"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 33. Humming a tune to ourselves, drumming with our fingers on the table, making a noise with our feet, and such like, are all breaches of good manners, and indications of our contempt for the persons present; therefore they should hot ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... plunged through the long grass, bushes, late summer flowers, moths, and caterpillars, vexed with himself that he had come there, since Paula was so inscrutable, and humming the notes of some song he did not know. The tunnel that had seemed so small from the surface was a vast archway when he reached its mouth, which emitted, as a contrast to the sultry heat on the slopes of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she had for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which I could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for America in the near future and her good humor ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... monstrosity full-blown in his time. He finds it 'in the civil streets,' 'talking plain cannon', 'humming batteries' in the most unmistakeable manner, with no particular account of its origin to give, without, indeed, appearing to recollect exactly how it came there, retaining only a general impression, that a descent from the celestial regions had, in some way, been ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... gardener told him, to the centre of the earth. A whiff of perfume from the laurustinus in the drive came back, the scent of hay, and with it the sound of the mowing-machine going over the lawn. He saw the pony in loose flat leather shoes. The bees were humming in the lime trees. The rooks were cawing. A blackbird whistled from the shrubberies where he once passed an entire day in hiding, after emptying an ink-bottle down the German governess's dress. He heard ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... out," and was "feeding" on the right wing and left breast of a lark, the leg of a canary, "a dozen fried" humming bird eggs—her customary fodder of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... came about in the most natural way. We catch our first glimpse of the boy when he sat in a little log school-house, without windows or floor, one of a humming score of shoeless boys, where a good-natured, irritable, drinking English schoolmaster taught him to read, write, and cipher as far as Practice. This was the only school he ever attended, and that was all he learned at it. His widowed mother, with her seven young ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... wave of the hand, he went off in the direction of the fountain, humming the charming pastoral of Philippe Desportes beneath ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... indifferent to me. I don't know where other people are. I don't feel the joy of the little animals playing, the freedom of the flight of birds, the ghostly plucking of the growing grass, the sweet stab of the mating lust of the wild-horned apigator, the humming of bees working to build a hive, and the sleepy stupid arrogance of the giant cabbage-eating deuxnez. I can feel nothing without the Skin I have worn ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... ancient harms Moans behind, the hills among, Like the humming of the swarms That unseen the forest throng. Now I meet the shining rain From a cloud with sunny weft; Now against the wind I strain, Sudden burst ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... with him; he went home, and to his own room without meeting any of his family. But as he passed Bibbs's door he heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... venture near this gate, for it looks out upon the street, and I care not to be seen by any Indian or half-breed Spaniard who might go loitering by; but as I stood in the vine-covered arbour in the centre of the garden I heard a man's voice from the direction of the gate, humming a stave of a maritime air that I had heard sung oft and again by the sailors on the sloop, in which some unknown fair one is ardently ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... and slithered, and an orange dust-cloud boiled up from its broad tires and wafted away across the sculpted sand. The desert stretched away, silent and empty, to the distant horizon; the groundcar the only humming disturbance of its silence and emptiness. The steel-blue sky shimmered above, a ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... She ran downstairs, humming a little tune to herself, as blithe as a young girl. I heard a momentary whispering with Joseph in the hall. Then the house-door closed—and there was an end of Madame ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... and a book full of pressed and dried seaweed, and stuffed birds in cases. I don't care for stuffed birds: they look too alive, and it seems horrid for them not to be able to fly about and sing. Peterkin took a great fancy to some of the very tiny ones—humming-birds, scarcely bigger than butterflies; and, long afterwards, when we went to live in London, Mrs. Wylie gave him a present of a branch with three beauties on it, inside a glass case. He has it now in his own room. And she gave me four great big shells, all coloured like a ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... exhausted with the fatigues of the drill, reposing in his gouty chair, humming the air, "How merrily we live that soldiers be!" and between each bar comforting himself with a spoonful of mock-turtle soup. He ordered a similar refreshment for Oldbuck, who declined it, observing, that, not being a military man, he did not feel inclined to break his habit ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... rock. She stood and watched it, and presently she lost herself in a thicket of night thoughts, and forgot where she was and why she had come there. She was recalled by hearing a very faint voice singing, scarcely more than humming, beneath her. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Presence? In the days when Courtland used to sit and kick his heels in the old family pew and be reproved for it by his aunt, he never remembered any Presence. Doctor Bates's admirable sermons had droned on over his head like the dreamy humming of bees in a summer day. He couldn't remember a single thought that ever entered his mind from that source. Was that all that came of studying theology? Well, he would find out, and if it was, he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... but although the mine was conveniently near the town it was a cold and cheerless spot for a rendezvous, Foster surmised from this that secrecy was important, but after all there was nothing to indicate that the matter had anything to do with him. As he went back he heard a musical humming in the tops of the pines and a lump of wet snow, slipping from a branch, struck his face. The humming grew louder until the wood was filled with sound, and he began to feel clammy and hot. A warm Chinook ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... even worse and remained idle in the sunny shelter of the grape arbor. Here on a rude bench constructed from a discarded four-poster he would often sit for hours, smoking his corncob pipe and softly humming to himself; but when genius went awry and his courage was at a low ebb, strings, wires, and pulleys having failed to work, he would neither smoke nor sing, but with eyes on the distance would sit immovable as if carved ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... no such display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner. As women everywhere deck themselves with these plumes, the beauty of such ornaments cannot be disputed. As we shall see later, the nests of humming-birds, and the playing passages of bower-birds are tastefully ornamented with gaily- coloured objects; and this shews that they must receive some kind of pleasure from the sight of such things. With the ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the Chevalier, who hated German music with all his heart, and was now humming an ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... undecided. There was evidently no place for him in the town. He had a deepening sense of being not wanted. The town was humming with life, but in that life there was no place for him. Awakening a strange sense of fellowship the word came to him, "He was rejected ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... fugitive sunshine were brightening Piccadilly when Geraldine and her escort left the Ritz. The momentary depression occasioned by the dramatic little episode of a few minutes ago, seemed already to have passed from the girl's manner. She walked on, humming to herself. As they paused to cross the road, she glanced as though involuntarily at her companion. His dark morning clothes and rather abstracted air created an atmosphere of sombreness about him of which she was ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... coming, Oh Thomas Moore! The Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore! Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and strumming, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Count kept an anxious eye upon him. He was becoming decidedly restless. At one moment he would rave about the glorious scenery; the next, plunge into a brown study of the Tulliwuddle rent-roll; and then in an instant start humming an air and smoking so fast that both their cases were empty while they were yet half an hour from Torrydhulish Station. Now the Baron took to biting his nails, looking at his watch, and answering questions ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... stupidly staring, for an instant. And as I regarded him with fascinated horror, there came upon his heavy gray face a look of dawning comprehension. And I heard Snap's startled intake of breath. He moved to the spectro, where the zed-ray connections were still humming. ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... there came to her the careless humming of a British voice, the free, confident tread of ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... asked Alick; "if you know it, let us hear it, and don't stand humming and hawing as if you were ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the ground. At night-time, when the moonlight falls, pearly grey, on the indeterminate crest of the forests, the trees look like an army of phantoms in long, trailing veils. In the daytime a crowd of large, beautiful butterflies, brilliant humming birds, and blue-winged jays and parroquets come and cling to the moss, which then resembles a white tapestry embroidered with splendid ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sandstone, and presenting on two of its sides sandy declivities. He watched beside it for an hour and a quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the camp before I met with pigeons, and some of them alighted in the bushes very near me. I cocked my pistol, and raised it to my face, bringing the breech almost in contact with my nose. Having brought the sight to bear upon the pigeon, I pulled trigger, and was in the next instant sensible of a humming noise, like that of a stone sent swiftly through the air. I found the pistol at the distance of some paces behind me, and the pigeon under the tree on which he had been sitting. My face was much bruised, and covered with ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... of the forest crowning the hill were silver coroneted. The unfolding leaves had hidden the new cabin from the bridge, but the driveway shone white, and already the upspringing bushes hedged it in. Insects were humming lazily in the perfumed night air, and across the lake a courting whip-poor-will was explaining to his sweetheart just how much and why he loved her. A few bats were wavering in air hunting insects, and occasionally ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... penny a knock. The house was as quiet as possible. There was only one low sound to be heard—it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen's boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a buzzing noise, in wretched mockery of humming a tune. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in all the interview, Dora found herself troubled and perplexed. Here was nothing to soothe, nothing to combat, nothing to answer or to silence; and her womanly sympathies fluttered about this manly reticence like a humming-bird around a flower frozen into the heart ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... life. Birds of beautiful plumage, and every variety of note, were perched on the branches, or flying above our heads; butterflies of many hues were flitting about in all directions; and reptiles and insects innumerable were crawling along the ground. More beautiful than all were the humming-birds, which, like flashes of coloured light, appeared and disappeared as they flew by us; and surpassing his brethren in gorgeousness of hues, was the golden-tailed humming or fly bird, numbers of which haunted every glade we passed. From many of the shady ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... making ready to rush on the nearest sentry, disarm him, gag him, and drag him off to the boat, when the ring of metal and the sound of singing in a low voice fell on my ears. A man, carrying a great tin pail, was coming to draw water, humming a song as he went; we quickly went down again to the river to hide under the branches, and as the Austrian stooped to fill his pail my grenadiers seized him by the throat, put a handkerchief full of wet sand over his mouth, and placing ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... temperature of the carbon tips is lower than that of the positive tip of a direct-current arc, with the result that the luminous efficiency is lower. These arcs have been made of both the open and enclosed type. They are characterized by a humming noise due to the effect of alternating current upon the mechanism and also upon the air near the arc. This humming sound is quite different from the occasional hissing of a direct-current arc. When ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Polly, looking dreamily at the humming-birds hovering over the honeysuckle; "and if we should, everything would be different. Bless dear old Bell's heart! What a lovely summer she must be having! I wonder ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the Night about me. Yet, as you shall see, this served not to prevent me from going forward into the fearfulness of that which did haunt all the void; for, sudden, as I went carefully, I heard a faint humming noise come downward from the night a little unto my rear; and the humming noise did grow more plain, as that a door were opened slowly above, and did let out that Sound ever more loud. And surely, after I did hear that, I could not doubt that a ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... he yawned, and walked away to the window, and stood there humming a little tune. I could see that he was already getting tired of me, and sorry that he had let me in, and though the thought that he was looking upon me as an awful nuisance would have made me awfully nervous if I had let it, I just said to myself, 'here is ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... account, but whose bloom is a gift sent straight from heaven to gladden the hearts of men and beasts, birds and bees. The big double doors in the ivy-grown flint wall of this inclosure stood wide open. Humming bees sailed booming to and fro, like ships in a tropical trade-wind. And through the lattice-work of the gray old apple-trees' branches (so virginally clothed just now) clean English sunshine dappled all the earth and grass in moving checkers ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... had crimsoned her cheek flowed back tumultuously to her heart, as she heard a voice she could not mistake, humming very softly the notes of a sad and touching air, which she and Lewie had often sung together. This plaintive singer could be no other than her brother. But why here, at night, and in this clandestine ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... studied the dance I told you to?" he demanded, humming the tune and stressing the accented parts to impress it upon them. "Now then," he said, "let's hear what you can do." He raised his bamboo cane like a conductor's baton and said ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... went the stranger with the careless speed of youth, humming to himself in a soft tenor, his brown face turned to the sun. The pleasant smile was still upon it. He had the look of one in whose eyes ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... attached themselves, with a sort of appealing air, to Daisy, who, however, strolled a few steps farther, gently humming to herself. "I presume you will go in ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... returned home an hour later. To a man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills was not of a reassuring nature. He hesitated on the doorstep for a few seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly, hung his hat in the passage and ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... hath hindered thee from telling me of all that thou hast done for my garden, even to those fair and sweet everlasting flowers, the like of which I never saw before, which thou hast set in the east border, and where even now I hear the bees humming in ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... aqueduct trailing, thousand-footed, through the brush. It is not a wilderness; it is rather a preserve. And, fitly enough, the centre of the maze is not a hermit's cavern. In the midst, a little mirthful town lies sunlit, humming with the business of pleasure; and the palace, breathing distinction and peopled by historic ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the periods make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgements, such ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... object of considerable interest. It is simply a means to an end. The kind of interest which we think is so valuable for instruction is direct and intrinsic. The life of Benjamin Franklin calls out a strong direct interest in the man and his fortunes. A humming bird attracts and appeals to us for its own sake. Indirect interest, so called, has more of the character of desire. A desire to restore one's health will produce great interest in a certain ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... creek whispering through the grove and away to where it was defiled by trampling hoofs in the corrals and pastures beyond, and with the roses which Phoebe Hart kept abloom until the frosts came, and the bees, and humming—birds which somehow found their way across the parched sagebrush plains and foregathered there, Peaceful Hart's ranch betrayed his secret longing for girls, as if he had unconsciously planned it for the daughters he ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... her spinning, casting from time to time a furtive and uneasy glance at the soldiers. Nothing was to be heard save the humming of the wheel, the crackling of the fire, and the singing of the water in ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... near right as one can be. Show the Captain where to direct the boat and we'll soon set things humming." ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the conclusion decisively. For was not their present situation the net result of a concrete endeavor to strike a balance between the best of what both the wilderness and the humming cities had to offer them? It seemed treason to Bill to long for other voices and other faces. Yet she could not help the feeling. She wondered if he, too, did not sometimes long for company besides her own. And the thought stirred up a perverse jealousy. They two, perfectly mated in all things, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for subjects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and then commit my effusion to paper; swinging at intervals on the hindlegs of my elbow chair, by way of calling ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... she stood for the first time on the balcony overhanging the Corso, which Mrs. Ashe had hired in company with some acquaintances made at the hotel, and looked down at the ebb and surge of the just-begun Carnival. The narrow street seemed humming with people of all sorts and conditions. Some were masked; some were not. There were ladies and gentlemen in fashionable clothes, peasants in the gayest costumes, surprised-looking tourists in tall hats ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... descended to her room humming an air from an old opera, and settled to the task of removing as much as possible all evidences of fatigue and sleeplessness ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... succeed in alleviating them. Never, indeed, had the prospect been more calm and wooing. Silence, bending from the hills, seemed to brood above the valley even as some mighty spirit, at whose bidding strife was hushed, and peace became the acknowledged divinity of all. The humming voices of trade and merriment were all hushed in homage to the holy day; and if the fitful song of a truant bird, that presumed beside the window of Margaret Cooper, did break the silence of the scene, it certainly did not disturb its calm. The forest minstrel sung in ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... WITHIN]: Listen! listen! he is coming, A most hideous discord humming. Drunken, museless, awkward, yelling, Far along his rocky dwelling; 490 Let us with some comic spell Teach the yet unteachable. By all means he must be blinded, If my ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... sat in the shade of a tree at the foot of Mount Ida, while his flocks were pasturing upon the hillside before him. The bees were humming lazily among the flowers; the cicadas were chirping among the leaves above his head; and now and then a bird twittered softly among the bushes behind him. All else was still, as if enjoying to the full the delicious calm ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... into the awful presence of the cook (with our ham and tongue from Bristol as an excuse) and ranged predatory over the lower regions. We scaled back-staircases, and tramped along remote corridors, and burst into secluded lumber-rooms, with accompaniment of shouting from the boys, and of operatic humming from Mr. Migott and myself, who happen, among other social accomplishments, to be both of us musical in a desultory way. We turned out, in these same lumber-rooms, plans of estates from their neat tin cases, and ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... words the message that he still loves her. Then the final tableau of the act with Butterfly, her baby and Sazuki standing at the Shosi facing the distant harbour where his ship has just been signalled. Softly the humming of the priests at worship ceases, and the curtain descends on what must always remain a masterpiece of delicate pathos—a story that will never lose its appeal while woman's trust in man lends its charm ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the same box. Mr Bickersdyke's clothes lay at the head of one of the sofas, but nobody else had staked out a claim. Psmith took possession of the sofa next to the manager's. Then, humming lightly, he undressed, and made his way downstairs to the Hot Rooms. He rather fancied himself in towels. There was something about them which seemed to suit his figure. They gave him, he though, rather a debonnaire look. He paused for a moment before the looking-glass to examine himself, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... had left the bench, and the court was humming with the murmur of tongues suddenly let free, Mr. Pawle forced his way to the side ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... and, except that their hind legs were longer in proportion to their size, the exact shape of that harmless little insect. Their colours are brilliant green, slate, and flamingo red, beautifully lined and variegated. The humming noise produced by these insects is very disagreeable, and fills the surrounding air with murmurs, while the wilderness look of the scene of their depredations has a depressing effect on the mind of the traveller. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. She hoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to himself: ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... we shall caper a-heel and toeing A Newgate hornpipe some fine day With the mots their ogles throwing [20] Tol lol, etc. And old Cotton humming his pray. [21] ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... over and over again, tapping my foot to keep time as I did so. Then Mac would join in, and perhaps another of our company. And before long everyone at the table would catch the infection, and either be humming the absurd words or keeping time with his feet, while the others did so. Sometimes people didn't care for my song; I remember one old Englishman, with a white moustache and a very red face, who looked as if he might be a retired army ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... with pity, lavished money upon them, in spite of the remonstrances of the guide. Clive's sensitive nature shuddered at the spectacle. Frank tried to speak a few words of Italian to them, which he had caught from Michael Angelo. David muttered something about the ancient Romans, while Bob kept humming to ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... told, can boast a father great And honored in the service of the State. Public Instruction all his mind employs— He guides its methods and its wage enjoys. Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand, He waves his ferule o'er a studious land Where humming youth, intent upon the page, Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage, Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask To slake their fervor at his private flask. Arrested by the terror of his frown, The vaulting spit-ball ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... unfriendly elements Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze; Where, for a monument upon thy bones, And e'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse, Lying with simple shells. O Lychorida. Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper, My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say A priestly farewell ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... terrace flagging on the lawn. The lower window shades had been pulled down, but, except in the dining-room, they showed no blur of brightness. Through the walls the chords of the piano were just audible, and the volume of voices was reduced to a formless humming. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... your soul! She would never have thought of such a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Morris replied, and went upstairs to the workroom, where the humming of many machines testified to the last rush of the season's work. Abe joined him ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... gender, written out by Father Claude on a strip of bark. It was nearly an hour later, after the maid had crept to her couch beneath the canoe, and Perrot and Guerin had sprawled upon the bales and were snoring in rival keys, that Danton came lightly down the slope humming a drinking song. He saw Menard, and dropped to the ground beside him, with a ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... were ideal, cleanly of body and of mind, with heads filled with sentiment and hearts filled with sympathies; their personal lives were like their homes and their gardens—revealing only the brightest things of this world, the singing, humming, sweet-smelling things which so strongly speak to us of the other world we are yet to know. As workers in the world's vineyards, they labored six days and rested upon the Sabbath, and gave thanks to Him from whom all blessings flow that He allowed them, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... at last Edith went up the staircase, and Ellen, lying sleepless on her cot in the hot attic room, heard the girl softly humming to herself as she undressed, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... teeth half savagely, the little witch tantalizing him with the swiftness of her speech, the coy archness of her manner. To his slower mentality she was like a humming-bird darting about from flower to flower, yet ever ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... and soaps, Pills and dopes, We all must advertise. Copper cents, Not common sense. Are the things we prize. We confess Such a dress Isn't quite becoming, But we suppose Hopkins knows This keeps business humming." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... places where everybody meets everybody, and where lazy hours can be conveniently lounged away, the exhibitions in some sort supply in the afternoon what the Opera and parties do in the evenings. Nearly all through the summer-day, they are crowded with a softly-rustling, humming, buzzing crowd, coming and going perhaps, taking little heed of the nominal attraction, but sauntering from room to room, or ensconcing themselves in colonies or clusters of chairs, and lounging vacantly in cool lobbies. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... who followed her, presuming on "Auntie's" high spirits, was flounced out of the apartment with small ceremony, and retired, smarting and half tearful, to bury her woes in the byre among the hay. Still humming, Christina divested herself of her finery, and put her treasures one by one in her great green trunk. The last of these was the psalm-book; it was a fine piece, the gift of Mistress Clem, in distinct old-faced type, on paper that had begun to grow foxy in the warehouse - ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mount Engelstad in a warm and sunny place, and allowed ourselves on this occasion a little lunch, an indulgence that had not hitherto been permitted. The cooking-case was taken out, and soon the Primus was humming in a way that told us it would not be long before the chocolate was ready. It was a heavenly treat, that drink. We had all walked ourselves warm, and our throats were as dry as tinder. The contents of the pot were served round by the cook — Hanssen. It was no use asking him to ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... continue, but she was silent. As they ascended the steps the orchestra was beginning the waltz, with its dreamy rhythm, which everybody had been humming for a month or two. She led the way through a door at the lower end of the room, where were the palms and shrubbery which concealed the musicians, gathered her gown in her right hand, and stood smilingly ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... absence of men at the front. Picture palaces are crammed nightly, furs and finery have had a wonderful season, any one who has a motor car to sell finds plenty of ready buyers, and second-hand pianos are an article that can almost be "sold on a Sunday." But in the midst of this roar of humming trade, finance, and especially international finance, lies stricken and still gasping from the shock of war. When war comes, the price of all property shrivels. This was well known to Falstaff, who, when he brought the news of Hotspur's rebellion, said "You may buy land now as cheap as stinking ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... big now to be turned to ridicule, and too happy as well. She heard him humming to himself: it was the Norwegian national air. They came back to the town again as from Elysium. All the passers-by looked at them: people quickly detect happiness. Besides Rafael was a head taller than most of them and ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... queen the world had ever seen, and Prince Harweda was their only child. From the day of his birth, everything that love or money could do for him had been done. The pillow on which his head rested was made out of the down from humming-birds' breasts. The water in which his hands and face were washed was always steeped in rose leaves before being brought to the nursery. Everything that could be done was done, and nothing which could add to his ease or ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... Order, where he found the opposite? Nay your very Daymoth has capabilities in this kind; and ever organises something (into its own Body, if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and of mute dead air makes living music, though only of the faintest, by humming. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... He had given the invitation first, he said, and nobody could take the privilege from him. So the others yielded gracefully, and in high good humor the eight, saying much and humming little songs, walked across the fields from the camp and into the town. Robert noticed the bustling life of Albany with approval. The forest made its appeal to him, and the city made another and different but quite as strong appeal. The old Fort Orange ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to one of the big steam lathes, and there was a man that looked to be busy about something, so I went up to watch him. Well, what do you think he was doing? He was making one of these here little sticks that a fellow cleans his nails with! The power house was burning tons of coal, and everything humming, and that was what came out of it all. A nail stick! What ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... these lungs that shout, These thews that hustle us about, This brain that fills the skull with schemes, And its humming hive of dreams,-" ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... "Sir Frederick Haldimand is a babbler!" he said, between tightening lips. "Never a secret, never a plan, but he must bawl it aloud to all who care to listen, or sound it as he gads about from camp to city—aye, and chatters it to the forest trees for lack of audience, I suppose. All New York is humming with it, is it ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... last ten years it seemed to him that she had been as indifferent as he was about such things—naturally and frankly indifferent. When the first moment of stupefaction had passed, he opened his mouth to speak, looked at her, said nothing, and, turning suddenly on his heels, went out of the room humming a kind of air to which music and words were about all that ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... humming and throbbing with the thunder of the Russian guns. Flakes continually dropped from vibrating pine trees. A pale yellow haze veiled ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... ungallant M. de Maupeou had had the politeness to send me in the morning. One of the company proceeded to cut it, when scarcely had he pierced the crust, than its perfidious contents proved to be an immense swarm of cockchafers, which spread humming and buzzing all over the chamber. Zamor, who had never before seen these insects, began to pursue them all over the room, buzzing and humming as loudly as they did. The chase lasted a long time; but ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened yesterday rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm. Humming, I dressed quickly and went ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... began whistling and humming by turns, with the most consummate and provoking indifference. The stranger was evidently disconcerted by this unexpected mode of address, apparently meditating a retreat, from where even victory would have been a poor triumph. He was turning away, when a drop of blood fell ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... his good advice. On this occasion he was anxious not to compromise his dignity as a father. He daintily took a pinch of snuff, cleared his throat two or three times, as if he were about to demand a count out of the House; then he heard his daughter's light step, and she came in humming an ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... died a few days after he uttered these words. His last hours were spent in humming over a Scotch ballad he had learnt ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... in a crowd about the hole, crawling over each other, and going in and coming out. Thorn could hear them humming from where he stood. He swung his torch from his arm; then, hand over hand, ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... began humming the hymn, "When I can read my title clear," adding some variations of his own. "That 's the solo for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... she succeeded in making them share the responsibility with her. The boys would amuse themselves quietly for hours rather than disturb little Ellinor; and Letty (usually the most restless and wayward of them all) never grew weary of humming little songs, and otherwise amusing the baby, as she lay in the cot. So they went on better than might have been expected. But what with the close confinement in the house, and the climbing of two or three long flights of stairs, Christie grew pale and thin, and was ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... fellow and warned the yearling back with a savage baring of his teeth and a shake of his head. The foal, with head cocked upon one side, regarded its protector with impish curiosity and was in the act of nibbling at the flowing mane of the stallion when Alcatraz heard a sharp humming as of a wasp; then the sound of a blow, and the foal leaped straight into the air with head flung back. Before it hit water a report as of a hammer falling on anvil burst across the level pond, and then the colt struck heavily on its ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... bees went for honey, And the humming-birds too; And there the pretty butterflies And ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the town,—all grew more remote, then ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... Bob. "But the old bean's humming like a top. What happened, anyhow? Where are we? ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... rushlight a woman against the arras; there was a humming of viola d'amore from the musicians' balcony; she smiled at you, lingering, and then vanished with a whisper of brocade de Lyons on a sanded floor. Nothing else but a soft white glove, eternally fragrant, in your habergeon, an eternally fragrant ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... sight. Slowly he whirled the thin slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... popular opinion in favor of intervention kept pace with the trend of diplomatic negotiations. Italy, especially the northern provinces, was a great beehive, humming with patriotic fervor. Evenings in almost any northern town might be seen companies of young men in civilian dress marching in companies and maneuvering with military precision. At first the organizers of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... "It's no use to think of sleep now; and it occurred to me that we might have a pipe, and so spend the few hours that are left of the darkness and the night." With these words he took a clay pipe from the cupboard, and proceeded to fill it slowly and carefully, humming a song to himself; then he rummaged about amongst a heap of papers, until he found a sheet, which he picked out and rolled into a spill and lighted. Blowing the tobacco-smoke from him in thick clouds, he said, speaking ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... wrote of Henry James might be said of Joseph Conrad: "He is exquisitely aware of the presence of others." And this awareness is illustrated in Under Western Eyes and Nostromo—the latter that astonishing rehabilitation of the humming life on a South American seaboard. For Nostromo nothing is lost save honour; he goes to his death loving insensately; for Razumov his honour endures till the pressure put upon it by his love for Haldin's sister cracks it, and cracks, too, his reason. For once the novelist ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... heel and went downstairs humming a tune. I remained with Mrs. Housekeeper who carried out his instructions zealously. I can feel the soreness on my scalp ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... ye quaff with me, my lads, And it's will ye quaff with me? It is a draught of nut-brown ale I offer unto ye. All humming in the tankard, lads, It cheers the heart forlorn; Oh! here's a friend to everyone, ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... childbed hast thou had, my dear; no light, no fire; the unfriendly elements forget thee utterly, nor have I time to bring thee hallowed to thy grave, but must cast thee scarcely coffined into the sea, where for a monument upon thy bones the humming waters must overwhelm thy corpse, lying with simple shells. O Lychorida, bid Nestor bring me spices, ink, and paper, my casket and my jewels, and bid Nicandor bring me the satin coffin. Lay the babe upon the pillow, and go about this suddenly, Lychorida, while I say a priestly ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... mountains the light of morning broke; From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of smoke: The city-gates were opened; the Forum all alive With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive: Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing, And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was singing, And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home: Ah! woe for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome! With ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... coming on, then night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... where moor joins moor from Yorkshire into Lancashire, a coiled chain of wild free places. White with snow in winter, black at midsummer, it is only when spring dapples the dark heather-stems with the vivid green of the sprouting wortleberry bushes, only when in early autumn the moors are one humming mass of fragrant purple, that any beauty of tint lights up the scene. But there is always a charm in the moors for hardy and solitary spirits. Between them and heaven nothing dares to interpose. The shadows of the coursing clouds alter the aspect of ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... patron replied reverently. 'But that is not all—that is not all.' And he began to walk up and down the room humming the 118th Psalm ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... I remember the humming of our bees around the sawdust, and my craze for flower seeds and a ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... UGRIN (humming). Oh once there was a mighty King, Who had a lady fair. This King did love his beauteous dame As though ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... house is situated on the street of a village, the street is beautifully arched with trees for some distance, and my room is very pleasant. One window is wholly shaded by sweet honeysuckle, which is now in blossom, filling the room with its mild fragrance. The little humming-birds visit its flowers frequently without ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... girls, and she had taken lessons such a little while that this seemed a very great thing to her. She was always ready to practise, so that she should be sure to know her part perfectly, and she went about the house humming the tune, until Aunt Emma declared laughingly that she fully expected to hear Ruby singing it in ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... repeat this passage?" she said, humming the air with soft modulations; "I have always regarded the monotonous repetition of this strain" (and she indicated it lightly by a few touches of the keys) "as rather a blemish of an otherwise perfect composition. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... she sought her children; found Louisa humming and singing her little boy to sleep, and her daughter nodding, on a ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... some books she had left on a stand in the hall. He stood with his hands in his pockets, watching her ascent, hearing the swish of her skirts on the stairs: but she did not look back. She was humming softly to herself as she passed out ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Asher pushed the tiny switch that brought his filament points trembling together under the atmospheric pressure so far underground. A tiny spark danced and throbbed through the tiny glass tube before him, beginning to buzz as it started the circuit of increasing coils, and soon humming and vibrating as the helium and vacuum tubes swelled it to full power. Spark after spark, increased almost beyond imagination, followed one after another. The Miner ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... would in any way single them out from the millions about them; and when they had witnessed it from the crest of Bun Hill and seen the fly-like mechanism, its rotating planes a golden haze in the sunset, sink humming to the harbour of its shed again, they turned back towards the sunken green-grocery beneath the great iron standard of the London to Brighton mono-rail, and their minds reverted to the discussion that had engaged them before Mr. Butteridge's triumph had come in ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... yelling to their mules and the street hawkers were crying their wares, but above their noise the children could hear the humming of birds' whistles overhead. The Chinese tie whistles under pigeons' wings, and when the birds fly they make a strange kind of humming or whistling noise. Nelly thought they must be the pigeons that often flew over the Legation compound, and belonged to a mandarin who lived not far away. ...
— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper
... not believe she was to be purified by suffering. She had never done anything very bad, and humming a part of a song learned from Wilford Cameron, she followed after the loaded cart, returning slowly to the house, thinking to herself that there must be something great and good in the suffering which should purify at last, but hoping she was not the one to whom ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Cornelius had sung. She gave the song such a second birth, indeed, that a tolerable judge might have taken it, so hearing it for the first time, for what it was not—a song with some existence of its own, some distinction from a thousand other wax flowers dipped in sugar-water for the humming-birds of society. The moment she ended, she rose ashamed, and going to the window looked out over the ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... played with a firm, elastic touch, the opening chords struck, and a great shining voice, masterful, like a golden trumpet, filled the room. Caroline sat dumb; Miss Honey, instinctively humming the prelude, got up from her foot-stool and followed the music, unconscious that she walked. She had been privileged to hear more good singing in her eight years than most people have in twenty-four, had Miss Honey, and she knew that this was no ordinary ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... jack-boots of large dimensions, and now invited our hero to follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample stair-case, tapping each huge balustrade as he passed with the butt of his massive horse-whip, and humming, with the air of a ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... here; but he listened with considerable curiosity to the strange humming sound that filled the air, rising and falling, as of a beehive. At first he thought it was the working of engines in the ship; but he presently perceived it to be the noise of the streets rising from ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... Our Tartar was humming a plaintive air; Saveliitch, sound asleep, swayed from side to side; our kibitka was gliding rapidly over the winter road. I saw in the distance a village well known to my eyes, with its palisade and church spire on the steep bank of the ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... the little warlike world within! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy, The hoarse command, the busy humming din. When at a word, the tops are manned on high: Hark to the boatswain's call, the cheering cry! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides, Or school-boy midshipman, that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe, as ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... out of the red hammock, showing slim ankles that gleamed like marble through a thin film of bronze-brown silk. As she went into the house humming some Italian air she had picked up, Mary thought how young and innocently gay she seemed. It was almost impossible to believe her the same woman who had sobbed behind a disguising veil in Rose Winter's drawing-room, begging ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... who receive wages like that must expect to have a certain amount of danger to face. Danger is the spice of life." He leant back in his chair, humming a little tune and watched Mr. Foilet with smiling eyes. Mr. Foilet was wondering whether his chief was personally fond of spice, but he knew better than to say more. He left the room with a vague uneasy feeling at his heart. "A nice concern ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... now you are of Knock and Ballavore? Ah, it's ourselves had finer sights than the like of them, I'm telling you, when we were sitting a while back hearing the birds and bees humming in every weed of the ditch, or when we'd be smelling the sweet, beautiful smell does be rising in the warm nights, when you do hear the swift flying things racing in the air, till we'd be looking up in our own minds into a grand ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... heroes. This mound stood in the midst of a camp. Lances were stacked in front of the tents, and golden shields hung from masts, amidst boughs of laurel and wreaths of oak. On the stage all was silence, but a murmur like the humming of bees in a hive rose from the vast hemicycle filled with spectators. All their faces, reddened by the reflection from the purple awning which waved above them, turned with attentive curiosity towards the large, silent ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... reasserting itself in one glad triumphant chorus. Down in the park the slumberous cawing of the rooks triumphed over the lighter-voiced caroling of innumerable thrushes and blackbirds, and mingled with the faint humming of a few early bees, seemed to fill the air with a sweetly blended strain of glad music. It was one of those mornings typical of its own season, in which the whole atmosphere seems charged with quickening life. Summer with its warm luscious ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp, starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps, she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... she-shape by Mode arrayed! The dove that coos in verdant shade, The lark that shrills in ether, The humming-bird with jewelled wings,— Ten thousand tiny songful things Have lent her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... began to fall, and has continued to pour down steadily ever since. The night is gloomy. Adjutant Wilson, in the next tent, is endeavoring to lift himself from the slough of despond by humming a ditty of true love; but the effort is ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... see the broad shoulders of the man as he stooped over on the other side of the fire to throw on more wood. Presently she knew he had thrown himself down with his head on the saddle, but she could hear him still humming softly something that sounded like a lullaby. When the firelight flared up it showed his ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... hedge and hid in a clump of plumed grass close to the veranda. The house blazed with lights, and servants moved about tables dressed with flowers, glass, and silver. Presently forth came an Englishman, dressed in black and white, humming a tune. It was too dark to see his face, so Kim, beggar-wise, tried an ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... meanwhile, seemed to be steadying. Feeling each step, he began cautiously to work his way down. To my wrath he even looked up at me and indulged in a grimace—but his triumph was ill-timed, for at that very instant I beheld, strolling along the street below, humming and swinging his night-stick, as leisurely, complacent, and stalwart a representative of the law as ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... music for it. Then he practises at singing it, and then he sings it. The man of genius, on the other hand, whether he be a great one or a very little one, is known by the fact that he has a song sent to him. He sings it. He has a habit of humming it over afterwards. His humming it over afterwards is his analysis. It is ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... hush at the humming table. The Count grew dead white and looked at his fingernails. Aristide superbly gathered up his notes and gold, and tossing a couple of louis to the croupiers, left the table, followed by all eyes. It was one of the thrilling moments of Aristide's life. He had taken the ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... are arranged the spectators. By the aid of one drum-stick, the person who has been detailed for this duty, keeps up a beating motion on a sort of kettle-drum, the noise of which serves the purpose of marking time. The voices of the dancers make the music. At first the song is a mere humming sound, but after a time, it grows gradually louder, until the participants in the dance, being excited to the highest attainable pitch with interest in the ceremonies, it becomes terribly hideous. Almost naked, with tomahawk and hunting-knife in hand, the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... or any conspicuous place, or stand at the windows of the parlor. She will remember that she is in a public place, where she may encounter all classes of people, so she will not permit herself any of the liberties of a home. She will not go through the halls humming or singing, or take a book or newspaper from the public parlor and carry it off to her room, even if she does shortly return it. She will not, even in her own room, make such noise as will attract attention or ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... wild-brier and the mock-orange. The birds are carolling in the trees, and their shadows flit across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine; while the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the whirring of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle, send up a sound of joy to meet ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... and adoration of his creatures. To the mind yet untainted, there is exquisite loveliness and even godlike repose in such a scene. The universal stillness permits the softest natural sounds to be heard; and the buzz of the bee, or the wing of the humming-bird, reaches the ear like the loud notes of a general anthem. This temporary repose is full of meaning. It should teach how much of the beauty of this world's enjoyments, how much of its peace, and even how much of the comeliness of nature itself, is dependent on the spirit ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... occasion it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, who chanced to march alone in front of the groups, was humming the well-known air,—little thinking of its appropriateness,—"Tender woman! hear the warble of the birds," etc. To some, du Bousquier was a strong man and a misjudged man. Ever since he had been confirmed ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that strain from the Favorita, Miss Minerva, tum, tum, ti ti, tum tum, tee tee," and the delightful Sennaar ambassador, seeing Mrs. Potiphar in the parlor, danced humming away. ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... book-shop humming a little, pretending to read the titles of the books by moonlight, taking off and putting on one of her stained yellow gloves. Now and again she would move up as far as the posters outside the Hall, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... shout. By and by, silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of hoofs on the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking-up, and low, humming voices below, and footsteps mounting the stairs to bed, with now and then a drunken hiccough or maudlin laugh, as some conquered votary of Bacchus was fairly carried ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
