"Singing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were in shirt-waists. Altogether the audience reminded one of a crowd at a picnic. A boy tottering under the weight of a basket laden with candy and fruit was singing his wares. A pretty young woman stood in the center aisle near the second row of seats, her head thrown back, her eyes fixed on the first balcony, her plump body swaying and swaggering to the music. One man, seated in a box across the theater from us, was trying to speak ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... queen had been crowned, the lunch had met the capacity of even the boys, and the children, circling round the throne, were singing: "Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows," and kindred rhymes, their voices rising and falling with the breeze, the birds warbling an accompaniment. Webb and Leonard, at work in a field not far away, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... has been kindly scattering to the four winds, the goldfinch spreads his wings for a brief undulating flight, singing in waves also as he goes to where tall, thick-set mullein stalks stand like sentinels above the stony pasture. Here companies of the exquisite little black and yellow minstrels delight to congregate with their somber families and feast on the seeds that rapidly ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... substituted a rude irreverential confusion of voices; for an earnest acceptance of the form offered by the Priest there is substituted—in my feeling at least—a weary waiting for the end of an unmeaning form." He also objected much to singing the responses ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... in her heart strained it physically. On the modest landing at the top, outside his rooms, she waited, leaning against the wall, which was covered with a red paper. A window at the back was open and the confused sound of singing came in—a chorus "Vive-la, vive-la, vive-la ve. Vive la compagnie." So it came to her. 'O God!' she thought: 'Let him be in, let him be nice to me. It's the last time.' And, sick from anxiety, she opened the door. He was in—lying on a wicker-couch against the wall ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... travel in the bush. Hear ver' queer singin'. Never hear not'ing like that before. Look all round see where it come. Wah! he see cottontail rabbits singing and making medicine. They mak' fire. Got plenty hot ashes. They lie down in those ashes and sing, and another rabbit cover them up with ashes. They not stay there ver' long for cause those ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... Derues who, according to his own account, had left Paris with the young de Lamotte in order to take the boy to his mother in Versailles, returned home to the Rue Beaubourg. As usual, Bertin dropped in to dinner. He found his host full of merriment, singing in the lightness of his heart. Indeed, he had reason to be pleased, for at last, he told his wife and his friend, Buisson-Souef was his. He had seen Mme. de Lamotte at Versailles and paid her the full purchase-money in good, sounding gold. And, best ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Sam. xix. 36 (35), where Barzillai says: "I am this day fourscore years old, can I discern between good and evil, or has thy servant a taste of what I eat or drink, or do I hear any more the voice of singing men or singing women?" The connection with the eating of cream and honey, by which the good and evil is qualified, clearly proves that good and evil are, in our passage, used in a similar sense. To ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... stood near this spot, awaiting the arrival of the party which was still at some distance, I overheard a female singing. The notes were pleasing and very different from the monotonous strains of the natives in general. Just then I had been admiring the calm repose of the surrounding landscape, gilded by the beams of a splendid setting sun, and ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... pavements about him began to ring and echo with the tramp of many feet, and the cold, brittle air was shivered with the noisy voices that had roared and bawled applause and laughter at the National Theatre all the evening, and were now singing and howling homeward. Groups of rude men, and ruder boys, their breaths steaming in the icy air, began to tramp by, jostling him as they passed, till he was forced to draw back to the wall, and give them the sidewalk. Dazed and giddy, in cold fear, and ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... Arjuna to me, I shall give him another foremost of cars, made of gold, and having six bulls yoked unto it that shall be as large as elephants. I shall also give unto him a hundred damsels decked with ornaments, with collars of gold, fair-complexioned and accomplished in singing and dancing. If that does not satisfy the person that discovers Arjuna to me, I shall give him a 100 elephants, a 100 villages and a 100 cars, and 10,000 steeds of the foremost of breed, fat, docile, endued with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... hear, Piercing clear, Singing in the deepest shade; Many and many a babbled note Chime and float, Woodland music through ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... were singing. You sang it loud enough and plain enough; ha' you forgotten? Did you ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... ends of the garlands that trailed round her feet, and the children had one last glimpse of her striped stockings and worn elastic-side boots before she disappeared into the shadow of the forest, surrounded by her dusky retainers, singing songs of ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... tigers and wolves, not fierce, but tamed by Circe's art, for she was a powerful magician. All these animals had once been men, but had been changed by Circe's enchantments into the forms of beasts. The sounds of soft music were heard from within, and a sweet female voice singing. Eurylochus called aloud and the goddess came forth and invited them in. They all gladly entered except Eurylochus, who suspected danger. The goddess conducted her guests to a seat, and had them served with wine and other delicacies. When they had feasted heartily, she touched ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... word of God, and giving up our hearts to be led by His spirit. As it was to be in Judaea, of old, if they repented, so will it be with us. They should go forth with joy and do their work in peace. The hills should break before them into singing, and all the trees of the field should clap their hands; instead of thorns should come up timber-trees: instead of briers, garden-shrubs. The whole cultivation of the country was to improve, and be to the Lord for a name, and a sign ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... the eyes remained open. Roma wished to close them, but dared not try, and the image of inanimate objects standing in the light was mirrored in their dull and glassy surface. The dog in the distance was still barking, and a company of tipsy revellers were passing through the piazza singing a drinking song with a laugh in it. When they were gone the clocks outside began to strike. It was one o'clock, and the hour seemed to dance over ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Dishart, the minister, when he was young and audacious. The old, reverent custom in the kirk was for the precentor to read out the psalm a line at a time. Having then sung that line he read out the next one, led the singing of it, and so worked his way on to line three. Where run line holds, however, the psalm is read out first, and forthwith sung. This is not only a flighty way of doing things, which may lead to greater scandals, but has its practical ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... that the province would revolt rather than allow its defenders—as you rebels call yourselves—to be arrested. Well, the province has said nothing. The province has gone on singing, laughing, and dancing, and is already asking where they will be beheaded, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Astyages, enjoying himself as usual over his wine, surrounded by a crowd of his concubines, singing-girls, and dancing-girls, called on one of them for a song. The girl took her lyre and sang as follows: "The lion had the wild boar in his power, but let him depart to his own lair; in his lair he will wax in strength, and will cause the lion a world of toil; till at length, although the weaker, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... running to put herself in the way if she thought there was a chance of her being employed. Another would begin her baby prayers of her own accord the moment she awoke, say her rosary during Mass, and recreate herself by singing little hymns. A third, of scarcely four, paralysed in all her limbs, gave ample exercise to the patience of the kind mothers. Once her mistress had to rise four times in one night to soothe the poor little sufferer. Next day, a companion remarked, "Charity," for so the child ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... as far into it as possible. There was such a quantity of them that they soon blazed up into a great fire, and the smoke and flames filled the den and smothered the wicked old Alligator and burned him to death, while the little Jackal ran up and down outside dancing for joy and singing: ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... has hurt me, Miss Ocky, for when all is said and done, I'm Miss Lucy's man as I was her father's before her—not Simon Varr's! You remember what she was like before you went away—always bright and happy and full of fun and singing around the house. We used to call her ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... the dragon, the beast out of the sea, which is imperial pagan Rome; and the beast out of the earth, which is the priesthood of Asia appointed to promote the worship of the emperor (xiii.). Then there is seen on Mount Zion the Lamb with His bodyguard of 144,000, singing the incommunicable chorus. An angel proclaims the eternal gospel; another tells that Babylon, i.e. pagan Rome, has fallen; another proclaims the eternal punishment of those who worship the beast. Then a voice from heaven announces the blessedness of the dead in Christ. The Son of ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... Gyges, there came young boys crowned with myrtle-wreaths, and singing epithalamic hymns after the Lydian manner, accompanying themselves upon lyres of ivory, which they played with bows. All were clad in rose-coloured tunics ornamented with a silver Greek border, and their long hair flowed down over their shoulders in ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... levels, in such elaborate dramatic ceremonies as those which are a feature of the Catholic celebrations of Holy Week. But the nice warm devotional feeling with which what is called a good congregation finishes the singing of a favourite hymn belongs to the same order of phenomena. The rhythmic phrases—not as a rule very full of meaning or intellectual appeal—exercise a slightly hypnotic effect on the analyzing surface-mind; and induce a condition of suggestibility open to all the influences of the place and ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... household the day is closed with prayer and the singing of hymns. The omission of this sacred duty would indicate, not only a lack of religious training in the house chief, but a shameless disregard of all that is reputable in Samoan social life. No doubt, to many, the evening service is no more than a duty ...
— A Lowden Sabbath Morn • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement whom I have put away?" Yet, though Israel was divorced, forsaken, cast off, and desolate, she was to have more children than married Judah. So the verse preceding the text says: "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud thou that didst not travail with child; for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord." Then come the words of the text bidding her enlarge the place of her tent, or dwelling-place, to stretch forth her curtains, so as to cover over ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... described; and I was casting about for any landmark, and, in my ignorance, vainly consulting the disposition of the stars, when there fell upon my ear, from somewhere far in front, the sound of many voices hurriedly singing. ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... for those who desired a static condition of the affections, Paris was at once the first and last place in which to be friendly with a pretty woman. Revelation was alighting like a bird in his heart, singing: 'Elle est ton reve! Elle est ton reve! Sometimes this seemed natural, sometimes ludicrous—a bad case of elderly rapture. Having once been ostracised by Society, he had never since had any real regard for conventional morality; but the idea of a love which she could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... one way to get rid of this irreligious crew. The chiefs agreed to be satisfied with five thousand golden florins. This sum was paid, and the knights companions, laden with plunder and absolved from their sins, set out in the highest spirits, singing the praises of their captain and the joys of war. Such was their farewell ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... had trod that old bridge!—what red and noble blood had crimsoned those rushing waters!-what strains had been sung, ay, were yet being sung, on its banks!—some soft as Doric reed; some fierce and sharp as those of Norwegian Skaldaglam; some as replete with wild and wizard force as Finland's runes, singing of Kalevala's moors, and the deeds of Woinomoinen! Honour to thee, thou island stream! Onward may thou ever roll, fresh and green, rejoicing in thy bright past, thy glorious present, and in vivid hope of a triumphant future! ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... on the occasion of anniversaries of places of worship, &c. In those days, mind you, "t'anniversary Sunday" was regarded as a big and auspicious event. Great preparations were made for it, and when the service did take place people attended from miles around; I believe the singing was relied on as the chief "fetching" medium. But somehow or other I never did care much for singing—I really didn't. Nevertheless I ought to say we had an abundance—I was going to say over-abundance—of singing in our house; indeed, the word used is not nearly sufficiently expressive—I ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... and always singing at your work; you are the happiest man I know." This was said by the customer of an industrious hatter named Parker, as he ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... and rough. Her voice was rich and vibrant, like the middle notes of a 'cello, but she spoke a dialect that was as rustic as a cabbage. Her science was limited to enough arithmetic to enable her to keep accounts, her art to the gift of singing a very lovely contralto by ear, and her notions of history bordered on the miraculous. She was obstinate, superstitious, and at times quick-tempered. But she had a positive genius for loving. That raised her ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... an enlisted man, and meet his father's eyes of pride and see his sisters gaze at him with a new respect, feel their new honor of him in the touch of arms about his neck. All these things were for him too, if he would but take them. With that there was the sound of singing, shrill, fresh voices singing down the street. He wheeled about. A company of little girls were marching towards him and he smiled, looking at them, thinking the sight as pretty as a garden of flowers. They were from eight to ten or eleven years old and in the bravery ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a damper on his enthusiasm by exclaiming, in a pet, "Oh! dumn your singing! keep quiet, and pull away!" This we now did, in the most uninteresting silence; until, with a jerk that made every elbow hum, the root dragged out; and most inelegantly, we all landed upon the ground. The doctor, quite exhausted, stayed there; and, deluded into believing that, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... so thin a covering. The fore part of the boat was filled with Indian rowers, furnished with paddles, three feet long, in the form of spoons. They were all naked, seated two by two, and they kept time in rowing with a surprising uniformity, singing songs of a sad and monotonous character. The small cages containing our birds and our monkeys, the number of which augmented as we advanced, were hung some to the toldo and others to the bow of the boat. This was our travelling ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... lighting his pipe, began to smoke, and where Tawno presently fell asleep. I was about to fall asleep also, when I heard the sound of music and song. Piramus was playing on the fiddle, whilst Mrs. Chikno, who had a voice of her own, was singing in tones sharp enough, but of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... with elaborate carelessness to keep him satisfied with his present quarters. The one great anxiety was lest he should die of old age before the date appointed for the memsahib's shoot. Mothers carrying their babies home through the jungle after the day's work in the fields hushed their singing lest they might curtail the restful sleep ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... new-comers will have a bad influence on old and young as regards morals. One of the men and two of the wives are terrible swearers. Some of the children are already singing bad ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... depth of all misery. I, that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph, sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus; behold the sorrow of this world! once amiss hath bereaved me of all. O glory, that only sdineth in misfortune, what is become of thy assurance? All wounds ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... his love a silver wand, Her sceptre of rule over fair Scotland; With three singing laverocks set thereon For to mind her of him when he ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... no wonder, then, that Heywood got into an extraordinary state of excitement and delight as he beheld these wild, fine-looking men smoking their pipes and cooking their suppers, sitting, lying, and standing, talking and singing, and laughing, with teeth glistening and eyes glittering in the red blaze of the fires—each of which fires was big enough to have roasted ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... murmured Raffles behind me; "and that's a characteristic touch, the one fellow singing while the other grinds; they ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... night and the Bay of Naples are not bad. Then the small boats which bob alongside are filled with picturesque beggars raising huge bunches of violets on bamboo poles to the deck rails, and the mingling of singing voices with guitars sets it ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... one parent possesses. "Among the traits which have been said to occur in some such direct hereditary way," H. L. Hollingworth[164] observes, "or as the result of unexplained mutation or deviation from type, are: mathematical aptitude, ability in drawing,[165] musical composition,[166] singing, poetic reaction, military strategy, chess playing. Pitch discrimination seems to depend on structural factors which are not susceptible of improvement by practice.[167] The same may be said of various forms of professional athletic achievement. ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... mountain-pass or dark ravine. The wild, romantic passes of the Vosges, and the sullen crags, topped with dark mazes of wilderness, were ever in his mind, just as he saw them yesterday when he clutched his father's hand and held his breath to hear the singing of the wood-nymphs 'mong ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... "The singing-birds have opened their bills," returned Uncas, in the softest notes of his own musical voice; "and Tamenund has ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Englishman of the Middle Ages. He did not really talk in poetry, like Shakespeare's hero, but he would have liked to. Not being able to do so, he sang; and the English people principally appear in contemporary impressions as the singing people. They were evidently not only expansive but exaggerative; and perhaps it was not only in battle that they drew the long bow. That fine farcical imagery, which has descended to the comic songs and common speech of the English poor even to-day, had ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... the greatest treats and refreshments after house-work. Sometimes it happened that her errands kept her till sunset, and she floated home on the incoming tide, just dipping the oars gently in now and then, and carried along by the current and a "singing" wind, which followed close behind and pushed the boat on its way. These were Eyebright's real "play" times. She kept a story going about a princess and a boat, and some water-fairies and a water-prince, and whenever the chance came for ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... were pointed out to them opposite the divan, and they took their stand by them. They had not long to wait, for presently there was a sound of music, and, heralded by troops of singing women, the lord Sinan approached, walking slowly down the length of the great hall. It was a strange procession, for after the women came the aged, white robed dais, then the lord Al-je-bal himself, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... view of wood, hill, city, and country, high beeches over us, with Hungarians climbing among the branches; behind us a densely crowded and crowding mass of people near by, and, beyond, alternate horn-music and singing, wild gipsy melodies. Illumination, moonlight, and evening glow, interspersed with torches through the wood; the whole might have been served, unaltered, as a great scenic effect in a romantic opera. Beside me sat the whitebearded ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... is your little gray gossip: we never call her anything but Bessie to her face; she is a harmless little old maid. But come this way: Bessie is going to sing, for they won't let her rest till she complies; and Bessie singing, and Bessie talking, are widely ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... the brave Norman, Taillefer, who, before the battle of Hastings, advanced alone on horseback between the two armies about to commence the engagement, and drew off the attention of the English by singing them the song of Roland. He then began juggling, and taking his lance by the hilt, he threw it into the air and caught it by the point as it fell; then, drawing his sword, he spun it several times over his head, and caught it in a similar way as it fell. After these skilful exercises, ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... are the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white robes and have chaplets upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho and Atropos, who accompany with their voices the harmony of the sirens—Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present, Atropos of the future; Clotho from time to time assisting with a touch of her right hand the revolution of the outer circle of the whorl or spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching ...
— The Republic • Plato
... She thinks he's perfectly wonderful, in every way, I should judge. In fact, she simply raved over him. It seems that while we've been hearing nothing from him all winter, he's been winning no end of laurels for himself in Paris and Berlin. He's been studying, too, of course, as well as singing; and now he's got a chance to sing somewhere—create a role, or something—Belle said she wasn't quite clear on the matter herself, but it was a perfectly splendid chance, and one that was a fine feather in ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... he was on the point of following straight at once, over wall and fence; but the constable was also strong within him. He was not on the best of terms with old Simon, the rector's gardener, and his late opposition to Miss Winter in the matter of the singing also came into his mind. So he resolved that the parish constable would lose caste by disregarding his neighbour's boundaries, and was considering what to do next, when he heard a footstep and short cough on the other side of the wall ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... plays on his bells, the stamping keeps time with the melody; he motions; monkeys and bears appear and dance fondly around him. Eagles and other birds. An eagle sits on the head of HINZE who is very much afraid; two elephants, two lions. Ballet and singing.] ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in this enchanted wood are set in motion and imagination brings them into the life of the moment, makes of them sympathetic playmates coaxing one to love, as they do, the land of romance. Before their imperturbable jocundity what bad humour can exist? All the old songs of mock pastoral times come singing in the ears, "It happened on a day, in the merry month of May," "Shepherds all and maidens fair," "It was a lover and his lass," "Phoebus arise, and paint the skies," et cetera. Animated by the fire, in the silence of the winter night the loving horde gathers and ministers to the mind ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... grew and flourished, and when the Gunner Moon arrived they were a fine family of six grown-up grouse with Redruff, splendid in his gleaming copper feathers, at their head. He had ceased to drum during the summer after the loss of Brownie, but drumming is to the partridge what singing is to the lark; while it is his love-song, it is also an expression of exuberance born of health, and when the molt was over and September food and weather had renewed his splendid plumes and braced him up again, his spirits revived, and finding himself one day near ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... party and is asked to sing, he replies: "Well, I can only sing a comic song, you know"; and he says it in a tone that implies that his singing of that, however, is a thing that you ought to hear once, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... that. Hear, a nightingale is singing in the thicket. Sit down and listen. How nice it ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... went about singing bits of hymns, and she taught Eleseus to say prayers; but there grew up in her an unchristian hate of all Lapps, and she spoke plainly enough to any that passed. Some one might have sent them again; like as not they had a hare in their bag as before; let them go on their way, and ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... enter a room. I bought a box of "Meen Fun" once, and tried to powder; but I guess I didn't understand the art as well as the women do; it was mean fun in good earnest, for the girl I was going to take to singing-school wanted to know if I'd been helping my ma make biscuits for supper; and then she took her handkerchief and brushed my face, which wasn't so bad as it might have been, for her handkerchief had patchouly on it and was as soft as silk. But that wasn't ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... images made, apparently as skeletons at the feast, to heighten, not to dash, enjoyment. Entering, the Lover thinks he is in the Earthly Paradise, and after a time he finds the fair company listening to the singing of Dame Lyesse (Pleasure), with much dancing, music, and entertainment of jongleurs and jongleresses ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... gay, and perfectly natural. Miss F——, the donor of the fete, looked very happy, and so did all the Poet's household. The children, who amounted altogether to above 300, gave three cheers to Mr. Wordsworth and Miss F——. After some singing and dancing, and after the division of eggs, gingerbread, and oranges had taken place, we all began to disperse. We spent the night at the Oaks, and set off on our journey the following morning. The gay scene at the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... psalm singing. It is a good practice in its way, and you would have been none the worse had you indulged in it perhaps. However, that is neither here nor there. What I want you clearly to understand is that my ultimate consent to your union depends entirely upon your own conduct. Above all, I insist that you ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thing which had been only a dim babel of wordless sounds a moment before, became now the riotous laughter and the ribald comments of men upon the verses of a comic song which one of their number was joyously singing. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of terrible distress. I had nothing. I had lost you. Here I was feeling terribly the absence of those whom I have lost. All my old friends of whom I used to tell you have disappeared—Philomela—(you remember the singing voice that dear, sad night when, as I wandered through a gay crowd, I saw your eyes in a mirror gazing at me)—Philomela has realized her very reasonable dream: she inherited a little money, and has a farm in Normandy. M. Arnaud has retired and gone back to the provinces with ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... paper after it. As the smell of fresh beef pervaded the air it was greeted by a growl like rising thunder, and almost simultaneously the huge unwieldy form of the bear hurled itself down through the brush. The boys held their breath. Even Roldan felt a singing in his ears. But the grizzly, without pausing to ascertain his bearings, went down into the hole at a leap. He made one mouthful of the meat, then appeared to realise that he was in a trap. With a roar that made the horses rear and neigh ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... especially of novels; a man who seemed to have met every noted or notorious personage of the century, and whose mind was a magazine of amusing information; an excellent musical critic, who was not afraid to criticise Sybil's singing; a connoisseur in bric-a-brac, who laughed at Madeleine's display of odds and ends, and occasionally brought her a Persian plate or a bit of embroidery, which he said was good and would do her credit. This old sinner believed in everything that was perverse and wicked, but he accepted the prejudices ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... during Thunder.—The fable of the singing of swans at death is well known; but I recently heard a bit of "folk lore" as to the birth of swans quite as poetical, and probably equally true. It is this: that swans are always hatched during a thunderstorm. I was told this ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... everything seemed to shed brilliancy and perfume, to sing and to ring. It seemed to me a new life had commenced in myself and that I was another being, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she replied it was an Easter song they were singing in the church. What bright, holy song it was, which at that time surged through my soul, I have never been able to discover. It must have been an old church hymn, like those which many a time stirred ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... that sang like the lark? I must hear her again. But she won't be in tune for singing now, poor thing! What are they doing? Henry Ward taken to the practice? He used to be the dirtiest little sneak going, but I hope he ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quite, quite too lovely! Come, Adolphus—why should we linger here, now that our troths are plighted? Why should we not at once brave the world together? I need the sweet scents of the air, the rustle of leaves, the singing of birds, the chattering of monkeys, and the hum of nature. Let us go, my love, and ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... and the next moment the door had closed behind her, and only the sound of her voice from without, singing in happy reassurance, broke the stillness of the room where the lawyer and the governess stood facing ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... to the tragical end, it was decided to alter history a little, and let Nathan escape by night, which change would also give a fine chance for dark-lanterns, masks, and a muffled drum. The whole was to close with a tableau, and the singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner," in which the audience were to be ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... my way. After completing my day's work, I descended by the light of the moon, and was alarmed to find that Fritz and Jack were not below; and still more so, when I heard their clear, sweet voices, at the summit of the tree, singing the evening hymn, as if to sanctify our future abode. They had climbed the tree, instead of descending, and, filled with wonder and reverence at the sublime view below them, had burst out into the hymn ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... him to tolerate their music than to put up with their intellectual superiority. They used to try his patience severely. The piano was given no rest when they were in his rooms. It seemed that love had roused them to song, like the birds. But they were by a long way not so skilled in singing. Aurora had no illusions as to her talent, but she was quite otherwise about her fiance: she could see no difference between Georges's playing and Christophe's. Perhaps she preferred Georges's style, and Georges, in spite of his ironic subtlety, was never far from being convinced by his sweetheart's ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... sights and sounds were all about; the lambs were bleating out their gentle weariness before they sank to rest by the side of their mothers; the linnets were chirping in every bush of golden gorse that grew out of the stone walls; the lark was singing her good-night in the cloudless sky, before she dropped down to her nest in the tender green wheat; all spoke of brooding peace—but Philip's heart was ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the lands of the Pawkunnawkuts, know that my words are true. They know that the air has also changed as much as the shape of the shores of Nope. In the times of our grandfathers, the waves which roll between these islands were always frozen over, from the hunting month to the month of the red singing bird. During the cold months, the canoe of the Indian hunter and fisherman was not permitted to traverse its dark and angry waters in quest of finny spoil, or in chase of the wild fowl. Then, to procure his food he took ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... they don't go together, the organ music and the singing in here. I've always been a God-fearing man, ever ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... Penang. She shall go with you, and that'll be one load off my mind. Go and fetch her, Mr. McWhirter. She's rather a superior gal, sir, though I say it myself. She's had a rattling good eddication; talks French like a native, and as for music and singing, I've never heard any gal as could touch her, that's ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... was he now heard a little song, made faint by the stove-wall and the window glass that was between him and it, but still distinct and exquisitely sweet. It was the robin, singing after feeding on the crumbs. August, as he heard, burst into tears. He thought of Dorothea, who every morning threw out some grain or some bread on the snow before the church. "What use is it going ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... reads may get him some shrewd skill; And some unprofitable scorn resign, To praise the very thing that he deplores; So, friends (dear friends), remember, if you will, The shame I win for singing is all mine, The gold I miss for dreaming is ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... heart beat, for her he was a madman, for her he marched in sun and in snow, for her he was torn and slashed, for her he waded through fields of slaughter. Of her he dreamed and sung—sung to the camps in the night-time, till armies were thrilled with his singing. ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... I took my course, it being ordered on me, it led me past the door of a certain open church, whence the sound of singing issued. The finest choir in the city, famous far and near, were practising for the Sunday service, and singing like the sons of God, indeed, as I passed by. With the love of the scientific temperament for harmony alert in ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... us, turn which way we might, nothing was to be seen but the majestic solitude of the hills. No living creatures appeared but the white dots of sheep scattered over the soft green distance, and the skylark singing his hymn of happiness, a speck above my head. Truly a wonderful place! Distant not more than a morning's drive from noisy and populous Brighton—a stranger to this neighborhood could only have found his way by the compass, exactly as if he had been ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... with the properties of lines, angles, circles, spheres, cylinders, cubes, cones, and the conic sections will be acquired, which will give a life and reality to the geometrical studies which will occupy them in their school career. Dancing and singing will relieve the tedium of sitting, shake off the surplus energy, give rest to the body, and power, time, and tune to the voice. Models of houses, stores, workshops, kitchens, farms, and factories, which later on they ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... rest of the people to come on board. No one lost an instant in attempting to obey the order. Wasser alone was on the port side at the moment, and nearest to where the shark had appeared. He was a good swimmer as he had before shown, and instead of singing out for a rope with which to climb up on that side, he struck out to pass round the schooner's stern. It was a fatal resolve. Murray was watching the ominous fin. It disappeared. "Swim towards the stern! swim towards the stern! splash about with ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the Major) was thrown across the street, from the broad ornamented windows of a flash public-house. Here there was noise enough. Two men fighting, and three or four more encouraging, while a half-drunken woman tried to separate them. From the inside, too, came a noise of singing, quarrelling, and swearing, such as made the Major cross the road, and take his way on the darker ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... between the accepted theoretical basis of instruction in singing and the actual methods of vocal teachers. Judging by the number of scientific treatises on the voice, the academic observer would be led to believe that a coherent Science of Voice Culture has been evolved. Modern methods of instruction in singing are presumed to embody a ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... were inducted into it." The deanery was in the gift of the Crown, and we have a full list of the deans from 1224 up to 1547, when it was dissolved. The ecclesiastical establishment consisted of a dean, four prebendaries, three vicars, four deacons, and five singing men. It will not be needful to give any detailed account of these, as most of them, though in many cases they held other more dignified posts,[1] either together with the deanery or after resigning it, are not men who have made their mark in English history. A few only will here be mentioned, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... from the pond of Agrippa, for the breath was taken from me through disgust. Formerly I believed in superior force; now I have abandoned it. Know ye that I do not recognize myself. I am disgusted by feasts, wine, singing, citharae, garlands, the court of Caesar, naked bodies, and every crime. When I think that Lygia is like snow in the mountains, I love her the more; and when I think that she is what she is through your religion, I love and desire that religion. But since I understand it not, since ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... sent over to know when the train was going. "Tell them to step over here and they'll not feel so lonesome!" shouted Gadsden; and I think a good many came. The band was playing "White Wings," with quite a number singing it, when Gadsden noticed the voting had ceased, and announced this ballot closed. The music paused for him, and we could suddenly hear how many babies were in distress; but for a moment only; as we began our counting, "White Wings" ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... and dreamed that she was in a boat alone on the river near her country cottage, drifting along among spiky flowers like asphodels, with birds singing and flying round her. She could move neither face nor limbs, but that helpless feeling was not unpleasant, till she became conscious that she was drawing nearer and nearer to what was neither water nor land, light nor darkness, but simply ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... maid Mary she minds the dairy, While I go a-hoeing and mowing each morn; Gaily run the reel and the little spinning wheel, While I am singing and mowing ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous
... disliked additionally because his handwriting never had developed in proportion to his mental capacity. No matter how he strove, the letters remained childishly awkward. No two of them seemed to point in the same direction. Not even his futile efforts at singing could fill him with a more ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... with Maud reading to him, bringing his food, and singing for him; all that marred his peace was the stream of people who came to inquire how he was getting along. The sympathy was largely genuine, as Hartley could attest, but it bored the invalid. He had rather be left in quiet with Walter Scott and Maud. In the light of common ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... voices singing; and he guessed that he was come to the garden of the Nymphs, the ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... time came at last when Gregory was permitted to leave the Lang cottage and return to the cannery. Fearing a reversal of the verdict rendered in his favor, he set out at once. At some distance from the cannery he stopped and inhaled the fish-laden atmosphere with a singing heart. Once, he remembered, the odor had sickened him. Now it came like a breath from Heaven. It stirred his soul, quickened his pulse. He sucked in the tinctured air greedily. It was life itself. A life that was full and free, ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... spoiled as they are to our ears by poor music and too often maudlin voices, are as good songs and as fitted for singing as any in our time. The Sands of Dee, hacknied and vulgarised as it is by the banalities of the drawing-room, is really (to use a hacknied and vulgarised phrase) a "haunting" piece of song; and though Ruskin may pronounce ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... tall stalks to lift their heads to the golden sun. From the grass rose birds, startled by their approach, one whirring away voicelessly from a hidden nest, another, a yellow and black-throated lark, singing joyously. They crossed the meadow and came up the swelling slope of a gentle hill; upon its flatfish top were oaks; in the shade of the oaks three black-and-white cows looked with mild, approving eyes upon their three tiny ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... known to the Navajo as Talla Hogan, a term interpreted as meaning "singing house" and thought to refer to the chapel and mission that at one time nourished here, as described by Mr. Stephen in Chapter I. Tradition ascribes great importance to this village. At the time of the Spanish conquest ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... in town, and, receiving permission from his father to do so, Frank took his friends to see the performance. The singing was very good; and, despite the fact that it was still warm weather, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... imitations, burlesque parodies and broad sallies of humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here is a huge "tun of man," by the name of Gordon, use to delight Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of The Traveler, aspired to be on the most sociable footing with the author, and here ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... to the oblation, two things are done, namely, the people's praise in singing the "offertory," expressing the joy of the offerers, and the priest's prayer asking for the people's oblation to be made acceptable to God. Hence David said (1 Para 29:17): "In the simplicity of my ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... day. Lastly, in connexion with Sidney we may note a curious poem which appeared in the first edition of the Arcadia only.[126] It is a 'bantering' eclogue, in which the shepherds Nico and Pas first abuse one another and then fall to a comic singing match. It is evidently suggested by the fifth Idyl of Theocritus, and is a fair specimen of a very uncommon class in English. Akin to this is the burlesque variety, of which we have already met with examples in Lorenzo's Nencia and Pulci's Beca, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... sufficient to appease even the cravings of hunger, yet tired, foot-sore, and hungry as they were, and in company with strangers, whose countrymen had slain them in scores, but a few months before, they were always merry at their camps at nights, and kept singing, laughing, and joking, to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... a sweet shower, "a singing shower" saith old George Chapman, and methinks I shall have sport; for I do note that the mayfly is up; and, seeing all these beautiful creatures playing in the air and water, I feel my own heart play within ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... the distance a bird called sleepily from one of the fortress turrets and was answered by some creature Kennon couldn't identify. A murmur of blended sound came from the valley below, punctuated by high-pitched laughter. Someone was singing, or perhaps chanting would be a better description. The melody was strange and the words unrecognizable. The thin whine of an atomotor in the fortress's generating plant slowly built up to a keening undertone that blended into ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... was that once absorbed him and seemed to him so large. When Socrates discusses with Gorgias the value of rhetoric, the use of which, the latter asserts, relates to the greatest and best of human things, Socrates says: I dare say you have heard men singing—at feasts the old drinking-song, in which the singers enumerate the goods of life-first, health; beauty next; thirdly, wealth honestly acquired. The producers of these things—the physician, the trainer, the money-maker—each ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the crisp snow. He turned homeward very early in the afternoon, but when a couple of miles from Helston he found that his horse had cast a shoe. He dismounted, and bridle over arm tramped on through the sunlit vale between the heights of Pendennis and Arwenack, singing as he went. He came thus to Smithick and the door of the forge. About it stood a group of fishermen and rustics, for, in the absence of any inn just there, this forge was ever a point of congregation. In addition to the rustics and an itinerant merchant with his pack-horses, ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... easy'.... He asserts that I am always looking for a word, always striving 'thither,' and with comic rage inquires: 'whither-thither? whither?' He has also circulated a story about me that I ride at night up and down by the river, singing Schubert's Serenade, or simply moaning, 'Beethoven, Beethoven!' She is, he will say, such an impassioned old person, and so on, and so on. Of course, all this comes straight to me. This surprises you, perhaps. But do not forget ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the box, and in a powerful but not very musical voice began to sing a hymn full of cowboy slang. His singing had a quality not usual in street singers, and a crowd quickly gathered about him. His song was long and not without a rude poetry. He began his address at last by issuing a defiance to his enemies. This would mean little in an Eastern village, perhaps, but in a mining camp, ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... Star below the world's rim; but the Dipper, with all its stars. In our home country spring had now come, the wonderful Northern spring of long, glorious days, of brooding twilight, of cool, delightful nights. Robin and bluebird, meadow-lark and song-sparrow were singing in the mornings at home; the maple buds were red; windflowers and bloodroot were blooming while the last patches of snow still lingered; the rapture of the hermit thrush in Vermont, the serene golden melody of the wood thrush on Long Island, would be heard before ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... in both years we didn't hear America singing, we heard America shouting. And now all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, must say: We hear you. We will work together to earn the jobs you have given us. For we are the keepers of the sacred trust and we must be faithful to it in this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... element of sympathy as a means of reaching and influencing the mind of the child: The mother, we will suppose, standing at the door some morning before breakfast in spring, with her little daughter, seven or eight years old, by her side, hears a bird singing on a tree near by. She points to the tree, and says, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... life in the village, now it was the movement of a goat, a cow, or a horse upon the hill-side. But at last I caught the real sound, and knew it at once from all the noises which had till then deceived my fancy. The rider came along at a good round pace, and in a while I heard Brunow singing—a signal to me, no doubt. I called aloud "Hello! that you, Brunow?" and he answered with a whoop, expressive of high spirits. There was light enough to see me as he passed without ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... or Mermaides, singing sweetelye, but none dares trust them; and are verie like our Land-wenches, devouring Serpents, from ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... went to the cocoanut-grove to steal fruits. As soon as they arrived there, seven of them climbed trees. Juan, the youngest of all, was ordered to remain below so as to count and gather in the cocoanuts his friends threw down to him. While his companions were climbing the trees, Juan was singing,— ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... laughed too, and Hans answered, just as it occurred to him at the moment, by softly singing a single ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... have no doubt,' said Ida. 'But do eminent lawyers, in a general way, win their advancement by riding bicycles and singing comic songs?' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... visitors, they are but seldom put to use. As for the town of Brighton, it's what I would call a gawky piece of London. I could see nothing in it but a wheen idlers, hearing twa lads, at night, crying, "Five, six, seven for a shilling," in the booksellers' shops, with a play-actor lady singing in a corner, because her voice would not do for the players' stage. Therefore, having seen the Captain and Mrs. Sabre off to France, we came home to London; but it's not to be told what we had to pay at the hotel where we staid in Brighton. Howsomever, ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... fear," wrote Grotius to Oxenstiern, chancellor of Sweden; "the idea is to exorcise and annihilate hatred by means of terror." "This year," wrote an inhabitant of Rouen, "there have been no New Year's presents [etrennes], no singing of 'the king's drinking-song [le roi boit], in any house. Little children will be able to tell tales of it when they have attained to man's estate; for never, these fifty years past, so far as I can learn, has it been so." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and proud she was! Her glee was a constant source of wonder to McQueen. Perhaps she put on airs a little, her walk, said the critical, had become a strut; but how could she help that when the new joyousness of living was dancing and singing within her? ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... the sharp scythes of the mowers all day, And they spread to the air the sweet-scented hay; They pile up the wagon ere daylight is done, And singing come home with the ...
— Cousin Hatty's Hymns and Twilight Stories • Wm. Crosby And H.P. Nichols
... sharp ear caught a distinct ring upon the hard and rocky soil. He turned round and saw Almamen gliding away through the thick underwood, until the branches concealed his form. Presently, a curve in the path brought in view a Spanish cavalier, mounted on an Andalusian jennet: the horseman was gaily singing one of the popular ballads of the time; and, as it related to the feats of the Spaniards against the Moors, Muza's haughty blood was already stirred, and his moustache quivered on his lip. "I will change the air," muttered the Moslem, grasping his lance, when, as ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... happened which I must describe, because it is important. We were somewhere west of Jordan, when we met a packet boat going west. It was filled with passengers, and drew near to us with the sound of singing and musical instruments. It was crowded with emigrants always hopeful and merry, bound westward. Evidently the hold had not been able to take in all the household goods of the passengers, for there was a deck-load of these things, covered ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... singing in the serio-comic vein, with a dance after each stanza. As he sipped his whisky, and watched and listened, Gammon felt his heart glow within him. The melody was lulling; it had a refrain of delicious ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... his bill, Jimmie Dale seemed suddenly to experience some difficulty in finding what he sought, and his fingers went fumbling from one pocket to another. Two men at the table in front of him were talking—their voices, over a momentary lull in violin squeaks, talk, laughter, singing, and the clatter of dishes, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... minister bustled in, announcing as he came, "We will open the service by singing hymn ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... The president of the class soon clears up our doubts, however, by requesting President Atwood to come forward. It is evident that this is a surprise to the head of the university. The young man makes a short speech of presentation and hands to the president a gift from the graduating classes. The singing of the class ode closes this part of the evening's exercises, and the college class now presents an excellent program consisting of an oration by the president, a history ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various
... generalities Constitutionally averse to being pitied Contentment that men experience at the misfortunes of an enemy Could never tell exactly when to stop Each one of us lives on the edge of a volcano Every bird singing from the bottom of his heart Fear and anger in me are very much the same Free from all self-consciousness Her imperfections were beautiful to me How simply he assumed that he was going to be great ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... actual stepping upon these "fine pasture-grounds:"—mud-tanks, verdant with mere "bearding oat-crop" sown there as carp-provender! Figure the sinking of whole regiments to the knee; to the middle, some of them; the steady march become a wild sprawl through viscous mud, mere case-shot singing round you, tearing you away at its ease! Even on those terrible terms, the Prussians, by dams, by footpaths, sometimes one man abreast, sprawl steadily forward, trailing their cannon with them; only a few regiments, in the footpath parts, cannot bring their cannon. Forward; rank again, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... which Darwin has bequeathed to us. It is summed up in the concluding paragraph of the "Origin" ("Origin of Species" (6th edition), page 429.):—"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... thought Paphnutius, "once desired to embark singing on the ocean of the world. But I soon saw my folly, and the Nereid ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... again and Aunt Lavvy went off to Ilford for the Evening Service, by herself. Everybody else stayed at home, and there was hymn-singing instead of church. Mary and her mother were alone together. When her mother had sung the last hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," then she would ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... the people were much interested and sang hymns with fervor and plenty of false notes. My voice is hardly worth the money that has been squandered upon it, but such as it is I began to sing also. To my intense dismay I was soon singing alone, for the rest of the congregation respectfully stopped. Mr. Barnett looked at me most benevolently over his spectacles, but this was hardly enough to ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... ashamed," said Petya, offended by Natasha's previous remark. "It's because she was in love with that fat one in spectacles" (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new Count Bezukhov) "and now she's in love with that singer" (he meant Natasha's Italian singing master), "that's why ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... indifference to the events of the previous day would be more likely than any other course of conduct to avert suspicion as to our intentions. While we were thus occupied, the teacher remained on board with the Christian natives, whose powerful voices reached us ever and anon as they engaged in singing hymns ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... indifference to the attractions of poetry, music, and the stage. But Henry VIII., according to the testimony of Hall, was a proficient, not less in arms than in arts; he exercised himself daily in shooting, singing, dancing, wrestling, "casting of the bar, playing at the recorders, flute, virginals, and in setting of songs, making of ballettes; and did set two goodly masses, every in them five parts, which were sung oftentimes in his ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... she awoke, like a bird, with song. He heard her trilling, in and out through open windows, all down the long wing that was hers. And he heard her singing in the patio garden, where, also, she desisted long enough to quarrel with her Airedale and scold the collie pup unholily attracted by the red-orange, divers-finned, and many-tailed Japanese goldfish ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... function of a great body of neglected sympathies and desires, and to elevate to its healthy and beneficial operation that art which, being altogether addressed to them, rises or falls with their variableness of vigor,—now leading them with Tyrtaean fire, now singing them to ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... Federal Commander-in-Chief sat in his tent alone, and around him the groans of the wounded and the agonizing wails of the dying greet his ear—the gentle wind singing a requiem to his dead. He nursed alone the bitter consciousness of the total defeat of his army, now a scattered mass—a skeleton of its former greatness—while the flower of the Northern chivalry lie ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Books, or compare sum with sum, and write PAID against this and UNP'D against t'other, and yet reserve in some "corner of my mind" some darling thoughts all my own—faint memory of some passage in a Book—or the tone of an absent friend's Voice—a snatch of Miss Burrell's singing—a gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face—The two operations might be going on at the same time without thwarting, as the sun's two motions (earth's I mean), or as I sometimes turn round till I am giddy, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... lover had many a time come to her; there she had ridden with him in the early days; and that way they had started for Paris on such a morning and at such an hour as this, with sunshine about them, and larks singing hope above the sand-dunes, and with wavelets creaming to the ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... find himself in a position of danger even more critical if his wife drank nothing but water [see the Meditation entitled Conjugal Hygiene]; but if she had some talent for singing, or if she were disposed to take cold easily, he should tremble all the time; for it must be remembered that women who sing are at least as passionate as women whose mucous membrane shows ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Some of them were persuaded, by his entreaties, to embark on board the fleet; and it is observed, to the praise of the Roman general, that his days and nights were employed in prayer, fasting, and the occupation of singing psalms. The devout leader, who, with such a reenforcement, appeared confident of victory, avoided the dangerous rocks of Corsica, coasted along the eastern side of Sardinia, and secured his ships against the violence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... and that I might find instead, the cannibals seated round one of their dreadful banquets. Still I went on, advancing as cautiously as I could, and taking care to leave as little trace of my course behind me as possible. After going on in this way for some time, my ear caught the sound of singing; and looking between the bushes, I saw a fire burning with a spit before it, and on the spit there was roasting what I might have mistaken for a small baby, had not my friend Ned been officiating as cook; and I guessed that it was a monkey ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... The day of judgment is a particular time, when God shall sit on his throne, and all appear before him; not the perpetual spiritual sentence pronounced in each human soul by the divine law. And so heaven is a place where there is to be some singing of psalms, and such amusements as are here considered proper in Orthodox families; hell, another place, where souls are shut up, to suffer from physical fire, or at least from some external infliction. The doctrine taught by the Saviour in the first twelve verses of his first sermon, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... young men who hung about the Parliament House in Edinburgh waiting for briefs of cases to be argued. There were lots of debating clubs in the Scotch capital at that time, and Scott was a member of several. Some time was spent in argument, but more in telling stories and in singing songs. ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... their occasions. Then the eunuchs came to him and calling down on him length of life and continuance [of glory and prosperity], walked in attendance upon him and raised the curtain, and he entered the pavilion of the harem, where he found candles lighted and lamps burning and singing-women smiting [on instruments of music]. When he saw this, he was confounded in his wit and said in himself, "By Allah, I am in truth Commander of the Faithful!" As soon as he appeared, the slave-girls rose to him and carrying ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... by the time I had got back into blank verse again, he had fallen in love, and as far as I know he lived happy ever after. But I often think of his clear, boyish voice singing, "Show me the way to ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... of roses by Bendermere's stream, With the nightingale singing there all the day long; In the days of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream, To sit 'mid the roses and hear the birds' song. That bower, and its music, I never forget: But oft, when alone, at the close of the year, I think is the nightingale singing there yet, Are the roses still fresh ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... gone to their Father; when they are clothed in the best robe, with a ring on their hands and shoes on their feet, shining out at length in their natural, their predestined sonship; then shall the mountains and the hills break forth before them into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid and the calf, and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. Then shall the fables of a golden age, which ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... formed by the subdivision of the trachea, and the Lungs, with their air-cells. The Trachea is a vertical tube situated between the lungs below, and a short quadrangular cavity above, called the larynx, which is part of the windpipe, and used for the purpose of modulating the voice in speaking or singing. In the adult, the trachea, in its unextended state, is from four and one-half to five inches in length, about one inch in diameter, and, like the larynx, is more fully developed in the male than in the female. It is a ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... on one leg in walking a plank as a proof of sobriety. A man placed one foot on a seam and flourished the other before and behind, singing, "How can a man be drunk when he can dance Pedro-pee," at which word he placed the foot precisely before the other on the seam, till he proved at least he had not lost his equilibrium. This ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... ambassadors. The procession entered the cathedral amidst the peal of organs and the voices of five thousand children of the city charity schools, who were placed between the pillars on both sides, and singing that old melody, the hundredth psalm. The king was much affected; and turning to the dean, near whom he was walking, he said with great emotion, "I now feel that I have been ill." His emotion almost overpowered him; but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of that opening gun came other sounds—the long roll of rifle firing in volleys, and the faint cheers of charging men. The boys even fancied they could hear amidst all the confusion the loud singing that was said to mark the advance of the German legions as they went into battle chanting the "Watch on the Rhine." Rob could well believe it, for he knew singing was to the Teuton mind what the bagpipes ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... clump of wood in the distance stand out in bright relief. Deliciously cool, both the air and the light, though a warm day was promised. The night had swept away all the heat of yesterday. Now, the air was fresh with the dew and sweet from hayfield and meadow; and the birds were singing like mad all around. There was no answering echo in the little human heart that looked and listened. Ellen loved all these things too well not to notice them even now; she felt their full beauty; but she felt it sadly. "She will look at it no more!" she said ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner |
