged, he would have hardly experienced this feeling; but to stand impassive ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... was a Cadillac aircar coming over a ridge in the distance, its fans making an ever-louder throaty hum as it approached. It settled down to an altitude of three feet as it neared, and floated toward them on its cushion of air. On its side, Elshawe could see the words, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, and beneath that, in ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... street to the basement of the building used by the "Open Board," we find ourselves in a long, dimly lighted passage- way, which leads us into a small courtyard. As we emerge into this yard, we hear a confused hum above our heads, which grows louder as we ascend the steep stairway before us. Passing through a narrow, dirty entry, we open a side door, and our ears fairly ache with the yells and shrieks with which we are startled. For a moment we think ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin |
