"Whir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now reached the lowest floor and the press rooms were a whir of noise and clatter. As the three entered, the hum of the ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... father on account of his unbearable ruthlessness, and soon after presented by Alver with a government, he spent his whole life in arms, visiting his neighbours with wars and slaughters; nor did he, in his estate of banishment, relax his accustomed savagery a whir, but would not change his spirit ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... I have ventured on thy strident streets, Mid whir of traffic in the vibrant hour When Commerce with its clashing cymbal greets The mighty Mammon in his pomp of power.... And in the quiet dusk of eventide, As wearied toilers quit the marts of Trade, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... grasshopper of abnormal size went up with a whir. Big he was, in comparison with his kind, as the monster steer in the side-show, the Cardiff giant, or Jumbo ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... indicated anything except sheer comfort, it was that he was listening. He had been there for two hours, wide-awake, and absolutely motionless. Five, ten, fifteen minutes more passed, and then Mr. Grimm heard the grind and whir of an automobile a block or so away, coming toward the embassy. ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... were made of cotton rags wound tight and sewed, and then soaked in turpentine. When a ball was lighted a boy caught it quickly up, and threw it, and it made a splendid streaming blaze through the air, and a thrilling whir as it flew. A boy had to be very nimble not to get burned, and a great many boys dropped the ball for every boy that threw it. I am not ready to say why these fire-balls did not set the Boy's Town on fire, and burn it down, but I know they never did. There was no law against them, ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... With a whir and a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a lightning flash. He sang through the air, spinning over and over with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels held their breath in silence as they ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... darkness, came something that moved on a whir of caterpillar treads. Something hard and metallic slammed against Mike's shoulder, spinning him ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ever-increasing confusion and whir, and nothingness, till some time or other there was a fresh coming of the dawn, in the midst of which he felt something that seemed wonderfully cool and moist laid upon his head, and a voice that seemed to ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... dashed down the narrow valley—the white standard of France on one side of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other—and began to deploy the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge—whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet wedged in the narrow space behind. Now came the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... alas! just as breakfast was coming to an end, there was a whir and a hoot, and a motor-car was heard rushing up the spacious avenue and stopping ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... would be too frightened to do anything but cry; and yet there are many birds, who, when taken away a long distance, will perch on top of the weather-vane, perhaps, make up their little bits of minds which way to go, and then with a whir-r-r-r fly off over house-tops and church-steeples, towns and cities, rivers and meadows, until they reach the ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... farther into the timber he went, avoiding the outreaching skidways and the sound of axes. Broad-webbed snow-shoe rabbits leaped from under foot and scurried away in the timber, and the whir of an occasional ptarmigan ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... toward its source. The soil was black and deep and the forest magnificent. Great beeches and hickories were mingled with the willows and live oaks and cypresses, and the foliage was thick, green, and beautiful. The birds seemed innumerable, and now and then flocks of wild fowl rose with a whir from the creek's edge. Keen, penetrating odors of forest and wild flower ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to spin straw into gold, and haven't a notion how it's done." "What will you give me if I spin it for you?" asked the manikin. "My necklace," replied the girl. The little man took the necklace, sat himself down at the wheel, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the bobbin was full. Then he put on another, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the second too was full; and so it went on till the morning, when all the straw was spun away, and all the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... wraithly things! Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs, 'Tis a fair whing-whangess with phosphor rings, And bridal jewels of fangs and stings, And she sits and as sadly and softly sings As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings; Tickle me, dear; tickle me here; Tickle me, love, in these ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... with a whir, and Herr Heinrich passed out of the gates and along the same hungry road that had so recently consumed Mr. Direck. "Give him a last send-off," cried Teddy. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Only the chirp of the crickets and the fretting of the aide-de-camp's horse outside the cottage could be heard. Then, like the grating of a coffee mill in a distant kitchen when one is just waking out of a sound sleep, they heard the faint, smothered whir of machinery, a sharper metallic ring of steel against steel followed by a gigantic detonation which shook the ground upon which the cottage stood and overthrew every glass upon the table. With a roar like the fall of a skyscraper the first shell hurled itself into the night. Half terrified the ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... thy feet on the trails, O Much Desired!! Dost thou not hear afar what my blood whispers, Betraying my heart as the whir Of the night-moth's wings ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... The whir of the engine drowned conversation. An instant later the two carloads of banditti were passing down around curve after curve of the sandy road. Mary Warren, still dazed, and dull where she lay, heard them go by. Yonder then, lay the trail—but could she know which way? ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... off at the little station and hunted our way up, making great sweeps and jogs, as hunters must, to take in certain spots we thought promising—certain ravines and swamp edges where we are always sure of hearing the thunderous whir of partridge wings, or the soft, shrill whistle of woodcock. At noon we broiled chops and rested in the lee of the wood edge, where, even in the late fall, one can usually find spots that are warm and still. It was dusk by the time we came over the ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... endless work. The whole air round was aglow with the fury of the fires; and men went and came like demons in the flames, with red-hot melting metal, pouring it into moulds and beating it on anvils. In the huge workshops in the background there was a perpetual whir of machinery, of wheels turning and turning, and pistons beating, and all the din of labor, which for a time renewed the anguish of my brain, yet also soothed it,—for there was meaning in the beatings and the whirlings. And a hope rose within me that with all the forces that were here, ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... stood holding Ben Bow by the bridle, the old horse reared, plunged violently, snapped his halter, and broke away. The boy, at the same instant, was hurled to the ground. The ringing of hoofs and whir of wheels made strange sensations in his ears. He thought what a fool he was to be knocked down by old ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens, Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them. Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens, Hailing his slow approach ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... son was just wondering what had become of his one-span servant, when, with a whir! the little fellow alighted beside him, and wiping his face with his handkerchief, as if he were dreadfully hot and tired, said thoughtfully, 'Now I do hope I've brought enough, but you ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... two legs, a whole face with eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears, complete. He could see, for he had glanced about him as he dressed. He could speak, for he sang loudly. He could hear, for he had turned quickly at the whir of pigeon-wings behind him. His skin was smooth all over, and nowhere on it were the dark scarlet maps which the child found so interesting on the arms, face, and breast of the burned man. He did not strangle every little while, or shiver madly, and scream at a sound. It ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... round and up And down the height, most like the whir of wings Through tangled trees of forests old and dim. A moment thus—the time a crisped leaf, Held, armlength overhead, will take to fall— And then a man was sitting face to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... ear; And noise so slight it would surpass Credence:—drinking sound of grass, Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth: The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake— Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, Without relief ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... with no little difficulty. My cork came up in the back water under the rock on which I stood, and there, almost at my very feet, it disappeared. I could not believe that a bass had taken it, but all doubt on the subject was dispelled by the shrill whir of my reel as the fine silk line spun out at a tremendous rate. The fish had darted across the current, and only stopped after he had taken out over two hundred feet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... simple word of command spoken in that room was the thunder of the law in the wilderness about, and men obeyed. There's a bat living there now. He tumbled about me in the dull light, filling the silence with the harsh whir ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the ball-room, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor as the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... rise, I heard the whir of a motor engine and the raucous voice of a Klaxon horn. Before I realized what it meant, I was in the midst of a mass of plunging, snorting animals, shouting carters, and kicking mules. In a moment the caravan scattered wildly across the plain and the road was clear save for the ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... themselves patiently to await the night and the time for action. The tiny encampment was hidden from them by the thick boughs, but through the screen of delicate, aromatic leaves they could see the bridge of rock. Around them was the stir and murmur of the summer afternoon—the wind in the trees, the whir of insects, the song of birds, the babble of the water—but far above, where the great arch cut the sky, the world seemed asleep. The trees dreamed, resting against the crimson and gold of the heavens. The Indian's appreciation of the wonders of nature was limited—with a grunted, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... her, at all. When she got tired of the game at last, she rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft with the rush and whir of a shell and lit on the highest limb of a great tree and sat down and crossed her legs and smiled down at me, and seemed gratified ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... splendor of the swamp, With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom, Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp, Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom— Where from stale waters dead Oft looms ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... pretty near bother the life out of me. They creep in through the cracks and crannies and eat the grain. If I go over by the grain chest, the first thing I know, there's a whir, and a cloud of them darts up in front of my face. Sometimes it makes my heart come right up in my mouth. I wish there wasn't a ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... alpenstock firmly, Burt sprang through the intervening copsewood, and witnessed a scene that he never forgot, though he paused not a second in his horror. Even as he rushed toward her a huge rattlesnake was sending forth the "long, loud, stinging whir" which, as Dr. Holmes says, is "the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes can hear unmoved." Miss Hargrove was looking down upon it, stupefied, paralyzed with terror. Already the reptile was coiling its thick body for the deadly ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... line with Harry between himself and the snake, so dared not shoot. Harry's automatic had dropped from his nerveless fingers at the first alarming whir of the vibrating rattles. Unable to make a sound or move a muscle the lad stood entirely unnerved while the great reptile prepared ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... island, only another element in the atmosphere of fear and wonder that surrounded him. Then it rose a little, and he became suddenly sharply conscious of it as an additional menace. The sound was not loud, but deep and vibrant. A whir or hum, like that of a powerful, muffled motor, but deeper than the sound of any motor man has ever made. It came down the gorge, from the direction of the machine ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... music at least, But was something deceived, for 'twas none of the best: But however I stay'd at the church's commanding Till we came to the 'Peace passes all understanding,' Which no sooner was ended, but whir and away, Like boys in a school when they've leave got to play; All save master mayor, who still gravely stays Till the rest had made room for his worship and's mace: Then he and his brethren in order appear, I out of my stall, and fell into his rear; For why, 'tis much ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... with my labour at making of shoes, than to find myself dropping into the death of sleep! how much sweeter then must it not be to sink into the sleepiest of sleeps, the father-sleep, the mother-bosomed death of nothingness and unawaking rest! Then shall all this endless whir of the wheels of thought and desire be over; then welcome the night whose darkness doth not seethe, and which ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... song, and troops of squirrels, with footprints here and there of the grizzly bear, and a drove of wild turkeys, with red heads aloft, rushing over an eminence at our left as we approached, and an occasional whir of a rattlesnake at our feet, sufficiently indicated the kind of denizens by which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... halted to await the critical moment of the attack. Then, while they waited, the long white beam from a man-o'-war at sea settled along the ridge on the left and showed the strong wired entrenchments of the outpost. Whir-r-r went a shell overhead, and the first shot of the battle burst in an eruption of black smoke among ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... presently the creatures of the night came out—the owls, and the bats, and the night moths—and looked with wonder at the queer little pair lying prone amongst the green clover. Thousands of wonderful night noises also began to awaken in all directions—the merry chirp of the cricket, the whir of the bat on its circling flight, the hum of the moths—but the children heard nothing, although the creatures of the night were curious about these strange little beings who, by good rights, ought not to ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... happen when I goes with Steve atter ole Brayton," he mumbled, and he sat thinking the matter over, until a rattle and a whir inside the mill told him that the hopper was empty. He arose to fill it, and coming out again, he heard hoof-beats on the dirt road. A stranger rode around the rhododendrons and shouted to him, asking the distance to Hazlan. He took off his hat ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... emerges; and the Monument with its bristling head of golden hair; the dray horses crossing London Bridge show grey and strawberry and iron-coloured. There is a whir of wings as the suburban trains rush into the terminus. And the light mounts over the faces of all the tall blind houses, slides through a chink and paints the lustrous bellying crimson curtains; the green wine-glasses; the coffee- cups; and the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... accent. He was, he said, a mechanic, whose duty it was to care for the bells and the machinery. He had an assistant who went on duty at six o'clock. He served watches of eight hours. There came a "whir" from a fan above, and a tinkle from a small bell somewhere near at hand. He said that the half hour would strike in three minutes. Had I ever been in a bell tower when the chimes played? Yes? Then M'sieur ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... The winds had furled their wings. White clouds rose, dazzling, opaque, up to the blue zenith. The querulous cicada complained in the laurel. Birt heard the call of a jay from the woods. And then, as he once more urged the old mule on, the busy bark-mill kept up such a whir that he could hear nothing else. He was not aware of an approach till the new-comer was close upon him; in fact, the first he knew of Nate Griggs's proximity was the sight of him. Nate was glancing about with his usual air of questioning disparagement, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... whir! and a brood of half-grown partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen of ferns and briers, and hear this wild hen of the woods call together her brood. At what an early age the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... light, which came and went curiously. She tried to fix her gaze upon one of them, but it was extinguished immediately and appeared elsewhere. She found another—and another, but they fled from her like ignes fatui. She heard the whir of a machine, fast and then slow again, near and then at a distance. Was it an automobile or an aeroplane? The notion of an automobile speeding in space was incongruous, the milky way—a queer concept! ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... body and spirit, incapable of thinking two thoughts in sequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... and hills with fowling-piece And 'mal prepense' toward the feathery flocks. The pigeons flew from tree-tops o'er my head; I heard the flap of wings—and they were gone; The pheasant whizzed from bushes at my feet Unseen until its sudden whir of wings Startled and broke my wandering reverie; And then I whistled and relapsed to dreams, Wandering I cared not whither—wheresoe'er My silent gun still bore its primal charge. So gameless, but with cheeks and forehead tinged By breeze and sunshine, I returned to books. But ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... same time the regular toil of cultivation is maintained. Back and forth between the young plants mules are drawing cultivators, and following these come a score or two women with light, sharp hoes. From the great crate manufactory is heard the whir of machinery and the click of hammers; at intervals the smithy sends forth its metallic voice, while from one centre of toil and interest to another the proprietor whisks in his open buggy at a speed that ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... the lane outside upon which they gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling shrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he noted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart road. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at the left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way round the rose-gardens, which were partly ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... taking new shape before our eyes, being rearranged in kaleidoscopic combinations, and transported from port to port, from town to town, from sea to sea. One can look nowhere without seeing this ceaseless activity progressing. Everywhere there is a whir of wheels, a plash of waves, a din of assembly, as the ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... the girl had hurled at me stunned me as effectually as an actual missile from her hand would have done. What did she mean? And then, before my dazed brain could work itself back through the mazes of memory, there came the whir of a taxi in the street, an imperative ring of the bell, a tramp of masculine footsteps in the hall, and then—my husband's arms were around me, his lips murmuring disjointed, incoherent ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... swiftly swung the heavy gate to and locked it. Catharine Knollys caught his last gesture, which bade her begone as fast as might be. Her feet were strangely heavy, in spite of her. She reached the curb in time to hear only the whir of wheels as a carriage sped away over the stones of the street. She stood alone, irresolute for half an instant as the crunch of wheels spun up to the curb again. A hand reached out and beckoned; involuntarily she obeyed the summons. Her wrist was seized, and she ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... week preceding the day there is heard everywhere the whir of sewing machines. New dresses are feverishly cut and made; old ones ripped and remade. Hats are bought, old ones are retrimmed. Buggies are repainted and baby carriages oiled. Dick does a thriving business in lemons, picnic baskets, flags, peanuts and palm-leaf fans, these being ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... every now and then getting blocked and jammed together, and then, during ten seconds, one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguely and dimly. Every windlass connected with every forehatch from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring such songs as 'De las' sack! De las' sack!!' inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaos of turmoil ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... zephyr stirred a gray tuft of hair on the pale temple, and the big fly flew back again with a buzz past the white nose, motionless now. Round about, the ripe fruit fell heavily upon the turf, making the whir of the field-crickets cease for a moment. But yonder under the pear-tree sat Billy, looking into the evening sun with feverishly shining eyes, and still ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the odor of new-mown grass and the breath of wild strawberries that had fallen under the sickle, to make the sweet hay sweeter with their crimson juices. The whir of the scythes and the clatter of the mowing machine came from the distant meadows. Field mice and ground sparrows were aware that it probably was all up with their little summer residences, for haying time was at its height, ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to dawn when we came out upon the marsh; and above, I heard the whir and whimpering rush of wild ducks passing, the waking call of birds, twittering all around us in the darkness; the low undertone of the black water flowing to ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... lights on the floor, he bursts into music and song, something about his being a chickety chickety chick chick, and will Tweeny please to tell him whose chickety chick is she. Retribution follows sharp. We hear a whir, as if from insufficiently oiled machinery, and over the passage door appears a placard showing the one word 'Silence.' His lordship stops, and steals to Tweeny on ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... minute before speaking, because the words were hardly out of his mouth before Gussie was out of the cupboard. I have commented on the speed with which he had gone in. It was as nothing to the speed with which he emerged. There was a sort of whir and blur, and he was no ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... was high and summer sounds were teeming in the air; The clank of scythes, the cricket's whir, and swelling woodnotes rare, From fields and copse and meadow; and through the open door Sweet, fragrant whiffs of new-mown hay ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... the general reader the way in which the machine operates, let us fancy ourselves ready for the start. The machine is placed upon a single-rail track facing the wind, and is securely fastened with a cable. The engine is put in motion, and the propellers in the rear whir. You take your seat at the center of the machine beside the operator. He slips the cable, and you shoot forward. An assistant who has been holding the machine in balance on the rail starts forward with you, but before you have gone ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... he does not live there. His intimates know that only a few minutes after the last dinner guest has departed, his chauffeur will drive him some twenty miles to a much simpler abode on a secluded dirt road. Here, he really lives. Whistling tree toads replace the constant whir ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... over the city every day, and at night you can see their lights moving overhead in the darkness. Sometimes they fly so low that you can hear the whir of their engines. For the moment you don't know if they're Russian or ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... to hide it, her fingers thrust the card back inside its envelope. And she was tucking it away in its warm hiding place within the scant fullness of the white blouse when the clock on the wall behind her began to beat out the hour with a noisy whir of loosened cogs. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... sudden he ceased all struggle. About neck and all four hoofs was the burning grip of the rope, so bitterly familiar, and man had once again enslaved him. Alcatraz relaxed. Presently there would come a swift volley of curses, then the whir and cut of the whip—no, for a great occasion such as this the man would choose a large and durable club and beat him across the ribs. Why not? Even as he had served Cordova this man of the flaming hair would ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... it abnormal," I began, and I was sensible of my wife's thoughts leaving her own injuries for my point of view so swiftly that I could almost hear them whir. ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... that'll be better," answered Udell; and soon the whir of the motor, and the stamp of the press ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... a silence, and in a growing wave of sound the whir of the reaping machines swelled up from the fields beyond the garden and then receded ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... traffic of the day the stillness of the Avenue was puzzling. Only the whir of an automobile or the occasional hoofbeats of a cab-horse broke the silence, and hardly less dark than the tenements just passed were its handsome houses, with their closed shutters and drawn curtains, and the restless occupants therein. As he reached ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... of the long windows, which she unbolted and flung open, expecting to hear the shrill whir of the burglar-alarm, which, every night, Hill switched on ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... a mile each way from his home, went the father, shouting, "Birdie! Birdie, little maid!" and the echoes repeated, "Birdie! Birdie, little maid!" but no other sound he heard except the rustling of the leaves and the whir of insect wings. The sun was beginning to sink in the west when, tired and heart-sick, he came back again. "Perhaps she is there now," he thought, a ray of hope lighting up his face as he neared the garden gate; but a glance at his wife's tearful eyes as she came ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and the Snowbird began to quiver throughout her frame. He touched the lever by which the propellers were started. With a whir and a bound the flying ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... ago, On a sudden seven ducks With a splashy rustle rise, Stretching out their seven necks, One before, and two behind, And the others all arow, And as steady as the wind With a swivelling whistle go, Through the purple shadow led, Till we only hear their whir In behind a rocky spur, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... seemed to be a bunch of dry leaves and grass coiled swiftly, with the rattling whir that goes straight to the fear center of the human heart. In a flash Anna's hands were full of rocks. The first article in every California mountain child's education is to destroy every rattlesnake that comes ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... the arriving Americans in the hotels; no art can give the impression of their exceeding multitude. Expresses, panting with as much impatience as the disciplined English expresses ever suffer themselves to show, await them in the stations, which are effectively parts of the great hotels, and whir away to London with them as soon as they can drive up from the steamer; but many remain to rest, to get the sea out of their heads and legs, and to prepare their spirits for adjustment to the novel conditions. These the successive trains carry ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... along its ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly, in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whir ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... departure, I have a foretaste of the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children, the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars, the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating, smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A musician might extract some harmony from this chaos of noises, this jumble of sounds. But ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... was a stirring affair. Promptly at three o'clock P. M. the vessel moved away from her moorings, amidst the din of the band, the waving of flags, the whir of the movie machine, the blowing of whistles and the cheers ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... his own extreme weariness or for the soporific effect of the alcoholic fumes with which his comrade's breath was redolent. When six o'clock struck at the church of St. Eustache, the young detective's alarm resounded faithfully enough, with a loud and protracted whir. Shrill and sonorous as was the sound, it failed, however, to break the heavy sleep of the two detectives. They would indeed, in all probability, have continued slumbering for several hours longer, if at half-past seven a sturdy fist had not begun to rap loudly ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... heard a vicious, locust-like whir, whose meaning he recognized. An immense rattlesnake was in the bushes, and Fred had descended almost upon it. But for the tremendous effort of Jack he would have dropped squarely upon the velvety body, with consequences too frightful ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... swale-grass on the river edge, erect now again after the April floods, or the brown broom-corn nearer the road, or from the sky above? We could hear the squirrels' mocking chatter in the tree-tops, the whir of the kingfishers along the willow-fringed water—the indefinable chorus of Nature's myriad small children, all glad that spring was come. But above these our ears took in the ceaseless clang of the drums, and the sound of hundreds of armed men's feet, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... two hours had passed, when I heard a whir and a crash in the windows of the bath (where I had dined and was about to sleep), occasioned by the settling and again the flight of some pheasants. Abdul entered. 'Beard of the Prophet! what hast ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... shimmering floor of jewel which Lake Champlain presented under the morning sun, I sat looking out over my neighbor's cornfield, where goldfinch babies were filling the air with their quaint little two-note cries, absorbed in the lovely view, when suddenly I heard a whir of wings and looked up to see a hummer flying about near the nest where madam was sitting. It made two or three jerks, approaching within six inches, and then darted away. Instantly she followed, but not as if in pursuit. There were no cries. It seemed to me a friendly move, an ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... flutter of wings; for the birds had begun to shift perches, and to exchange slaps as well as to call names—the movement setting toward the tree-tops. None of the sparrows had left the roost. The storm of chatter increased and the buzz of wings quickened into a steady whir, the noise holding its own with that of the ice-wagons pounding past. The birds were filling the top-most branches, a gathering of the clans, evidently, for the day's start. The clock in Scollay Square station pointed to five minutes to five, and just before the hour struck, ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... cold darkness of eternity he sits, this god who has grown old. His rounded eyes are open on the whir of time, but man who made him has ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... the quiet blue sky there shot like an arrow the great War-eagle. Beside the clear brown stream an old Beaver-woman was busily chopping wood. Yet she was not too busy to catch the whir of descending wings, and the Eagle reached too late the spot where she had vanished in the midst of the ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... Occasionally the whir of a motor-car sweeping along the adjacent road broke harshly across the peaceful quiet. Magda glanced up with some annoyance as the first one sped by, dragging her back to an unwilling sense of civilisation. Then she bent her head resolutely above her book and declined to be distracted ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... asked him. "Cold, unhealthy place." He seemed to enter upon his duties with the casual interest of the amateur, and, in a way, exactly embodied the attitude of his country towards Europe, of which the many wheels within wheels may spin and whir or halt and grind without in any degree affecting the great republic. America can afford to content herself with the knowledge of what has happened or is happening. Countries nearer to the field of action must know ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... unseen hand, touched him. Those loaves, those doves, and those two boys were not earthly creatures. It all happened at the same time: a boy ran towards a dove and glanced smiling at Levin; the dove, with a whir of her wings, darted away, flashing in the sun, amid grains of snow that quivered in the air, while from a little window there came a smell of fresh-baked bread, and the loaves were put out. All of this together was so extraordinarily nice that Levin laughed and cried with delight. Going a long way ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... fire!"—and she was striving her uttermost to reach a zone of safety. Our prow plunged into the surging seas, and showered boat and crew alike with silvery, sparkling foam. The engines were being urged to their greatest power, and the whir of the propeller proved that below, at the motor valves, each man was doing his very best. Anxiously, we measured the distance that still separated us from our prey. Was it diminishing? Or would they get away from us before our guns could take effect? Joyfully we saw the ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... slantways upward in its low flight which ends in a nearly perpendicular slide down to within ten or twelve feet from the ground, the bird being closely followed by a second one pursuing. In reality I did not see the birds, but I heard the fast whir of ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... way came, in spells between, the gentle tones of a German song about the Christ-child. Christmas in the East Side tenements begins with the sunset on the "Holy Eve," except where the name is as a threat or a taunt. In a hundred such homes the whir of many sewing-machines, worked by the sweater's slaves with weary feet and aching backs, drowned every feeble note of joy that struggled to make itself heard above the noise of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... once, but stood with her head slightly bent, fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, the forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. The call of birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the treetops, low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, joined themselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road whereon nothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... a step somehow by walking home with her. He felt like one who has undertaken to catch some skittish timorous thing, that, if you stand still, will come within a certain small but safe distance, but you must not move a step toward it, or, whir, away it is. He went slowly home, his heart warm and cold by turns; warm when he remembered the sweet hours he had just spent, and her sweet looks and heavenly tones, every one of which he saw and heard again; cold when he thought of the social distance that separated them, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... chain again, and whir-r-r the engine, and up would come a pair of oil casks, as though the crane were some giant forceps which was plucking out the great wooden teeth of the vessel. It seemed to Tom, as he stood looking down, note-book in hand, that ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... see "Much Ado about Nothing." For at Antioch they act a play the night before Commencement. A land of Pullman's palace-cars. And lo! they secured sections 5 and 6, 7 and 8, in the "Mayflower." Just time to kiss the baby of one friend, and to give a basket of guavas to another, and then whir for Cincinnati ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... of the wild hunt, and speedily the storm is laid. Merely a wanton whir still pulses in the breeze, a wave of weird voluptuousness, like the sensuous breath of unblest love, still soughs above the spot where impious charms had shed their raptures and over which the night now broods once more. But dawn ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... alarming episodes of the road, the hoot and whir of a passing motor-car or the loud vibrating hum of a wayside threshing-machine, were ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... flood of memories the whir of those wings brings back to my tired soul," Stuart dreamily cried; "of woods and fields and hills and valleys of the South, where men and women yet live a sane human life! I'd begun to forget there were any hills ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... clumpety-clump!" of a stamp-mill on a shoulder of a hill high above the camp, drowned the whir and chirp of night insects, and from the second story of a house they passed they heard the crude banging of a piano, and a woman's strident voice wailing, "She may have seen better da-a-ys," with a ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... of the young corn leaves rustling in the twilight. Nothing was changed; all nature was as she had found it before, evening upon evening; but in the stones and the dry weeds, amid the fragrance of the air and the light whir of falling leaves, Camilla sensed a new strangeness, a vast ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... very far from Hyde Park Corner in London Town. Behind the whir and rattle of the traffic it stands, spacious and cool and very old, muffled by the little streets that guard it, happily unconscious, you would suppose, that there were any in all the world so unfortunate as to have less than five thousand a year for their support. ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... remembered best, the little, friendly things ... a stretch of maple-shadowed streets heavy and still with the heat of a summer noon; a flurry of pigeons in the courthouse square; yellow dandelions in a green lawn, the whir of a lawnmower and the smell of the cut grass; ivy on old bricks and the rough feel of oak bark under her hands; water lilies and watermelons and crepe papery dances and picnics by the river in the summer dusk; and the library steps in the evening, with fireflies in the cool grass and the ...
— The Passenger • Kenneth Harmon
... them, but they did not attack human beings. You might sit on a bank in the fields with endless insects passing without being irritated; but everywhere out of doors you must listen for the peculiar low whir of the stoat-fly, who will fill his long grey body with your blood in a very few minutes. This is ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... comes the robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... for several moments. She seemed to be thinking. Louise's face was expressionless. She had made one attempt to check Wrayson, but recognizing its futility she had at once abandoned it. From below in the valley came the faint whir of the reaping machines, from the rose garden a murmur of bees. But between the two women and the man there was silence—silence which lasted so long that Monsieur Jules, who was watching from a window, called ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... war-shout, the dark-faced Asiatics dropping upon the decks, the whir of javelins, the scream of dying men, the clash of steel on steel. A frantic charge, but stoutly met. Themistocles was in the thickest melee. With his own spear he dashed two Tyrians overboard, as they sprang upon ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown Partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind this screen of ferns and briers, and hear this wild-hen of the woods call together ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... personages. His daughter, for example, will persist in growing up. Not for a single day will she pause. He arrives one night and perceives that she is a woman and that he must treat her as a woman. He had not bargained for this. Peace, ease, relaxation in a home vibrating to the whir of such astounding phenomena? Impossible dream! These phenomena were originally meant by him to be the ornamentation of his career, but they are threatening to be the sole reason of his career. If his wife lives for him, it is certain that he lives just as much ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... fool! I'm not a ghost!" shouted Gay, but the only response came in an hysterical babble of moans from the negro quarters somewhere in the rear and in the soft whir in his face of a leatherwing bat as it wheeled low in the twilight. There was no smoke in the chimneys, and the square old house, with its hooded roof and its vacant windows, assumed a sinister and inhospitable look against the background ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... for letting his thoughts become thin and damp as the vapor about him. He shrugged his shoulders. He listened thankfully to the steady purr of the engine and the whir of the propeller. He would get across! He ascended, hoping for a glimpse of the shore. The fog-smothered horizon stretched farther and farther away. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the room, so that the whir of the great stones in the mill came to us insistently. I stood there, they all watching me, and ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... as suddenly as it had come on, and the lustrous moon of Australia burst from the clouds shining bright as an English dawn, into the hollows of the cave. And then simultaneously arose all the choral songs of the wilderness,—creatures whose voices are heard at night,—the loud whir of the locusts, the musical boom of the bullfrog, the cuckoo note of the morepork, and, mournful amidst all those merrier sounds, the hoot of the owl, through the wizard she-oaks and the ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the valves, a soft panting from the exhaust, and a whir of wheels, a huge red machine flew past them in a cloud ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... disaster. What was it? Had the negroes risen in revolt? Had the aviators forced aside the iron bars of the grating? Or had the men of Fish stumbled blindly through the hills and gazed with bleak, joyless eyes upon the gaudy valley? John did not know. He heard a faint whir of air as the lift whizzed up again, and then, a moment later, as it descended. It was probable that Percy was hurrying to his father's assistance, and it occurred to John that this was his opportunity to join Kismine and plan an immediate escape. He waited until the lift had been silent ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... think that nothing is happening because you do not see yourself grow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul said for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew "from character to character." "The inward man," he says elsewhere, "is renewed from ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... the vanes on the chimneys, Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors Mingled their sounds with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens. Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them. Reverend walked he among them; and up rose ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... State climbing under a gasoline bronc with a monkey-wrench in her hand. Where? Right over the hill on the edge of town. The immediate stampede for the cow ponies was averted by a warning chug-chug that sounded down the road, followed by the appearance of a flashing whir that made the ponies ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine |
