"Clack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... artists—not sham poets like Bulbul, or quack artists like that Pinkney—but to the best members of all society. It is there I made this sketch, while Miss Chesterforth was singing a deep-toned tragic ballad, and her mother scowling behind her. What a buzz and clack and chatter there was in the room to be sure! When Miss Chesterforth sings, everybody begins to talk. Hicks and old Fogy were on Ireland: Bass was roaring into old Pump's ears (or into his horn rather) about the Navigation ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A duck said, "Quack!" Up in the tree-top A crow answered back, Two of us amusing, Two of us confusing: So we had to give up talking, And just listen to their clack. ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Highlands, where rock rises piled upon rock, and the impetuous cataract makes the stoutest eye reel in looking on it, to the wimpling stream that glides through some bosky dell, where wild flowers spangle the banks, driving some village mill, whose distant clack, mingling with the murmur of the stream and the song of birds from the woods, forms a concert so sweet to the lover of nature. Without an object further than amusement, Malcolm and I jogged on for the Falls of the Clyde. Early in the afternoon, we arrived in Lanark, where ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... me means and tastes to correspond, and what man can say more. I see visions, and am able to make them realities. I dream of a dovecote with a tiled roof, and straightway build it; I picture a gallery and a chapel and a library away from the clack of tongues, and behold there it is. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of thee.' To see and dream without the power of performance is heart-breaking. To perform without the gift of imagination is soul-slaying. The man is blessed that hath both eye and hand, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... it came singing; and it was mine, yet I could not hear its song, and I let it go; it could not be happy so with me. . . . I stand at the gate of a great city, and see all, and feel the great shuttles of sounds, the roar and clack of wheels, the horses' hoofs striking the ground, the hammer of bells; all: and yet it is not mine; it is far, far away from me. It is one world, mine is another; and sometimes it is lonely, and the best things are not for me. But I have seen ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... if you will have fewer orders in a commonwealth, you will have more; for where she is not perfect at first, every day, every hour will produce a new order, the end whereof is to have no order at all, but to grind with the clack of some demagogue. Is he providing already for his golden thumb? Lift up your heads; away with ambition, that fulsome complexion of a statesman, tempered, like Sylla's, with blood and muck. 'And the Lord give to his senators wisdom; and make our faces to shine, that we may be a light to them that ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... during the weeks that followed, for he was not even allowed to come into the kitchen for a comforting cup of tea as of old. "And if anybody can't have a bit of a clack sometimes," groaned poor Jabez, "nor a cup of tea neither, why he might so well be dumb to once. I've ackshally got to talk to the 'orses and the cat to keep my powers ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... John H. Clack, a master commandant in the Navy of the United States, having rank as such from the 24th April, 1828, was on the sentence of a court-martial, which was approved by me, ordered to be dismissed from the service. On a reexamination of the record of the trial I am satisfied that ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... lonely hour; And though misfortunes lie around, Thicker than hailstones on the ground, I'll rest upon thy power. Then while the coxcomb, pert and proud, The politician, learned and loud, Keep one eternal clack, I'll tread where silent Nature smiles, Where Solitude our woe beguiles, And chew ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... took up the rhythm of the rails as the delayed train plunged forward once more into the night. Again the clack of tongues, set free from fear, buzzed eagerly. The glow of the afterclap of danger was on them, and in the warm excitement each forgot the paralyzing fear that had but now padlocked his lips. Courage came flowing back into flabby cheeks and red ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... home through St. James's Park, and under the tall trees the peaceful silence of the night came down on him. The sharp clack of the streets was deadened to a low hum as of the sea afar off. Across the gardens he could see the clock in the tower of Westminster, and hear the great bell strike the quarters. London! How little and selfish all personal thoughts ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... for the accumulation and shipment of cocoa-nuts, where tons and tons of freshly gathered nuts are stacked up like measured mounds of earth, are frequent along the river. Jute factories with thousands of whirring spindles and the clackety-clack of bobbins fill the morning air with the buzz and clatter of vigorous industrial life. Juggernaut cars, huge and gorgeous, occupy central places in many of the towns passed through. The stalls and bazaars display a variety of European beverages very gratifying from the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Alleyne could see the bearded fellows cleaning their harness, while their wives would come out for a gossip, with their needlework in their hands, and their long black shadows streaming across the yard. The air was full of the clack of their voices and the merry prattling of children, in strange contrast to the flash of arms and constant warlike challenge from the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Clockety-clack-clockety-clack!" It was the sound of horses' hoofs close by. The constable had discovered them at last. Big Pete heard the hoof-beats and knew he ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... a wave of his hand. "An' wa'd ye have me expose the head of a mitherless bairn to a' the clack o' the auld geese in the settlement? Temper y'r ardor wi' discretion, lad! 'Twas but the day before yesterday she left and she was sair done wi' nursing you and losing of sleep! Till ye're fair y'rsel' again and up, and she's weel and rosy wi' ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... electrical atmosphere of the city. The newcomer from the country is very conscious of it; to the old resident it becomes second nature. City life is noisy. The whole industrial system is athrob with energy. The purring of machinery, the rattle and roar of traffic, the clack and toot of the automobile, the clanging of bells, and the chatter of human tongues create a babel that confuses and tires the unsophisticated ear and brain. They become accustomed to the sounds after a time, but ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... beautiful summer day had dawned, and in the village was heard the noise of recommencing life. The continual clucking of the hens as they roamed about in the streets, and the click-clack of the weaver's loom caused me to realize where I was. My empty hand was still shut tight, and the nails were pressed almost into the flesh, the better to guard that imaginary bouquet of Fataua, composed of the impalpable ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... his attempt to examine the deserted edifice, and turned his attention to the noise. It was compounded of steam barrel- organs, the clanging of gongs, the ringing of hand-bells, the clack of rattles, and the undistinguishable shouts of men. A lurid light hung in the air in the direction of the tumult. Thitherward he went, passing under the arched gateway, along a straight street, and into ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... began to come he hated it awfully, and he fought it. He used to write communications to the weekly newspaper in Moffitt—they've got three dailies there now—and throw cold water on the boom. He couldn't catch on no way. It made him sick to hear the clack that went on about the gas the whole while, and that stirred up the neighborhood and got into his family. Whenever he'd hear of a man that had been offered a big price for his land and was going to sell out and move into town, he'd go and labor with him and try to talk ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the mill went 'Click clack, click clack, click clack.' Inside the mill were twenty of the miller's men hewing a stone, and as they went 'Hick hack, hick hack, hick hack,' the mill went 'Click clack, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... a whole, has for base a cast-iron reservoir; A, to the top of which is fixed the pump properly so-called, B, as well as the clack box, A, and safety valve. The pump is placed opposite an upright, D, whose top serves as a guide to the prolongation, E, of the piston rod. This latter is traversed by a pivot, a (Fig 19), on which is mounted a lever, F, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... you should say finer things to me. Yet take heed of being like my neighbour's servant, he is so transported to find no rubs in his way that he knows not whether he stands on his head or his feet. 'Tis the most troublesome, busy talking little thing that ever was born; his tongue goes like the clack of a mill, but to much less purpose, though if it were all oracle, my head would ache to hear that perpetual noise. I admire at her patience and her resolution that can laugh at his fooleries and ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... travel across a continent, hearing the drumming clack of car wheels and rail joint ninety-six hours on end, acutely conscious that every hour of the ninety-six put its due quota of miles between the known and the unknown, may be either an adventure, a bore, or a calamity, depending altogether upon the individual point of view, upon ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... I've been staying at their house till I was driven out of it by the perpetual clack about that Thornton girl's marriage. It was too much for Thornton himself, though she was his sister. He used to go and sit in his own room perpetually. He's getting past the age for caring for such ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in swiftly now, and the "click-clack" of the rowlocks reached the listening ears ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... penitent when I should have rejoiced at my pardon. Madame de Boufflers was more distressed, for he owned twenty times more than I had said: she frowned and made him signs: but she had wound up his clack, and there was no stopping it. -The moment she grew angry, the lord of the house grew charmed, and it has been my fault if I am not at the head of a numerous sect:—but, when I left a triumphant party in England, I did not come hither to be at the head of a fashion. However, I have been ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... whizzed past his head. It struck the side of the flitter with a sharp clack, and fell. Kieran's nervous relays finally connected. He jumped for the open hatch. Automatically he pushed Paula ahead of him, trying to shield her, and she gave him an odd startled look. Webber was already inside. More stones rattled around and one grazed Kieran's thigh. ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty: and his vse was, to put a ducket in her Clack-dish; the Duke had Crochets in him. Hee would be drunke too, that ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... but I do not know whether he heard much of my clack, and I got very tired of it myself at last. When I had finished my blackberries, he asked mechanically, in an echo of my former visit, with a repetition of his gesture towards the coffee-pot, "More?" I shook my head, and then he led the way ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... daily paper which, by the way, he largely depended on for the news. Silence reigned for a while, save for the rustle of the sheet. The click-clack of the widow's knitting needles, and the rapid plying of Cicely's brush, were varied at last by the girl surreptitiously pulling a note out ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... his bower might sleep or sing,[6] Nor dread the adder's tooth, nor scorpion's sting. With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains, Omens, the types of thy impending chains. I sent the magpie from the British soil, With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil; To din thine ears with unharmonious clack, And haunt thy holy walls in white and black. What else are those thou seest in bishop's gear, Who crop the nurseries of learning here; Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate, Devour the church, and chatter ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... seven o'clock, and the October evening was drawing in with chill airs from the recesses of the forest. The road plunged straight from the railway clearing into its depths, and in a very few minutes the trees engulfed him and the clack of his boots fell dead and echoless against the serried stems of a million firs. It was very black; one trunk was hardly distinguishable from another. He walked smartly, swinging his holly stick. Once or twice he passed a peasant ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... releasing the old man's hand, which fell passively against his thigh with a quiet clack, "it is an extremely disagreeable night. Pray be seated; I am very glad to ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... pumps frequently got choked by the sand drawn in at the bottom of the well through the snore-holes, or apertures through which the water to be raised is admitted. The barrels soon became worn, and the bucket and clack leathers destroyed, so that it became necessary to devise a remedy; and with this object the engineman proceeded to adopt the following simple but original expedient. He had a wooden box or boot made, twelve feet high, which he ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... wall. Book and student perched beneath the pine-tree, in a crook made by rock and brown root, overhanging the autumn world. Strickland at his own desk dipped quill into ink-well and continued a letter to a friend in England. The minutes went by. From the courtyard came a subdued, cheerful household clack and murmur, voices of men and maids, with once Mrs. Jardine's genial, vigorous tones, and once the laird's deep bell note, calling to his dogs. On the western side fell only the sough of the breeze in ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... brutes in human shapes, And that thing made of sound and show, Which mortals have misnamed a beau, (But in the language of the sky Is call'd a two-legg'd butterfly), Will make your very heartstrings ache With loud and everlasting clack, 30 And beat your auditory drum, Till you grow deaf, or they grow dumb. But to our story we return: 'Twas early on a Summer morn, A Wolf forsook the mountain den, And issued hungry on the plain. Full many a stream and lawn he past And ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... They keeps it up, one after the other, and sometimes all four at a time, till your head spins round like a top. I got quite giddy goin' down to the waterfall with them yesterday, and it wasn't the steps, neither, it was just their tongues going at it, clackerty-clack all the time. What time will ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... breakfast opposite his niece with a twinkle set in his eye like a cherry-clack in a tree, relishing beforehand her smiles, and blushes, and gratitude to him for having hooked and played his friend, so that now she had but to land him. "I'll just finish this delicious cup of coffee," thought he, "and then I'll tell you, my lady." While he was slowly sipping said ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... hand, with another bow; bowed silently and loftily round the room, and disappeared, and a general buzz and a clack ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... instruments can do against us, for we daily fight against him in a hundred other ways, and therefore as a valiant captain affrays no more being at the combat, nor stays from his purpose for the rummishing shot of a cannon, nor the small clack of a pistolet; not being certain what may light on him; even so ought we boldly to go forward in fighting against the devil without any greater terror, for these his rarest weapons, than the ordinary, whereof ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... so great a storm of thunder and lightning, and huge drift of rain, that I was afraid, and being so near to the house, I hastened thither, driving the goats, and when I had tethered them in the shed of the croft, I crept trembling up to the house, and when I was at the door, heard the clack of the loom in the weaving-chamber, and deemed that the woman was weaving there, but when I looked, behold there was no one on the bench, though the shuttle was flying from side to side, and the shed opening and changing, and the sley coming home in due order. Therewithal ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... She spoke to the driver, and he tumbled off the box, alive and hearty. There seemed to be a short interchange of words of mutual satisfaction. The lady stepped into the carriage, the driver woke up his ancient Bucephalus, and went clickety-clack down the Koenig ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... aside and proceeded along the marsh for a considerable distance, till we reached a narrow path which led us into a thick wood, where we soon became completely bewildered. On a sudden, after wandering about a considerable time, we heard the noise of water, and presently the clack of a wheel. Following the sound, we arrived at a low stone mill, built over a brook; here we stopped and shouted, but no answer was returned. "The place is deserted," said Antonio; "here, however, is a path, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... mak me his wife; My mam grows sae stingy, she scauds an' she flytes,(3) An' twitters(4) me oot o' my life. Bud she may leuk sour, an' consait hersen wise, An' preach agean likin' young men; Sen I's grown a woman her clack(5) I'll despise, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... in spite of newspaper, Stock Exchange, or Cortes. The cloaked figures moved silently, swiftly, seldom in pairs, without speech, with footfall scarcely audible. Now and again Manvers heard the throb of a guitar, now and again, with sudden clamour, the clack of castanets. But such noises stopped on the instant, and the traffic was resumed—whatever it ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... fast they go—clack, clack, clack, clack; Now listen well, I pray, And let me see you both improve From what I've ...
— Marigold Garden • Kate Greenaway
... beautiful and wise, and this is just what we Russians lack. Oh, if we could educate our unusual powers and abilities, if we had the will to apply them actively in our chaotic, untidy existence, which is terribly blocked up with all kinds of idle clack and home-spun philosophy, and which gets more and more saturated with silly arrogance and puerile bragging. Somewhere deep in the Russian soul—no matter whether it is the "master's" or the muzhik's—there lives a petty and squalid demon of ...
— The Shield • Various
... extreme, Exclusive talk, whate'er the theme, The proper boundary passes: Nobles as much offend, whose clack's For ever running on Almack's, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... little about myself. I talk about the habitant girls. I am fortunate. I do not breathe the air where the looms clack. I inspect in the cloth-hall because I have sharp eyes and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... silly clack!" ordered her mother. "A runaway bond-servant on his Excellency's staff, quotha! Though he does head the rebels, General Washington is a man of breeding and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... down beside her and beginning to shred rushes she gives him.] — If I didn't talk I'd be destroyed in a short while listening to the clack you do be making, for you've a queer cracked voice, the Lord have mercy on you, if it's fine to ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... Nuwell turned and raced back down the side corridor at top speed. They heard the clack-clack of his heels on the stone floor, ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... horrible blow that fell upon us, that shameless disgrace. Well, because the parish can't clack enough about the fact itself, it must begin about Barbara, saying that the disgrace and humiliation are reflected upon her, and that nobody will come near her to ask her to be his wife. One would think, rather than lie under the stigma and afford the parish ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... exclamation. "Par dieu!" I said. "Yes, I had forgotten that. I think he was. I remember I heard his foot go cluck—clack, cluck—clack as ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... rather it had been four, at which time the office closed. He looked round the court, which seemed very dean and rather empty—stables, barns, buildings, and dwelling-house not showing much sign of life, excepting the ceaseless hum and clack of the mill, and the dash of the water which propelled it. The windows nearest to him were so large and low, that he could look in and see that the first two or three belonged to living rooms, and the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all over again from the beginning, when they reached some particularly crucial point, where the 'click' or the 'clack' of the ever-echoing 'click-clacking' chorus proved too much ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... almost breathless—"Chief! They are at hand."—"Good: vamoose."—"Again 'vamoose'", grumbled Dentatsu openly.[24] "Why such strange words; and at least why not explain them?"—"Ah! Ha! A noisy priest; these clerics can do nothing but clack, clack, like a parcel of geese or women. Even the best of them—who thus consorts with Jimbei. Remember, Bo[u]zu—silence, or the Go Shukke Sama finds Nirvana—not Gion; or was it Chion." With a silent ferocious laugh, or expression of such, ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... long and difficult for Julia to undertake. They could not then journey as now, on the rapid railway, winding green valleys, ascending great hills, and gliding through cities and towns, with as gentle a whirl, and as jocund a clack as if spinning skeins of silk. They mounted the tardy wagon, and rattled and jounced along behind a loitering team. But Julia had fortitude and spirit, to meet fatigues and discouragements bravely. Her early experience now ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... was drowned in a sodden swish as Lawler struck. His fist had shot upward with the weight of his body behind it, landing fairly on the point of Singleton's chin, snapping his teeth shut with a clack. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he roared, his anger lifting his voice high above the grumble and the sharp clack of the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... cried. "If it was not for the old glaur! What for does heaven—or hell—send the worst of its temptations to the young and ignorant? If I had met her twenty years ago! Twenty years ago! H'm! 'Clack!' goes the weaver's shuttle! Twenty years ago it was her mother, and Sim MacTaggart without a hair on his face trying to kiss the good lady of Doom, and her, perhaps na' half unwilling. I'm ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... means ended, I hope. I attended a drawing-room meeting at Lady Clack's yesterday," said the Archbishop, smiling benignantly on his questioner, "and this morning I have sanctioned proceedings against a vicar who for some time has been wavering heretically in his opinions. I think we can effectually silence him at last. Oh ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... I began to hear far off down the windy road, by which that sack had come, faintly at first and slowly louder and louder, the click clack clop of a lame horse coming nearer. Click clack clop and a loose shoe rattling, the sound of a horse too weary to be out upon such a night, too lame ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... elderly Salarik seated to the right of Halfer, a man who wore no claw knife and whose dusky yellow cloak and sash made a subdued note amid the splendor of his fellows, who spoke first, using the click-clack of the Trade Lingo his nation had learned ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... lying about wholly unprotected. Occasionally, especially in the larger towns, there was a night watchman. But he was a noisy nuisance. To convince his employers that he was awake, he frequently clapped together two pieces of wood. All night long that strident clack, clack, clack, resounded every few seconds. It is an odd custom, for of course it advertises to thieves the location of the watchman. But there is much in China that ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... furnace-door. I have the marks to show. Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns—deep in my soul an' black, An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back. The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the seas, Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed.... Forgie's our trespasses. Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze, The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel stays; Years when I raked the ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... for presuming to obscure the glory of the Roi Soleil, the thing is partly ludicrous, partly melancholy. One remembers that agreeable Bohemian, who at a symposium once interrupted his host by crying, "Man o' the hoose, gie us less o' yer clack and mair o' yer Jairman wine!" Only, in human respect and other, we phrase it: "Oh, dear M. de Balzac! give us more Eugenie Grandets, more Pere Goriots, more Peaux de Chagrin, and don't talk about what you do ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac |
