"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are stains Out of tune and rare; The world is wine unmixed; And nakedness, a mistress. Here, the shade is but a dream; And even on the night's dim lips ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... other's growth, and all such things, seemed of little moment. Spring had them by the throat. It turned old men round, and made them stare at women younger than themselves. It made young men and women walking side by side touch each other, and every bird on the branches tune his pipe. Flying sunlight speckled the fluttered leaves, and gushed the cheeks of crippled boys who limped into the Gardens, till their pale Cockney faces shone ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... peculiarity about which there could be no mistake. That was in the matter of music. So, after questioning the Professor about various indifferent points, moral and intellectual, such as reverence, combativeness, secretiveness, language, ideality, etc., I asked incidentally something also about tune and music. The answer was such as might be safely given in regard to ninety-nine out of every hundred persons—some vague, indefinite epithet that would apply to almost any one. But, seeing a little ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... but the monkey can play the guitar. He always played when the beasts gathered together in the garden to dance. The monkey went to the tiny house of the little old woman, carrying his guitar under his arm. When she told him the long hard name of the wonderful fruit tree he made up a little tune to it, all his own, and sang it over and over again all the way from the tiny house of the little old woman to the corner of the garden where the wonderful fruit tree grew. When any of the other beasts met him and asked him what new song ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells
... But it would seem that the persecution of the Protestants was an exception to this truth,—and a persecution all the more needless and revolting since the Protestants were not in rebellion against the government, as in the tune of Charles IX. This diabolical persecution, justified however by some of the greatest men in France, had its intended results. The bigots who incited that crime had studied well the principles of successful warfare. As early as 1666 the King was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... upon to sing "God save the King," what would be the result? Why, that more than half the passengers would prove so shy they could not even attempt it; another quarter might wander about the notes at their own sweet will, and, perhaps, a small percentage would sing it in tune. But then, just think, the Finns are so imbued with music, and practise so continually—for they seem to sing on every conceivable occasion—that the sopranos naturally took up their part, the basses and the tenors kept to their own ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... spotting it near and far; and close by below them was a field of mowers at work; they could distinctly hear the measured rush of the scythes through the grass, and then the soft clink of the rifles would seem to play some old delicious tune of childish days. Fleda made Hugh stand still to listen. It was a warm day, but "the sweet south that breathes upon a bank of violets," could hardly be more sweet than the air which coming to them over the whole breadth of the valley had been ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... grotesque antics as Jones did cut up was perfectly dreadful. He laughed, he mimicked the priest, kicked at the mourners, and once tried to grab the tactics. The Major and his assistants pitched the tune on a high key. Captain Wright braced it with loud, strong bass, while Martin and Sim Pratt came in on the home stretch with tenor and alto that shook the rafters in the house. Then all dispersed as silently and sorrowfully ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... caught a bug for his breakfast, and Mister Gabriel Chipmunk came out and sat on his stump and said "Chip! Chip!" as loudly as he could say it, and the squirrels began chattering, and Major Partridge played a tune on his drum, and Mister Robert Robin mounted the very highest twig of his big basswood tree and sang a song ...
— Exciting Adventures of Mister Robert Robin • Ben Field
... would," &c.—I am in my sixth decade, and pretty far on in it too; and I can recollect this jingle as long as I can recollect anything. It formed several stanzas (five or six at least), and had {46} its own tune. There was something peculiarly attractive and humorous to the unformed ear and mind in the ballad, (for as a ballad it was sung,) as I was wont to hear it. I can therefore personally vouch for its antiquity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... however, in the name of the two provinces, a willingness to sign the Edict, provided the states-general would agree solemnly beforehand, in case the departure of the Spaniards did not take place within the stipulated tune, to abstain from all recognition of, or communication with, Don John, and themselves to accomplish the removal of the troops by force ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... for the boom of the fairy bassoon, And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune, And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes, And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes; And the fiddles sail in To the musical din, While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand, Rattles on the gay measure and stirs up ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... heard her sing this hymn will probably remember it as long as they remember her. The hymn, the tune, the style, are each too closely associated with to be easily separated from herself, and when sung in one of her most animated moods, in the open air, with the utmost strength of her most powerful voice, must have been ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... things up a bit," went on Jack. "Give us a good marching tune. We're far enough off now so none at the ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... generation of Vienna intellectuals as they did those of Paris or Berlin, where the revision of old standards of life and letters was promptly followed by daring experiments with new ideals. Young Vienna heard the keynotes of the new time, but it was content to evolve a new variety of an old tune. Time-honored pessimism, world-sorrow, gave way to a sophisticated and cynical world-weariness which is symptomatic of decadence. Widely different as their individualities present themselves, between the pages of their books and on the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... Hail Columbia, that good old national air, played on all our martial instruments! long may we hear, and never repudiate, the old tune of Yankee Doodle! Long may wave that gallant old flag which went through the Revolution, and which was borne by Tennessee and Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans, upon that soil the right to navigate the Mississippi near which they are now denied. Upon that bloody field the Stars and Stripes waved ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... began to peal forth the air of The Star Spangled Banner. Some of the notes may have gone wrong, there may have been errors of time and emphasis, but the old tune, then young, was there. Every man lying on the floor, every one of whom was born in the States, knew it, and every heart leaped. Elsewhere it might have been a commonplace thing to do, but there in the night and ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... meditation. I was not born for age. And, curiously enough, I seem to see a contrary drift in my work from that which is so remarkable in yours. You are going on sedately travelling through your ages, decently changing with the years to the proper tune. And here am I, quite out of my true course, and with nothing in my foolish elderly head but love-stories. This must repose upon some curious distinction of temperaments. I gather from a phrase, boldly autobiographical, that you are—well, not precisely growing thin. Can ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my Lord! excellent! It shall be played out of tune on a score of regimental bands! Good, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... or Silenus, according to others a shepherd or herdsman, who played sweetly on the flute. A friend of Cybele, he roamed the country with the disconsolate goddess to soothe her grief for the death of Attis. The composition of the Mother's Air, a tune played on the flute in honour of the Great Mother Goddess, was attributed to him by the people of Celaenae in Phrygia. Vain of his skill, he challenged Apollo to a musical contest, he to play on the flute and Apollo on the lyre. Being ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. "You shall read," saith he, "that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends." But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: "Shall we," saith he, "take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also?" And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate: as that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... forced her lips to sing aloud the Te Deum. Wogan looked at her in surprise as the first notes were sung, and the woful appeal in her eyes compelled him to as brave a show as he could make of joining in the hymn. But the words faltered, the tune wavered, joyless and hollow in ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... he sat on the horse, drew himself up, squared his elbows, turned out his toes, cracked his whip, and rode merrily off, one minute whistling a merry tune, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... recollected hearing it long years before, when he went to the occasional services held in the old bush schoolhouse by some itinerant preacher. He recalled at once the gathering of the saints at the river; mechanically he softly hummed the tune. It was hardly the tune the blind girl sang though. She had little knowledge of tune, apparently. Her cracked discordant ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... there I'm going myself,' Elsie replied; 'and if your honor'll follow me, and play me a tune on the pretty instrument, 'tisn't long ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... adventure and the perpetrators of many heinous crimes. Even the Fujiwara residences were not secure against the torches of these plunderers, and during the reign of Ichijo the palace itself was frequently fired by them. In Go-Ichijo's tune, an edict was issued forbidding men to carry bows and arrows in the streets, but had there been power to enforce such a veto, its enactment would not have been necessary. Its immediate sequel was that the bandits broke into Government ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... vermilion is rubbed on her forehead and some grains of rice stuck on it. The marriage procession, as described by Mr. Rama Prasad Bohidar, is a gorgeous affair: "The drummers, all drunk, head the procession, beating their drums to the tune set by the piper. Next in order are placed dancing-boys between two rows of lights carried on poles adorned with festoons of paper flowers. Rockets and fireworks have their proper share in the procession, and last of all comes the bridegroom ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... when her parents were out. "You can't come in," she cried. "Let's in for a minute, I've got something to tell you." "Tell me through the door." "No they will hear upstairs." "No." Bob began rapping a tune with his fists on the door. Grace said, "The lodgers will tell your mother." Bob who seems to have been a little fresh said, "Oh! won't you be ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... move to the cadence of a tune. . . . Sometimes, as in the 'Marshes of Glynn' and in the best parts of 'Sunrise', there is a cosmic rhythm that is like unto the rhythmic beating of the heart of God, of which Poe and ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... small organ," he pronounced judicially, "a ve-ry small organ. Ye would make a poor show on a concert platform, but for all that, I'm not saying that it might not have been worse. Ye can keep in tune, and that's a mearcy!" ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... afterwards, the Prince again passed by the house of Violet's father; and, seeing her at the window where she used to stand, he began his old tune, "Good-day, good-day, Violet!" Whereupon she answered as quickly as a good parish-clerk, "Good-day, King's son! I know more than you." But Violet's sisters could no longer bear this behaviour, and they plotted together how ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... merry in supposing what answer Lord William would make to these passionate addresses; she begged me to say something for a poor man, who had nothing to say for himself. I wrote, extempore, on the back of the song, some stanzas that went perfectly well to the tune. She promised they should never appear as mine, and faithfully kept her word. By what accident they have fallen into the hands of that thing Dodsley, I know not, but he has printed them as addressed, by me, to a very contemptible ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... you don't die of it, You'll be all right," John Hunter replied, and went home from Nathan's, later, whistling a merry tune. He had not known that love poured itself out with such abandonment. It was a new feature of the little god's manoeuvring, but John doubted not that it was the usual thing where a girl really ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... opinions fully to the King. The Duke used the same language which Don Frederic had held, concerning the motives of those who opposed the tax. "It may be so," said Don Francis, "but at any rate, all have agreed to sing to the same tune." A little startled, the Duke rejoined, "Do you doubt that the cities will keep their promises? Depend upon it, I shall find the means to compel them." "God grant it may be so," said Alava, "but in my poor ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... poets run in a very narrow channel. Since the old heroic times when the Homers and the Gunnlaugs sang of battle with the sleet of lances hurtling around them, a great calm has settled down upon Parnassus. Generation after generation pipes the same tune of love and Nature, of the liberal arts and the illiberal philosophies; the same imagery, the same metres, meander within the same polite margins of conventional subject. Ever and anon some one attempts to break out of the groove. ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... mankind. And so with many other things in ceremonies and rites, common to all the different faiths—the use of musical sounds, a use which tunes the bodies so that the spiritual power may be able to manifest through them and by them. For just as in your orchestra you must tune the instruments to a single note, so must you tune your various bodies in order that harmoniously they may allow the spiritual force to come through from the higher to the lower plane. It is a real tuning, a real making of harmonious ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... marchesa's brow, by the deepening of the wrinkles between her eyes. "A great success. I took a few turns myself with Teresa Ottolini—tra la la la la," and he swayed his head and shoulders to and fro as he hummed a waltz-tune. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Her head had cleared, and but for the soreness of body and limb she would have begun the day strong. There appeared little to eat and no time to prepare it. Gulden was rampant for action. Like a miser he guarded the saddle packed with gold. This tune his comrades were as eager as he to be on the move. All were obsessed by the presence of gold. Only one hour loomed in their consciousness—that of the hour of division. How fatal and pitiful and terrible! Of what possible use or good ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... was not without a certain enjoyment. The slowness of the tempo made it possible for Keith to keep in tune by leaning very close to the boy sitting next to him. Even the reading of the gospels and other recurring features of the service could be borne. But when the sermon began, Keith fell into sheer agony. The other boys seemed ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... cold and mercantile adventure, and I am disappointed in it. Not so either, for I looked for but little to enjoy. Take one day of my life as a specimen; the rest are mostly alike. The sheriff's trumpets are playing; one, some tune of which I know nothing, and the other no tune at all. I am obliged to turn out at eight. It is the first day of the Assize, so there is some chance of a brief, being a new place. I push my way into ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... he is come to request military aid. This is the old story. Upon my last visit I was bored almost to death by Kamrasi, with requests that I would assist him to attack Rionga. I have only been here for a few days when I am troubled with the old tune. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... luti entertains me during the evening with a dancing deer; a comical affair of wood, made to dance on a table by jerking a string. The luti plays a sort of "whangadoodle" tune on a guitar, and manipulates the string so as to make the deer keep time to the tune. He tells me he ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant." To the profane, they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a noted humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings always opened to the tune of "The Deil Fly Away with the Exciseman," and that the sacrament was dispensed in the form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked hits at the evangelist, who had been suspected of smuggling in his youth, and had been overtaken (as the phrase ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forbid it, without a command. When you are standing behind a person, to be ready to change the plates, &c., do not put your hands on the back of the chair, as it is very improper; though I have seen some not only do so, but even beat a kind of tune upon it with their fingers. Instead of this, stand upright with your hands hanging down or before you, but not folded. Let your demeanour be such as becomes the situation which you are in. Be well dressed, and have light shoes that make no noise, your face and hands well ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... engage in the conversation whilst he is mending the fire, throw himself upon a chair, and thus deliver the message he has been entrusted with, arrange his neckcloth at the glass, and dance out of the room, humming a tune. To an Englishman, this familiarity, from its excessive impudence, creates at first more amusement than irritation; but it becomes disgusting when we consider its consequences upon national manners, and that its causes are to be traced to national crime. I have seen a French gentleman take ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... a long time. At last, when he felt the tune was ripe, Ambrose pleaded urgent business for two evenings and shook down the Social Club dice fanciers for ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... atmosphere? The fact is, whenever the people of this country, through their representatives, choose to ask for it they must get it. In 1844 they ran to the rescue of the prerogative in Canada; but the very next year the same case came down to their own doors! The tune was changed then, and an address was prepared to the queen signed by the whole assembly except five. Why is this brought about—why is the tune changed so suddenly? They at first said responsible government is not fit for a colony—the next cry was, it is not fit for New Brunswick, and finally ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune. ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter-of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung his hat on the peg and entered ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... easy to you—you go about, placid and content, as I did once, in my day—you have been in there, and eaten your sumptuous supper, and picked your teeth, and hummed your tune, and thought your pleasant thoughts, and said to yourself it is a good world —but you've never suffered! You don't know what trouble is—you don't know what misery is—nor hunger! Look at me! Stranger have pity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... tone of his voice that he had no will to play, but he dug the almost forgotten instrument out of a closet, strung it and tuned it, and that evening after dinner, when my father called out in familiar imperious fashion, "Come, come! now for a tune," David was prepared, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky, And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo! I blessed him as he rose. Foolish; for far better is the trained boudoir bullfinch, Which pipeth the semblance of a tune and mechanically draweth up water. For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade, And God made thee one thing that thou mightest make thyself another. A maiden's heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling upwards, And it needed that ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... "And what shall I be?" inquired a somewhat solemn man, who feared that they were filled up. "Oh, we'll bring you in as the weight in Libra," was the instant remark of Douglas. A noisy fellow had long interrupted a company in which he was. At last the bore said of a certain tune, "It carries me away with it." "For God's sake," said Jerrold, "let somebody whistle it."—Such dicteria, as the Romans called them, bristled over his talk. And he flashed them out with an eagerness, and a quiver of his large, somewhat coarse mouth, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... The tune to which she sang her lines was rather merry than otherwise, and sometimes she would dance to the measure. The boys were kind to her, and she liked to enter a school-yard during play time, because the young people used to share their ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... I thought she seemed to enjoy the defect in my complexion; I really believe it raised me in her estimation. "We shall get on better in time," she said; "I am beginning to like you." She walked out humming a tune. Don't you agree with me? ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... that his chance of buying cheap equipment had gone glimmering, but he was not unhappy. He gestured to Andy. Together they strode across to the store and sat on the rough wood platform. Pete kicked his heels and whistled a range tune. Andy smoked and wondered what Pete had in mind. Suddenly Pete rose and pulled up his belt. "Come on over to Roth's house," he said. "I want ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... hopelessly inadequate. After I'd been there a month, it seemed to me that in a very few days any one could obtain a painfully correct idea of the place, and of the way it is administered. If an orchestra starts on an piece of music with all the instruments out of tune, it need not play through the entire number for you to know that the instruments are out ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... mournful retrospect commune O'er what that still cold heart and brain have won: A hymn of life in lispings first begun, Ending in harmony's most perfect tune. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... snap judgments, Red," said Ballard solemnly, "but wait a while and you'll change your tune." ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... shouldn't she lead and direct Riseholme instead of Lucia? She had long wondered why darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... am to leave these pretty Shades, The Gods and Nature have design'd for Love: Oh, my Amintas, wou'd I were what I seem, And thou some humble Villager hard by, That knew no other pleasure than to love, To feed thy little Herd, to tune a Pipe, To which the Nymphs should listen all the Day; We'd taste the Waters of these Crystal Springs, With more delight than all delicious Wines; And being weary, on a Bed of Moss, Having no other Canopy but Trees, We'd lay us down, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... reader of the style of that gentle Christian, John Knox, who, instead of offering his own "cheek to the smiters," delighted to smite the cheeks of women. Fury was his mode of preaching meekness, and threats of everlasting howling his reproof of a tune on Sundays. But, it will be said, he looked to consequences. Yes; and produced the worst himself, both spiritual and temporal. Let the whisky-shops answer him. However, he helped to save Scotland from Purgatory: so we must take good and bad together, and hope the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... coming and going, in a rhythm, which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped, she lifted the burden of sheaves, she turned her face to the dimness where he was, and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves, there was a swish and hiss of mingling oats, he was drawing near, and she must turn again. And there ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Harney Face to Face Frances Cochrane Ashore Laurence Hope Khristna and His Flute Laurence Hope Impenitentia Ultima Ernest Dowson Non Sum Quails Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae Ernest Dowson Quid non Speremus, Amantes? Ernest Dowson "So Sweet Love Seemed" Robert Bridges An Old Tune Andrew Lang Refuge William Winter Midsummer Ella Wheeler Wilcox Ashes of Roses Elaine Goodale Sympathy Althea Gyles The Look Sara Teasdale "When My Beloved Sleeping Lies" Irene Rutherford McLeod Love and Life Julie Mathilde Lippman Love's ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... morning unrefreshed. Pa Brewster, back home in Winnebago, always whistled mournfully off key, when he shaved. The more doleful his tune the happier his wife knew him to be. Also, she had learned to mark his progress by this or that passage in a refrain. Sometimes he sang, too (also off key), and you heard his genial roar all over the house. The ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... will take the right," Ralph said. "Form fours, sergeant. We shall get on better by keeping in step. Now, sergeant, if any of the men can sing let him strike up a tune with a chorus. That will ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... up the field, where Laban's sheep lay dotted. What Laban thought of it I cannot tell: but to me it seemed, for the moment, that the shepherd among his ewes, the dancers within the house, the sea beneath us, and the stars in their courses overhead moved all to one tune,—the carol of two children ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Grandmamma. She was evidently tired, yet she assured them that she felt vexed at their early departure. Servants were gliding about with plates and trays among the dancers, and the musicians were carelessly playing the same tune for about the thirteenth time in succession, when the young lady whom I had danced with before, and who was just about to join in another mazurka, caught sight of me, and, with a kindly smile, led me to Sonetchka And one of the innumerable Kornakoff princesses, at the same time ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... on being bad," he growled with an injured air one afternoon when a fortnight had passed without any noticeable change in the atmosphere. "Wish I hadn't come back that night. Guess they'd have sung a different tune then! Maybe a coyote would have got me, or I'd have stepped into a rattlesnake's nest and been stung to death. Bet they'd have felt sorry when they found me—," he hesitated. His picture was too vivid, and he shuddered ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the wine in the great and the small cup too, And take the bowl from the hands of the shining moon.[FN112] But without music, I charge you, forbear to drink, For sure I see even horses drink to a whistled tune.' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... progressed far enough to prepare the system for a healing crisis. Therefore my answer to the overconfident patient may be something like this: "Remember what I told you. The first improvement is not the cure, it is only the preparation for the real fight. Look out! In a few days you may whistle another tune." ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... musical talent decides. Frequently there is no one to play the instrument, and the hymns are started several times, until something resembling the right pitch is struck. Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly until the inevitable crash at the end of the fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and try again. I have supplied our smiling-faced cherubs with ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... Never had he seen eyes that flashed so vividly in a face of such pale fairness, or lips so red, smiling with such an unvarying almost tired-looking smile. She was sitting at a piano, idly strumming on the keys without playing any definite tune. What drew Jean's eyes above all was her hair, arranged in some fashion that struck him with a sense ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... purses could neuer reach to in England, and having it there without mony euen in their houses where they lie and hold their guard, can be kept from being drunk; and once drunke, held in any order or tune, except we had for euery drunkard an officer to attend him? But who be they that haue runne into these disorders? Euen our newest men, our yongest men, and our idelest men, and for the most part our slouenly prest men, whom the Justices, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... uncongenial; ill-assorted, ill-sorted; mismatched, misjoined^, misplaced, misclassified; unaccommodating, irreducible, incommensurable, uncommensurable^; unsympathetic. out of character, out of keeping, out of proportion, out of joint, out of tune, out of place, out of season, out of its element; at odds with, at variance with. Adv. in defiance, in contempt, in spite of; discordantly &c adj.; a tort et a travers^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... amused myself with watching their behaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in counting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over his eyes, and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew that he was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune, and beat time ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... same rules which regulate the taste of other countries. When we had performed, we desired them in return to give us an opportunity of admiring their talents, and one of them immediately began a very simple tune; it was however harmonious, and, as for as we could judge, superior to the music of all the nations in the tropical part of the South Sea, which we had hitherto heard. It ran through a much more considerable compass of notes, than is employed at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... national music has mostly grown out of civil dissensions and party conflicts. What scenes do the "Carillon," the atrocious "Carmagnole" and the "Marseillaise" bring up! The "Carillon" had been Marie Antoinette's favorite tune: it pursued her from her palace to her prison, startled her on her way to her trial, and was probably the last sound she heard as she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... to Tabitha, her heart grew wonderfully lighter, her lips unconsciously hummed a little tune and the walk the rest of the way to town was beautiful. But the first thing she did when Ivy Hall was reached, was to run up to her room, select the prettiest of the three left-over calendars, wrap it daintily in tissue paper and gold cord and address it to her father at Silver Bow. ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... other birds woke all around, Rising with toot and howl they stirred Their plumage, broke the trembling sound, They craned their necks, they fluttered wings, "While we are silent no one sings, And while we sing you hush your throat, Or tune your melody to ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... That is the tune when the Caesar comes this way, to a people who have such an ancestor to refer to; no matter what costume he comes in. This is Caesar in Britain; and though Prince Cloten appears to incline naturally to prose, as the medium best adapted to the expression of his views, the blank verse ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... means by which they make alive. And so with thy soul, thy character, thy humanity. God does not break his laws to punish its sins. The laws themselves punish; every fresh wrong deed, and wrong thought, and wrong desire of thine sets thee more and more out of tune with those immutable and eternal laws of the Moral Universe, which have their root in the absolute and necessary character of God himself. All things that he has ordained; the laws of the human body, the laws of the human soul, the laws of ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... are billeted. It revives memories, it quickens association, it opens and unites the hearts of men more surely than any other appeal can, and in this respect it aids recruiting perhaps more than any other agency. I wonder whether I should say this—the tune that it employs and the words that go with that tune are sometimes very remote from heroism or devotion, but the magic and the compelling power is in them, and it makes men's souls realize certain truths ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... up the street. The two sleuth-hounds quietly followed him. Through the darkness they could only vaguely see his silhouette, with the great bundle under his arm. Whatever may have been Rateau's fears of being shadowed awhile ago, he certainly seemed free of them now. He sauntered along, whistling a tune, down the Montagne Ste. Genevieve to the Place Maubert, and thence straight towards ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... I a verse Or some numbers more rehearse, Tune my words that they may fall Each way smoothly musical: For which favour there shall be Swans ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... and they puzzled their brains in vain to account for his silence. The topsails were loosed, the capstan was manned, and to a merry tune the men were running round and heaving up the anchor, and as the fine old admiral was shaking hands with all he knew on board just before stepping into his boat, Jack could scarcely persuade himself that four years had passed over his head ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building—building and built upon. Sometimes the work goes forward in deep darkness: sometimes in blinding light: now beneath the burden of unutterable anguish: now to the tune of a great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of thunder. [Softer.] Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome—the ...
— The Servant in the House • Charles Rann Kennedy
... close of this newspaper romance,—and it may nevertheless be true,—that these events were embodied in a song bearing the same title with this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set to a tune of the same name, both being composed by a colored man. The reporter claims to have heard it in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of the white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It would certainly be one of history's strange parallelisms, if this fatal enterprise, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... is a "harp of a thousand strings," which are intended to harmonize. If one of them is out of tune, it is likely to cause discord throughout, while to tune up one helps the ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... on a coffin, had made his way down to Ballawhaine. He had never been there before, and he felt confused, but he did not tremble. Half-way up the carriage-drive he passed a sandy-haired youth of his own age, a slim dandy who hummed a tune and looked at him carelessly over his shoulder. Pete knew him—he was Boss, the boys called him Dross, son and heir ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... new sang,' Mrs. Pumpherston intimated, with a stimulating glance round the company, 'an' he's got a tunin' fork, forbye, that saves him wrastlin' for the richt key, as it were. Tune up, Geordie!' ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... causes the patient to start, and it has been observed that he is affected by a change of time or tune in the airs performed on the pianoforte; that his agitation is increased by a more lively movement, and that his convulsions then become more violent. Patients are seen to be absorbed in the search for one another, rushing together, smiling, talking affectionately, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... Beethoven, or whatever his name was, to tune up and play everything in sight till I ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... now intending to remark upon the grosser misapplications of this ancient maxim, which have engendered so many races of poetasters. The days are gone by when every raw youth whose borrowed phantasies have set themselves to a borrowed tune, mistaking, as Coleridge says, an ardent desire of poetic reputation for poetic genius, while unable to disguise from himself that he had taken no means whereby he might become a poet, could fancy himself a born one. Those who would reap without sowing, and gain the ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... are books written in German to a reader who has a THIRD ear! How indignantly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp of sounds without tune and rhythms without dance, which Germans call a "book"! And even the German who READS books! How lazily, how reluctantly, how badly he reads! How many Germans know, and consider it obligatory to know, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Popes and Youngs and Gays, And tune your harps and strew your bays; Your panegyricks here provide; You cannot err on ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Then danced the bright Apsarases, The minstrels and the Gods advanced, And warbling lutes the soul entranced. The earth and sky that music filled, And through each ear it softly thrilled, As from the heavenly quills it fell With time and tune attempered well. Soon as the minstrels ceased to play And airs celestial died away, The troops of Bharat saw amazed What Visvakarma's art had raised. On every side, five leagues around, All smooth and ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... and ability is quite willing to come into a house to tune a piano. Another man of mechanical skill will come to put up window shades. Another of less skill, but of perfect independence, will come to clean and relay a carpet. These men would all resent the situation and consider it quite impossible if it implied ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... whirl. He had a "voice," and he had a guitar, so that his "serenades" were famous; and he set Aunt Stanshy's heart all in a flutter one night when, awaking about twelve, she heard his well-known voice leading off in a serenade, while he twanged his guitar to the tune, "O dearest love, do you remember?" Will Somers was popular in a very short time with every body. In the club-circle he was the object of an open, undisguised admiration. They quickly made him an honorary member, and he quickly set them up a "pair of bars," put in proper position the ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... The question came to him faintly, but it was so in tune with his unhappy mood that it affected him strangely. He found that his eyes were blurring and that an aching lump had risen into his ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... heavily upon his stick, walked slowly to the door, and Gentle Annie, humming a tune, walked briskly before, in all the glory of exuberant ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... had worked on through their basket of clams, and now the last were sputtering on the stove. The work had been done almost in silence, for though the excitement now and then made Reuben break into a low whistle of some tune or other, he always checked himself the next moment with a very apologetic look. For the rest, if he had not done all the work himself, it certainly was not his fault. Now, watching quietly the opening shells of that last dozen of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... spot on the shore where a ship was being unloaded of its cargo of granite blocks from Syene. Black and brown slaves were dragging them to land. An old blind man was piping a dismal tune on a small reed flute to encourage them in their work, while two men of fairer hue, whose burden had been too heavy for them, had let the end of the column they were carrying sink on the ground, and were being mercilessly flogged by the overseer to make them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... drink to whomsoever would, both of the chapmen and the others; while the weaponed youth stood in the midst bearing aloft his sword and shield like an image in a holy place, and Redesman's bow still went up and down the strings, and drew forth a sweet and merry tune. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... cavalier addressing a lady of the highest society. "Pardon my disturbing you, madam, but I am a man in delicate health, rheumatic . . . . The doctors, madam, have ordered me to keep my feet warm, especially as I have to go at once to tune the piano at Madame la Generale Shevelitsyn's. I can't go to ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... talked of Marlborough's victories: he hummed the opening verse of "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." I said it was our "For he's a jolly good fellow": he said yes, but the tune goes back to the time of the Crusaders. I asked who wrote the words. He said an unknown French soldier on the night of Malplaquet, when Marlborough was believed to have been killed. Napoleon, who knew no music, often mounted his horse at the opening of a campaign singing ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... she and her mother led the little choir. Amy chirped like a cricket, and Jo wandered through the airs at her own sweet will, always coming out at the wrong place with a croak or a quaver that spoiled the most pensive tune. They had always done this from the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... is Sarah Ward's New Albion dance-hall. It opens directly from the street There is an orchestra of three pieces, one of which plays in tune. That calm and collected woman whom you may see rocking in the window, or sitting behind the bar, sewing or knitting, is not a city missionary, come to instruct the women about her; it is Sarah Ward, the proprietress. She knows the Bible from end to end. She was a Sunday-school ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... that of a harmonium, but it is much more troublesome to play, and the performer, having to use his own breath to make the sounds, cannot sing at the same time. Unlike a harmonium also, it is difficult to keep in tune, and Miss Bird, a well-known traveller, tells of a concert at which the performer was obliged to be continually warming his instrument at a brazier of coals placed near. Some years ago a Japanese Commission was appointed to ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... centuries, and it will go on echoing through the centuries till the end of time. It is like the march of the elements to battle, like the heaving of mountains and the surge of oceans. In nothing else is the sense of Power so embodied in the pulse of song. And the words are as formidable as the tune. Carlyle caught their massive, rugged strength in ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... the Carthaginian encampment during the conflict and thus to intercept the retreat of the enemy's army across the river. The bulk of the Roman army, at early dawn on the and August according to the unconnected, perhaps in tune according to the correct, calendar, crossed the river which at this season was shallow and did not materially hamper the movements of the troops, and took up a position in line near the smaller Roman ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... from a young man whom we came across at Wild's theatre how affairs had developed at Haworth the previous night. He said that for half-an-hour the fiddler went on playing his favourite tune, "Rosin the bow." By-and-bye, the audience manifested signs of active curiosity as to the position of affairs, and one man said he would go behind the curtain and see for himself, adding, "There must be something wrong." He went to the front, and pulled the screen on one side to find—nothing! ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... in sight of the house by the clump of oaks on the hillside. Last week I should have moped and fumed here, and cursed my luck in being bound to a log on a day like this. Now I turned my face to the sunlight and drank in the keen air. Now I whistled as merry a tune ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... myself enter upon a programme of whistling, "Yankee Doodle" is supplanted by "The girl I left behind me," much to his annoyance, since, not understanding the sentiment responsible for the change, bethinks "Yankee Doodle" a far better tune. So much attached, in fact, has Igali become to the American national air, that he informs the professor and editor of Uj Videk of the circumstance of the band playing it at Szekszard. As, after supper, several of us promenade the streets ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... alone for hailing a top-gallant yard, or a flying-jib-boom! The lad has a voice like a French horn, when he has a mind to tune it! And what the devil is he manning the guns of that weather-beaten wreck for? At all events, if he has to fight his craft alone, there is no one to blame but himself, since he has gone to quarters without beat of drum, or without, in any other ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... from the lips of any Italian soldier, and those endless stornelli, which to an invariable tune they multiply from day ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... swearing inarticulately. A couple of subalterns just entering were nearly overwhelmed by their vigorous exit. They recovered themselves and followed to the tune of Toby's excited questioning. But none of the party got beyond the veranda steps, for there the sound of clattering hoofs arrested them, and a jaded horse bearing a dishevelled rider was pulled up short in front ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... open, following the lines of a square mesh, and stepping in tune with it; the outline voided; all in white thread. ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... a tune to keep his spirits up. Running easily over the monotonous dark swells with a fair following breeze, he passed an hour or two. He sat down, braced the tiller, and resigned himself to contemplation of the mysteries that had been and that still must be. And very sweet to him was the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... Gun-boats were ordered for the river front and the manufacture of gunpowder was hurried along. There was much watchfulness over those suspected of Toryism, or caught carrying away stores. Occasionally one saw a cart packed with Tories, seated backward and being driven along to the tune of the Rogue's March, and jeered ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... to the tune of a gleeful chortle. He was first! He hauled the microphone from its cubby in the dashboard and spoke the code words. Latitude, longitude and steaming direction of the Black Fleet he gave rapidly, and the information knifed back to the bridge of the Blue ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... that exactly that morning, twenty-four years before, I had marched down the glacis of Elvas to the tune of 'St. Patrick's Day in the Morning,' as the sun rose over the beleagured towers of Badajoz. Now, without any of the 'pride, pomp, and circumstances of glorious war,' I was proceeding on a service not very likely ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... tune struck up. The officers fell to bounding up and down, tapping with their heels, and tossing the epaulettes on their shoulders; the civilians tapped with their heels too. Lutchkov still did not stir from his place, and slowly followed the couples with ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the fiddler instantly played a dance-tune peculiar to this occasion, and the five sword-dancers danced by themselves in a ring, holding their swords out so ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... that hotel. Now it seemed to her that the city had grown younger, that it was more awake, that it was brighter, gayer, and that she herself had a part in its brightness and its gaiety. The crowds on Broadway seemed keeping step to some happy tune, and she felt that her heart was dancing with them, so elated, so girlishly irresponsible ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... and often from her; appearing to his neighbors stolid and sullen in the extreme, he was, in fact, in his whole being, like a morbidly-excited nerve. He did not shrink from the world because indifferent to it, but because it wounded him when he came in contact with it. He seemed so out of tune with society that it produced only jarring discord. His father's course brought him many real slights, and these he resented as we have seen, and he resented fancied slights quite as often, and thus he had cut himself off from the sympathies, and even the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... innocent Miss Plym. The rector's daughter possesses all the virtues, with one exception—the virtue of having an ear for music. When she sings, she is out of tune; and, when she plays, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... the market-place the tanned old women chattered briskly with their customers. He wandered on and on in growing wonder and perturbation. Suddenly his trouble ceased, a burst of wonderful melody came to him; there was not only a joyful tune, but other tunes seemed to blend with it, melting his heart with unimaginable rapture; he gave chase to the strange sounds, drawing nearer and nearer, and at last he emerged unexpectedly upon an ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... obtained such intimacy with God. "Ah, woman," she said, "when I am out there in the bush I have often no other one to speak to but my Father, and I just talk to Him." It was in that way she kept herself in tune with the highest. Sometimes, when there had been laughing and frivolous conversation before a meeting, she lost "grip," and was vexed and restless and dumb. But a little communion with her Father would put matters ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... with his flute, long as himself, extending high over the heads of his pretty neighbours; into how small a corner crept that round and florid little minor canon, and there with skill amazing found room to tune his ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... and thistle dribbling, But has its deadlier crop of scribbling. Each fen, and flat, and flood, and fell, Gives birth to verses by the ell— There Wordsworth, for his muse's sallies, Claims all the ponds, the lanes, and alleys— There Coleridge swears none else shall tune A bag-pipe to the list'ning moon; On come in clouds the scribbling columns, Each prowling for his next three volumes. I scorn the rascal tribe, and spurn all The ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... good, of course all in unison. The first hymn was to the tune of our "Old Hundredth," the chapters read by the minister were Ezek. xviii. and Rom. iii., and the text of the sermon was Ps. lxxxix. 14, "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... state of his own feelings and recollection. 'Yes,' he said, 'I preserved my language among the sailors, most of whom spoke English, and when I could get into a corner by myself I used to sing all that song over from beginning to end; I have forgot it all now, but I remember the tune well, though I cannot guess what should at present so strongly ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... up, and the orchestra began to play a tune which, though I haven't much of an ear for music, seemed somehow familiar. The next instant out pranced old Gussie from the wings in a purple frock-coat and a brown top-hat, grinned feebly at the audience, tripped over his feet blushed, and began ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... A ship would be cold meat this far inside our perimeter. And besides, there's no Rebel alive who can tune a converter like ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... under the supervision of the Millbrook Band of Hope Committee. Never shall I forget our bandmaster. He was a strict disciplinarian. No looseness was allowed in our playing; thoroughness was stamped on every tune we played. On practice nights he took each of the boys aside, and one by one each had to play the music as set—every note must be clear and distinct. Occasionally our band would march through the village, the drum major with his ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... to teach us a dance called, I think, the Washington Post, and which was, she said, much danced in England; and, to induce us to learn, she played the tune to us on the piano. We remained untouched by its beauties, each buried in an easy-chair toasting our toes at the fire. Amongst those toes were those of the Man of Wrath, who sat peaceably reading a book and smoking. Minora volunteered to show us the steps, and as we still did not move, danced ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... I laughed with sincerity. "Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you're not fit for this work-a-day world! Well, I'm glad, after all, that I shall be with you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you've forgotten all this tune has in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let's open ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... the cry of the storm. He waited for a lull and listened, then followed the direction of the sound. As he drew nearer, he caught the thud of moccasined feet beating time upon a boarded floor, and snatches of the tune which the violin was playing. Something loomed up out of the darkness to meet him. He held out his hands to force it from him, and drove them against a door. Then he knew that he had arrived at ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... "What would you like to do?" she asked. "Dance!" was the reply. "Well, then, dance, and show me what dances you like," replied the librarian, and immediately the girls formed for a figure of a folk-dance, and each girl humming softly the tune they danced it through. "The Girl Scouts" Club was formed, and in a day or two the secretary of the club submitted the following program for the librarian's approval: Program. 1. Chapter from the life of Louisa M. Alcott; 2. Recitations; 3. ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... friends and correspondents both the Grimms, Gervinus, and many of the principal literary men of Germany. My sister and myself, on the contrary, had remarkable facility in speaking foreign languages with the accent and tune (if I may use the expression) peculiar to each; a faculty which seems to me less the result of early training and habit, than of some particular construction of ear and throat favorable for receiving and repeating mere sounds; a musical organization and mimetic ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... of the Duke of Northumberland. When he was marching out of Boston, his band struck up the tune ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... natural gaiety soon dissipates: he sings, when asked, but in general his songs are in a mournful strain, and he keeps time by swinging his arms: whenever asked to dance, he does it with great readiness; his motions at first are very slow, and are regulated by a dismal tune, which grows quicker as the dance advances, till at length he throws himself into the most violent posture, shaking his arms, and striking the ground with great force, which gives him the appearance of madness. It is very probable that ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... also sing in time to their steps, as they stroll about, but the tune has a more lively character; and they sometimes accompany their voices on a little instrument composed of a few steel springs. They understand no other language than that of their distant country, and therefore, though ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... kept his word; he surmounted all difficulties, removed all objections. In vain Benda declared the organ in the chapel was out of tune, the performance impossible; the marquis hastened to the organist and obliged him to put it in order that night. In vain the singers protested against singing this difficult music before the king without preparation; D'Argens commanded them in the name of the king to have a rehearsal during ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... crescendoes and arpeggio chords through the air; and all the while drops from the eaves and upper window-ledges are beating time as rhythmical and measured as that of a metronome,—time to which our own souls furnish tune, sweet or sorrowful, inspiriting or saddening, as we will. It is a curious experiment to try repeating or chanting lines in time and cadence following the patter of raindrops on windows. It will sometimes be startling in its effect: no metre, no accent fails of its response ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... serenade, but a few days afterwards, as she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one of her little pupils broke out, "Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin' out that pow'ful pretty tune ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... whom I could impart the intelligence— there was no one whom I could expect to sympathise with me, or to whom I could pour out the abundance of my joy; for that the service prohibited. What could I do? Why I could dance; so I sprung from my chair, and singing the tune, commenced a Quadrille movement,—"Tal de ral la, tal de ral la, lity, lity, lity, liddle-um, tal de ral ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... angry as swarming bees, the squeals of five or six girls who ran in and out, and dived up dark passages and darted back into the crowd; all these mingled together till his ears quivered. A young fellow was playing the concertina, and he touched the keys with such slow fingers that the tune wailed solemn into a dirge; but there was nothing so strange as the burst of sound that swelled out when the public-house ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... pure Indians, and are simple and inoffensive people. They sat listening to three men, one with a whistle, the others with drums, each striving to make as much noise as possible, without any attempt at harmony or tune, whilst an enthusiast in discord kept clanging away at the bells ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... all America stood ranked on the other side—I say again that it affects me as a sublime spectacle. If he had any journal advocating 'his cause,' any organ, as the phrase is, monotonously and wearisomely playing the same old tune, and then passing round the hat, it would have been fatal to his efficiency. If he had acted in any way so as to be let alone by the government, he might have been suspected. It was the fact that the tyrant must give place to him, or he to the tyrant, that distinguished him from all the reformers ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... thought I held, And yet all thro' it The wires all England over shrill'd, And I never knew it! In a high muse I nurst my news All the forenoon, While England braced her limbs and thews To a marching tune. ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, for ever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the Devil shall for ever play his diabolical tune of Hell's ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... bent to the storm, I might perchance have gone my solitary way a broken and embittered man, but philosophy and bending to storms is not in me, unhappily, for chancing to encounter my faithless friend, I twisted his nose to such a tune that he demanded satisfaction which resulted in my wounding him; after which I consigned my perjured mistress to perdition; after which again, purely because she happened to be a wealthy heiress, my curmudgeonly uncle cast me adrift, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... against that," remarked Castro. "We can return to the colonel and tell him his brigs are at the bottom of the sea. There will be a pretty tune played presently, and La Hera will provide ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... only the time of the tune, the orchestra swung into a fox-trot. Lanyard glanced across the table to see Cecelia Brooke rising in response to the invitation ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... burst forth the Egyptian, "how blessed are we to-night!" He touched the strings to a measured tune, following with a minuet-step up and down the floor. A fantastic spectacle! for as he passed and repassed the lamp, an elastic shadow crept noiselessly behind him, dodged beneath his feet, and anon outstretched itself like a sudden pit ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... man was playing at random, without the slightest regard for time or tune. His fingers traveled mechanically over the worn keys of his instrument; he did not trouble himself over a false note now and again (a canard, in the language of the orchestra), neither did the dancers, nor, for that matter, did my old Italian's acolytes; for I ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac |
