"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clear, strong line, sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct, steering for the densest, most impenetrable places,—leading you over logs and through brush, alert and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few yards from you, and goes humming through the trees,—the complete triumph of endurance and vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never be fewer, or your visits ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... of custom; and a coffee-dealer, in the open air, found occasional vent for his commodity, in spite of the cold water that dripped into the cups. The whole breadth of the street, between the Stone Bow and the bridge across the Witham, was thronged to overflowing, and humming with ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lived here in security. I looked up at the blue sky above those white ruins, and had an idea that death hovered there like a hawk ready to pounce. Even as one of us (not I) spoke the thought, the signal came. It was a humming drone high up in ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... brave Bawly was with his bean shooter! He made those mosquitoes dance around like humming birds, and they were very much frightened. Then Bawly took a rest and ate some more of his lunch, laying his bean shooter down on top of ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... us through. Constantly we beheld scenes of the greatest interest. The August landscape smiled its best about us, we passed Dijon and many another old storied city famous in former wars, and now again humming with the military life with which they had been so many times familiar. The Mobiles came thronging to every depot from the vineyards and fields and the remoter villages. As yet they were usually in picturesque peasant attire, young ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... because I hear the humming of the harpoons on the outside. My officers are talking about ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the seas, Among the winds at play; Among the lowing of the herds, The rustling of the trees, Among the singing of the birds, The humming ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... growing all over the old home, catching its lithe tendrils into the roof and making cathedral lights in all the windows. It has been the home of generations of robins. It has hung full of purple, bell-shaped blossoms on coral stems that have attracted a thousand humming birds and honey bees by their fragrance. It has changed into a veritable cloth of gold in early September, and in late October has flamed into scarlet against the gray roof, like a blaze that quivers athwart a stormy sky. It has been the joy of my life and the ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. "What are they about?" He waited patiently. At last all was still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. "How is it they all make such a noise?" flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... by the children, but by the grown-up people at some of their games. They sometimes serrate the edges of two strips of whalebone and whirl them round their heads, just as boys do in England to make the same peculiar humming sound. They will dispose one piece of wood on another, as an axis, in such a manner that the wind turns it round like the arms of a windmill; and so of many other toys of the same simple kind. These are the distinct property of the children, who ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... wander about in the simmer glens, wi' naething but the warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters streaming ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow sick wi' the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all colours, and wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in joy and thankfulness—Ye never kent, maister, what it was to wake in the still morning, when, looking out, ye saw the snaws lying for miles round about ye on the hills, breast deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the car swung east by south; the cold-jet rotors began humming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from the fort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward the coastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage of the second growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrow dirt ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... more real democracy exists anywhere in the world than in this country of mine. We are a small people, but," he said, with a sweep of his hand toward the west and the north, "the future is with us. The day is coming when along this waterway great cities shall be, with factories and humming industries. These plains, these flowing hills will be the home of millions of men, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... some forebodings, returned home an hour later. To a man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills was not of a reassuring nature. He hesitated on the doorstep for a few seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly, hung his hat in the passage ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... pristine purity, innocence, vigor. That which is both an original and natural product of a soil or country is said to be indigenous; that which is actually produced there is said to be native, though it may be of foreign extraction; humming-birds are indigenous to America; canaries may be native, but are not indigenous. Immemorial refers solely to time, independently of quality, denoting, in legal phrase, "that whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary;" as, an immemorial custom; an immemorial ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... echoes he could not tell. To settle the question he kneeled down, and placed his ear against one of rails of the west bound track. It was cold and silent. Then he tried the east bound track in the same way. This rail seemed to tingle with life, and a faint, humming sound came from it. It was a perfect railroad telephone, and it informed the listener as plainly as words could have told him, that a train was ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... a rehearsal the next day—on Sunday, I think. The company stood about in groups on the stage while Henry walked up and down, speechless, but humming a tune occasionally, always a portentous sign with him. The scene set was the Brocken Scene, and Conway stood at the top of the slope as far away from Henry as he could get! He looked abject. His handsome face was very red, his eyes full ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... his teeth half savagely, the little witch tantalizing him with the swiftness of her speech, the coy archness of her manner. To his slower mentality she was like a humming-bird darting about from flower to flower, ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... they encamped, the old chief and his privy counsellor, the guide, had another mysterious colloquy, after which the guide mounted his horse and departed on some secret mission, while the chief resumed his seat at the fire, and sat humming to himself in a ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... wagon had arrived this morning, a shell had exploded in the road and it was all over with the kitchen-wagon. How long ago that seemed! And the bees keep on humming. Bang! that hit the sergeant right in the middle of the forehead. Is this never going to stop? Never? You chew sand, you breathe sand, burning dry sand, which passes through your intestines like fire. And then that horrible, faint, sickening feeling ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... out her dish towels by that time, for she wasn't much of a housekeeper, I'll say that, though as pretty as a picture, and I never looked up. She walked round the hut, humming to herself to show how calm she was, but I noticed that when her broom fell over she kicked ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thing. Two great panes of plate glass were so set in a frame that a space of some three or four inches separated them. In this space, in every variety of position, were suspended on invisible wires some twenty humming birds, of different kinds; and whether the light fell upon this screen in front or came through it from behind, the display was in either case most beautiful and novel. Betty at last wandered to the chimney-piece, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... the shadow of the great trees. Overhead innumerable birds sweeten the air with their trilling; and far below, down the steps behind us, I still hear the melancholy chant of the priests, faintly, like a humming of bees. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... playing when you came in? (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... laurel-tree, and then I wake with joy in my heart and verses humming in my brain. They vanish when I try to set them down, but they sweeten ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of satisfaction—this mood that comes too seldom in the artist's life—she knew it was wise to let him alone. And he lighted his pipe and went to work. She heard him now and then, singing or whistling or humming; she scented his pipe, then cigarettes; then, at last, after two hours, he called in a ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... week, and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown, was a fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day she would overhaul the cupboards containing her grandfather's old charts and other rubbish, humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people the while. But on Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and it was always on a week-day that she read the Bible, that she might be unoppressed with a sense of doing ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... whilst other birds, not thus decorated, make no such display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner. As women everywhere deck themselves with these plumes, the beauty of such ornaments cannot be disputed. As we shall see later, the nests of humming-birds, and the playing passages of bower-birds are tastefully ornamented with gaily- coloured objects; and this shews that they must receive some kind of pleasure from the sight of such things. With the great majority of animals, however, the taste for the beautiful ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... dense darkness of just before dawn. The division we relieved gave us hardly any instruction, but beat it on the hot foot, glad to get away and anxious to go before sun-up. As we settled down in our cosey danger spots I heard Rolfie, the frog-voiced baritone, humming one ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... was amiss with the man, they too stepped to the balustrade and looked down—as up the leafy path came the very woman of their speculations—Vashti, faultlessly arrayed, trailing a neat parasol and humming a song as she ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... discouraged; she made a personal remark next: "Excuse me—but you do look wretchedly pale." 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? Don't you think ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... "Higher! Lift!" whispered the boatswain, fiercely.—"He won't go," stammered one of the men, shakily, and both appeared ready to drop everything. Mr. Baker waited, burying his face in the book, and shuffling his feet nervously. All the men looked profoundly disturbed; from their midst a faint humming noise spread out—growing louder.... "Jimmy!" cried Belfast in a wailing tone, and there was a second ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... The niece, who followed her, presuming on "Auntie's" high spirits, was flounced out of the apartment with small ceremony, and retired, smarting and half tearful, to bury her woes in the byre among the hay. Still humming, Christina divested herself of her finery, and put her treasures one by one in her great green trunk. The last of these was the psalm-book; it was a fine piece, the gift of Mistress Clem, in distinct old-faced type, on paper that had begun ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the nurse of the baby who had been the light of the eyes of the whole quarter-deck ever since we left Southampton—God bless it, and its mother, and beautiful Mon Nid, where she dwells beneath the rock, as exquisite as one of her own humming-birds. We were so scolded about this poor little green apple that we set to work to find put what it was, after promising at least not to eat it. And it proved to be Thevetia neriifolia, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... very closely the Russian road proposed in 1874 by Tachkend, Kouldja, Kami, Lan Tcheou, Singan and Shanghai. This railway did not run through the populous central provinces which can be compared to vast and humming hives of bees—and extaordinarily prolific bees. As before curving off to Lan Tcheou; it reaches the great cities by the branches it gives out to the south and southeast. Among others, one of these branches, that from Tai Youan to Nanking, should have put these two towns of the Chan-Si ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... meditating still on this careworn life, playing still internally with ideal fancies and desires unrealized, there returns upon him there, in the manifold and spontaneous mimicry of nature, a living show of all that is transpiring in his own bosom; in every flower some bee humming over his laborious chemistry and loading his body with the fruits of his toil; in the slant sunbeam, populous nations of motes quivering with animated joy, and catching, as in play, at the golden particles of the light with their tiny fingers. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Easton, Pennsylvania; Conly, Jones and myself, and it was the finest trip I ever took. Perfectly splendid! We got the balloon full about twelve o'clock, and the crowd held her down until we were ready. Then I gave the word and they let go, and we went a-humming into the air. One man got caught in a twist of the rope as she gave her first spurt upward, and it slammed him up against a fence as if he'd been shot out of a gun. Smashed in three or four of his ribs, I believe, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... round in ecstasies of admiration and wonder as they heard of the dark brown atives, the curious expedients by which barter was carried on; also of cruel Spaniards, and of savage fishes, with all the marvels of flying-fish, corals, palm-trees, humming birds—all that is lesson work to our modern youth, but was the most brilliant of living fairy tales at this Elizabethan period. Humfrey and Diccon were ready to rush off to voyage that instant, and even little ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as he gently took me in his arms, hollowed his shoulder for a place for my head, and leaning against the old gate he began to swing me gently to and fro, his cheek against my hair and humming Aunt Dilsie's ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... so light, so airy, so playful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itself an owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers than of its innocent heart; but Georgiana—what is she? Secretly an owl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing to me. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness that is rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon and her father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know that a younger one has been talking about her. I merely ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... curve of triumph and disdain upon her lips, she seats herself in the attitude of an idol, raises her long, dark-colored sleeves, and begins. The first hesitating notes are murmured faintly and mingle with the music of the insects humming outside, in the quiet air of the warm and golden twilight. First she plays slowly, a confused medley of fragments which she does not seem to remember perfectly, of which one waits for the finish and waits in vain; while the other girls giggle, inattentive, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... fellow,—ungrateful for not seeing through the stone walls how she had been employed all the morning; and making it up. So she bathed her red eyes, made a great alteration in her dress, and came dancing into the room humming an ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... seemed so jolly after the long winter. My jonquils are just coming out, and one or two other things. In the elm tree two bright yellow birds were cheeping. I mean to plant scarlet-runners to attract the humming birds. It is something to see fireflies and humming birds in the ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... him! The woods—how shady and green they rose before him! The little log fort—how dull and lonesome it lay behind him! The little log grist-mill down there on the banks of the river at the foot of the hill—how tiresomely it went on creaking and humming and droning, forever repeating, "What a pity! what a pity! what a pity!" or, "Clip it, Bushie! clip it, Bushie! clip it, Bushie!" according to the tune one's fancy might chance to be singing at the moment. The Tempter was creeping upon him apace. The melodious strains ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the edge of his cave and is scarcely winking as he watches us down here. Oh, Bossy, I'm the most miserable girl in the whole world." Her breath caught in her throat, and winking back despairing tears she stooped to gather the expected thick handful of grass when a humming sound came faintly across the stillness of the field. She paused with listless curiosity and listened. The buzzing seemed suddenly to fill all the air. It increased, and her upturned face beheld an approaching aeroplane. ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... Working Man or respectable Tradesman—where the wife is allowed to turn her back upon her husband, while pursuing her household avocations—there are at least intervals of quiet, when the wife is neither seen nor heard, except for the humming sound of the continuous Peace-cry; but in the homes of the upper classes there is too often no peace. There the voluble mouth and bright penetrating eye are ever directed towards the Master of the household; and light itself is not more persistent ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... Olivier sweeping out the church, cheerful, humming a cradle-song of the French peasants. He was glad to see us, though my companion was avowedly a pagan. Dwelling alone here with his dying charges, the good priest could not but feel a common bond with any white man, whoever he ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... watched you not save under my hand as you rode away upon Black Darnaway, and then I turned me to the seat by the wall to listen to the cavillings of Dame Barbara, the humming of the bees, and the other comfortable and composing sounds ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... and the houses of Auteuil were visible. Slowly driven coupes, with their elderly passengers, crawled along the road, and the wet-nurses pushed their perambulators. A motor-car broke the silence of the Bois with its humming. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... where all these doors led, but was so busy dressing I had no time, so must leave it for my amusement to-morrow. Uncle says it's a very Radcliffian place. How like an angel that man did play!" chattered Amy, and lulled herself to sleep by humming the last air ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... its center panel what seemed to be a small window, covered by a black grille. At the other end of the room another door, open, from which came a flicker of cool light, the soft pad of footsteps and the sound of a voice humming some curious Oriental air. Marishka did not get up at once, but sat among the pillows, her fingers at her temples as she tried to collect her thoughts. She knew that she must think. Everything seemed to depend upon the clearness with which her mind emerged from the fog of dreams. Slowly, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... great building two sounds deafened an unfamiliar ear: a steady roar, deep and persistent, and through it, like a staccato pulse, a louder, more painful, more penetrating din. The bass to this harsh treble arose from humming belts and running wheels; the crash that punctuated their deep-mouthed riot broke from the drawing heads ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... Heard of all the misdemeanors, All the malice and the mischief, 5 Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis. Hard his breath came through his nostrils, Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered Words of anger and resentment, Hot and humming like a hornet. 10 "I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis, Slay this mischief-maker!" said he. "Not so long and wide the world is, Not so rude and rough the way is, That my wrath shall not attain him, 15 That my vengeance shall not reach him!" Then ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... spirits, being absorbed in the contemplation of his own splendid future. At last he seemed to recollect her presence at his side, glanced at her, made as though to say something, checked himself, and began humming snatches from an old opera. But either his musical memory did not serve him, or his humour changed all at once, for he suddenly was silent again, and after glancing once more at Vjera's downcast face ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... storm he will complacently sit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bombshell,—a picture of ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... late had no chance of a view now. He was the Bishop's coachman, a lanky Bechuana, and he stood humming the hymn's air with his back to a window a window near the western door. Suddenly he started. Somebody was striding up to the porch. Surely there was no mistaking Mr. Conyers Smythe's fine shoulders in that ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... HAVE business," responded Selden. "That's what's the matter. It's the up-to-date machines that set things humming. A slow, old-fashioned typewriter uses a ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... like the summer-house upon Mr. Emerson's lawn, "lacks technical arrangement", and the wild winds play with these architectural toys of fancy, like lions with humming-birds. They are gradually falling, shattered, and disappearing. Fine locust-trees shade them and ornament the hill with perennial beauty. The hanging gardens of Semiramis were not more fragrant than Hawthorne's ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite meant ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... retreated a few rungs. Phillips could hear the others scrambling further down. He got his head out of the way before pulling the switch that opened the hatch. With a subdued humming of electric motors, the massively constructed door swung down. One after another, they pulled themselves up ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... round, however, she would have seen that she was followed by a very different creature from a bear. It was a curious creature, made like a fish, but covered, instead of scales, with feathers of all colours, sparkling like those of a humming-bird. It had fins, not wings, and swam through the air as a fish does through the water. Its head was like the head of ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... promoted. And I must do extra drills as punishment, Because, while the others, in accordance with orders, Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them, As we were marching under the red sun Across the shining fields, I squinted carefully at the little pilot Who was humming above me like a bee In ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... as when he was on the sea; and if he couldn't go to sea, he sat alone at home in the croft mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly anyone dared ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... cloak over his shoulder and walked away, his footsteps sounding loud in the passages. Gabord began humming to himself as he tied the bandages, and then he reached down for the knife to cut the flying strings. I could see this out of a little corner of my eye. When he did not find it, he settled back on his haunches and looked at me. I could feel ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... transport her to where saddle-horses were waiting in the Park. Sometimes it would turn up about lunch-time and stand impatiently chugging while she changed into sport's clothes, after which it would dash away with her, humming contentedly, into the depths of the country. It was the magic-carpet which obeyed all her desires. After war-days, with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... bushes sat an almost endless variety of birds, especially small ones, many of them covered with the most elegant plumage; among which were the humming-bird. Of insects too there was a great variety, and some of them very beautiful; but they were much more nimble than those of Europe, especially the butterflies, most of which flew near the tops of the trees, and were therefore very difficult to be caught, except when the sea-breeze blew fresh, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... silently, For, oh, the dawn is coming; I creep along, for I have heard A flint-tipped arrow, humming; And I have heard a snapping twig, Above the wind's low laughter; And I have known—and thrilled to know, That swift ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying, "Wait, let me do that for you," and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks—all I had—and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow—atonements for swindles practised upon him formerly, as I learned later, and probably no longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These things touched him, and he could not have believed that ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... as he could afford to do. Berrington could hear him humming as he clapped in the whistle, and then silence fell again. The letter was finished and sealed at length, and pushed under the door as Sartoris had directed. A little later and there came the sound of a footstep outside and a gentle scratching ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... was content to "scriggle" through the sketchers, and humming a little tune, she passed up to the churchyard. ("Scriggle" was one of her own words, highly popular; it connoted squeezing and wriggling.) There she carefully concealed herself under the boughs of the weeping ash tree directly opposite the famous south porch of the ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... little distance, but away I went, happy in her service, swinging the heavy bucket and humming to myself, as care-free and light-hearted as any youth in Christendom, and presently reached the pool. I was stooping, in the act of filling the bucket, when I paused, arrested by a sudden, vague indefinable sound that puzzled me to account for and set me idly speculating whence it came and what ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... lizard under microscopical examination and then watched it slowly develop has said that it seemed as if some hand was tracing the outlines of the tiny vertebrae, and then building up around it. Think for a moment of the development of the germ within the egg of the humming-bird, or the ant, or the gnat, or the eagle. Every second a change may be noticed. The germ cell draws to itself nourishment from the other part of the egg, and then it grows and reproduces another cell. Then both cells divide—then subdivide until there are millions and millions and ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... flashes, as of seams opening and reclosing over a white surface. It spits spray in a ceaseless drizzle. Sometimes it reaches up and slaps the side of the steamer with a sound as of a great naked hand, The wind waxes boisterous. Swinging ends of cordage crack like whips. There is an immense humming that drowns speech,—a humming made up of many sounds: whining of pulleys, whistling of riggings, flapping and fluttering of canvas, roar of nettings in the wind. And this sonorous medley, ever growing louder, has rhythm,—a crescendo and diminuendo timed by the steamer's regular ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... repeated them to himself that he might remember them, they sounded so sweet and comfortable heard for the first time just when he most needed comfort. Miss Celia saw a new expression in the boy's face as she glanced down at him, and heard a little humming at her side when all stood up to sing the cheerful hymn with which they ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... dreadful silence—Spout realising his appalling error endeavoured to pass it off by humming the Jewel Song from Faust. For a moment his nonchalance amazed everyone then as though a veil had been suddenly snatched from their eyes they gave a great cry: 'This is Spout! What Humour! What Roguery! Spout ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... celebrating their reprieve, and after supper the Shepherd got out his bagpipes and played "The Blue Bells of Scotland" until the rafters rang again. Jean stepped busily about the kitchen in tune to the music, humming the ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... conversation in the kitchen resembled the resonant humming of bees, and again, when it became animated, it sounded like the distant cackling of geese. Then there would come a pause; and it would begin again with sibilant whispers, and end in a chorus of dry laughter that somehow suggested the crackling of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... humming As clear as the wood wind rings; And here were the air-boats coming And here ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... a sight better off than some, I s'pect. It's been pretty tough on all of you, but if you fellows only work like you fought you'll have things a humming before long." ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... the corner of his mouth and humming something resembling an air, the senior partner dashed into his day's work with the ardor of ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... Our humming marts, our iron ways, Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, The calm, broad Ocean of the West, And Mississippi's torrent flow, And ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... ruddy through the woods. A green fly appeared, buzzing about the dead man. Another zig-zagged through the sunshine, lacing it with streaks of greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not search the dead and take from it that for which ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... quitt'st thy song, As the welkin's shadows low'r; Whilst the beetle wheels along, Humming to the twilight hour. Not like thee I quit the scene, To enjoy night's balmy dream; Not like thee I wake again, Smiling with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... case, from which he selected a cigar with anxious care and much sniffing; then he bade me a ceremonious adieu and departed down the stairs, blithely humming a melody ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... been firing, I have stood for half an hour with Birdie, watching and drinking in encouragement. About one bomb a minute was the rate of fire and as it buzzed over our own trenches like a monstrous humming bird all the naked Anzacs laughed. Then, such an explosion and a sort of long drawn out ei-ei-ei-ei cry of horror from the Turks. It was fine,—a real corpse-reviving performance and now the W.O. have let the stock run out, because some ass has forgotten to order them in advance. Have ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... brain, anxious and impatient as he was, the Famine Theme recurred to his mind, and the servant, coming back with the shoes, found him singing it softly to himself. The words died away into inarticulate humming, as Thayer bent over to fasten the straps. Then, buttoning his coat closely and pulling his cap down over his eyes, Thayer opened the door for the second time and went striding away across the gray, tempestuous darkness which had shut down again impenetrably between himself ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... ultimate quintessences—pines reduced to a drop of honeyed delight; bananas whose life lay in points of bewildering sweetness; enormous steamboat puddings compressed within the compass of a thimble, exclusive of the sauce; chocolates, oceans of which lay in mimic lakes, each of which the bill of a humming-bird might expand; tongues of most melodious singing birds—the nightingale, the thrush, and the goldfinch; lambs en supreme, each eliminated of earthly particles, and spiritualized in scarcely tangible results. Over all hovered the memories of exquisite beverages, which became realities ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... distressed. Should she go? Should she ring again? Presently words came from his lips at intervals, abrupt, disconnected, and now a ribald laugh, and now a tearful sigh. And then he was a student humming: ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... acacias, cedars; and, towering over all, the great almendrons, with their smooth, silvery stems, bearing aloft noble clusters of pure white blossom. The forest was haunted by myriads of gay insects, butterflies with wings of dazzling lustre, birds of brilliant plumage, humming-birds, golden orioles, toucans, and a host of solitary warblers. But the glorious sunsets seen from his cottage-porch more than all astonished and delighted the young engineer; and he was accustomed to say that, after having witnessed ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... course, never come to see her any more, but at least now she would be able to think about him. She would be allowed to remember. Her brain was drowsy, her eyes half closed. Through the humming air something was coming; the dark curtains were parted, the light of the late afternoon sun was faint yellow upon the opposite wall—there was a little breeze. Drowsily, drowsily, her drooping eyes felt the light, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... the automobile leave. He guessed that he and Aunt Liza were now alone in the tumbledown house. During the long hot afternoon she left him pretty much to his own devices. He could hear the bees humming outside, and the twitter ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... ain't no matter. From humming he soon got to a full cry, and from that to shouting. His antics overcame us all. The doctor gave the first key-note. "Oh, oh, that man will be the death of me," and again rubbed himself round the wall, in convulsions of laughter. Peter ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... is derived from Turkish beg armudi, prince's pear. With beg, prince, cf. bey and begum. The burden of a song is from Fr. bourdon, "a drone, or dorre-bee; also, the humming, or buzzing, of bees; also, the drone of a bag-pipe" (Cotgrave). It is of doubtful origin, but is not related to burden, a load, which is connected with the verb ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... is to have sins upon one's conscience!" sighed the venturer. "Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts." And he fell to humming ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... but just "turned out," and was "feeding" on the right wing and left breast of a lark, the leg of a canary, "a dozen fried" humming bird eggs—her customary ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... luncheon and, guileless man that he has already shown himself to be, promptly offered to "convoy the two little cruisers to Annapolis." His offer was accepted with so many gushing responses that the poor man looked about as bewildered as a great St. Bernard which has inadvertently upset a cage of humming birds, and finds them fluttering all about him. Lily and Helen were of a different type from the girls he knew best, but he accepted the situation gracefully and enjoyed himself hugely with the others, ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... No need of a mirror to tell her that. Her youth and her good looks had been her stock in trade, and yet this evening she appraised her features most critically, and as with light fingers she touched her hair, now in one place and now in another, she found herself humming a gay little tune and she realized that she ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... through a fog." Whatever mental treasures he may or may not have laid up from Browning there was assuredly a deep gratification in the discovery of those splendors of "stars and suns" and the flashing "humming-birds," as there must also have been in pointing out those wonders to the little circle of devout listeners. It all ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... almost drowned by the fierce hissing, which was now mingled with a deep bass formed by a loud humming, throbbing sound such as might be made by a Brobdingnagian tea-kettle, just upon ready for use. Then came loud cracking and spitting sounds, and the dull ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... basement; it was damp and dark and reeking with tobacco smoke, tar and a musty odor. In front of Gavrilo, at another table, was a drunken sailor, with a red beard, all covered with charcoal and tar. He was humming, interrupted by frequent hiccoughs, a fragment of a song very much out of tune. He was evidently not ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... in June when the rich, thick, amber light of afternoon seemed to float in the air. Warm summer lay on the land. The bees were humming in the rose vines over the porch. Mrs. Iden, who evidently heard Lane's step, appeared in the path, and nodding her gladness at sight of him, she ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... science. You also—but you will forgive me. I have held on to life for your sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your notebook. Subjective sensations, swimming in the head, light flashes before the eyes, soothing torpor, some touch of coldness, constriction of the temples, humming in the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table beside ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... so long at length approaching. Gay, Mr. Joseph, you have thrown off the fetters of town and work and dull care and responsibility, and here you are free and untrammelled as the air, good humored, cheerful, humming your Old Country tunes as usual, brisk, debonnair, untouched by thought of present trouble or evil, unthinking and unsuspecting! Gay Mr. Joseph, urbane Mr. Joseph, what have you got in your hand this time? Last time it was a bunch of the red field lily. Now it is, or it ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... constructed a large wooden trough, which I kept filled with water; and each day it was visited by the most extraordinary flocks of birds of every size and variety of plumage—from emus down to what looked like humming-birds. Huge snakes, ten and fifteen feet long, bustled the kangaroos away from the life-giving trough; and occasionally the crowd would be so excessive that some of the poor creatures would have to wait hours before their thirst was satisfied,—and ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and having waited another half-hour in vain, our midshipman returned to his bed, humming the air which had so pleased his ear. It haunted him during his sleep, and rang in his ears when he awoke, as it is well known any new air that pleases us will do. Before breakfast was ready, Gascoigne had put English words to it, and sang ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... chimney swallows disporting themselves up there in the breezy depths. No hardening in vegetation yet. The moist, hot, fragrant breath of the fields—mingled odor of blossoming grasses, clover, daisies, rye—the locust blossoms, dropping. What a humming about the hives; what freshness in the shade of every tree; what contentment in the flocks and herds! The springs are yet full and cold; the shaded watercourses and pond margins begin to draw one." Go to the top of the ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... told in pictures, and pictures for the most part of squab, spring chickens, and canvas-back ducks, would, I fear, prove arduous reading. Moreover I am but an indifferent draughtsman, and I suspect that when the precise thought that I have in mind can best be expressed by a portrait of a humming-bird, or a flamingo, my readers because of my inexpert handling of my tools would hardly be able to distinguish the creature I should limn from an albatross, a red-head duck, or a June-Bug, which would lead to a great deal of obscurity, and in some ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... by these successes, we knelt down so as to break through a wider extent of the calcareous stratum; but our torches began to burn palely, and the close chamber, now filled with a thick smoke, was no longer bearable. Sumichrast complained of humming in his ears, and I also felt uncomfortable; so, much against our inclination, I gave the signal of departure. The lamp was dying out, and was filling the outer chamber with a nasty smell, which gave the finishing-stroke to our unpleasant feelings. L'Encuerado and Lucien were the first to ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... humming with repressed excitement; last touches of rouge were being added; Lady Catherine de Burgh was walking solemnly up and down before a mirror practising the art of making her plumes "nod majestically," Sally May was saying ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett |
