"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to himself. Then it struck him suddenly as being perhaps impossible for him ever to look at Charlotte in just that fashion. He thought with a thrill of indignant pride that there was a maiden who would have the best of love as her right. Then sitting there he heard a quick tread and a trill of whistle as meaningless as that of a robin, and young Eastman himself came alongside. He stopped before ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... agitate, jar, jolt, convulse, concuss, jounce, dodder, tremble, trill, shiver, totter, joggle, jiggle, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... from one note to another, now high, now low, or strong or soft; a trill, a run. The violinist, of his own accord, began the jewel song from Faust. Gretchen did not know the words, but she carried the melody without mishap. And then, I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls. This song ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... home. I was brought up to regard laziness as an abominable disease. Though we were some years of age before we heard the trill of a piano, we knew well all about ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... murmur and awakening. How still the morning is! It is at such times that we discover what music there is in the souls of the little slate- colored snowbirds. How they squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, filling the air with a fine sibilant chorus! That joyous and childlike "chew," "chew," "chew" is very expressive. Through this medley of finer songs ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... note, The gay canary's trill, Blent with the low of new-milked kine That sauntered by ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... a gray crag when she noticed the churn of yeasty blackness blotting out the Valley and felt the hushed heat of the air. A jack rabbit went whipping past at long bounds. The last rasp of a jay's scold jangled out from the trees. Then, she heard from the hushed Valley, the low flute trill of a blue bird's love song. Ever afterwards, either of those bird notes, the scurl of the jay or the golden melody of the blue warbler, brought her joyous, terrible thoughts, too keen to the very quick of being for either words or tears; for a horseman had turned the crag leading his ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... "one, two" will suffice for the melody above it. The effect of this device has been described as indicative in this waltz of the loving, nestling and tender embracing of the dancing couples. It is followed in the music by sweeping motions free and graceful like those of birds. The prolonged trill with which the piece begins, seems to summon the dancers to the ballroom, while the waltz itself, is an intermingling of coquetry, hesitation and avowal, with a closing passage that is like an echo ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... of Spring, The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but longs ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... pretty fellow, cocked up his bright black eye, As if to say, "Little mistress, it will do you no harm to try." Then taking some slight refreshments, and polishing off his bill, Broke into a rapture of singing that ended off with a trill; And Maud, with her head bent forward, sat listening to his lay, And fast as he sang, she whistled, till gathered ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Summer in the heart of England—summer in wooded Warwickshire,—a summer brilliant, warm, radiant with flowers, melodious with the songs of the heaven—aspiring larks, and the sweet, low trill of the forest-hidden nightingales. Wonderful and divine it is to hear the wild chorus of nightingales that sing beside Como in the hot languorous nights of an Italian July—wonderful to hear them maddening themselves with love and music, and almost splitting their ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the first to arrive. A short walk brought her to Harmon's, and here bringing to a hurried conclusion the Wedding March from "Lohengrin,"—an excellent tune to march by,—she changed her flutelike notes for a well-known piercing trill. At the second shrill summons Mrs. Harmon came ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... was like. Suddenly the first piping notes of a canary bird's song were heard, rising so clear and lifelike that even the boys themselves were deluded at first into thinking that they were listening to an actual bird. The canary song ended with a sustained trill, and then, soft and melodious, came the limpid notes of the mocking bird's song. By this time the audience had comprehended that this was in reality a clever human imitation of bird notes, ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... commotion which the blunder and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan himself could scarcely produce a more complete absence of devotion than is often caused by these ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... which had fallen there crept also those minors that seemed to belong rather to an exaggerated quiet than to sound: the trill of a bird, voicing an overflow of joy and the humming of bees among the vines of the church yard, where slanting headstones bore quaintly archaic names and life dates of sailors home from the sea. A wandering butterfly had drifted in and was winging its bright way about the place ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... are the records, and rotten The meshes of memory's net; When the grace that forgives has forgotten The things that are good to forget; When the trill of my juvenile trumpet Is dead and its echoes are dead; Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet And crown ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... sweet sweat of roses in a still As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, As th' almighty balm of th' early East, Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets: Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... approach them, and I was obliged to rest contented with sketching their absurdities. To punish this daring, the Jinkomba brought a man masked like a white, with beard and whiskers, who is supposed to strike the stranger with awe: it was all in vain, I had learned to trill the R as roundly as themselves, and they presently left me as a ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... are dead; How many visions of fair hope have fled, Since first, my Muse, we met.—So speeds away Life, and its shadows; yet we sit and sing, Stretched in the noontide bower, as if the day Declined not, and we yet might trill our lay Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing That fans us; while aloft the gay clouds shine! Oh, ere the coming of the long cold night, Religion, may we bless thy purer light, That still shall warm us, when the tints decline O'er earth's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... will whisper and birds will trill, And all things display their charms, And, when he's journeyed as far as he will, He'll ride back ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... thou, MUNATIUS, whether Fate ordain The Camp thy home, with glancing javelins bright; Or if the graces of that fair domain, Umbrageous Tivoli, thy steps invite; If trumpets sound the clang that Warriors love, Or round thee trill the choirings of the grove, In flowing bowls drown every vain regret, Enjoy the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Jane must be near the end of her piece for she was playing again the opening melody with runs of scales after every bar and while he waited for the end the resentment died down in his heart. The piece ended with a trill of octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass. Great applause greeted Mary Jane as, blushing and rolling up her music nervously, she escaped from the room. The most vigorous clapping ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... a tiny girl, the other girls used to say, 'Evey, dear, do make that funny noise in your throat,' and that was my trill. But since mother's death everything went wrong; it seemed that I would never get out of Dulwich. I never should have if it had not been for you. I had ceased to believe that I ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... but a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet bird-call and waited. A second time he called and then he saw Bob loping over the front lawn and, with upraised sniffing nose, caper about. A third trill settled the dog's doubts, and with an abandon that age could not overcome he ran and jumped to ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... far at sea Cunning fingers fashioned me. There on palace walls I hung While that Consuelo sung; But I heard, though I listened well, Never a note, never a trill, Never a beat of the chiming bell. There I hung and looked, and there In my grey face, faces fair Shone from under shining hair. Well I saw the poising head, But the lips moved and nothing said; And when lights were in the hall, Silent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hospitality in his home, took up his whole attention. She was really radiant. She sang and played twice for the company, and her perfectly true high soprano filled the whole house. To Maria it sounded as meaningless as the trill of a canary-bird. In fact, when it came to music, Ida, although she had a good voice, had the mortification of realizing that her simulation of emotion failed her. Harry did not like his wife's singing. He felt like a traitor, but he could not help realizing that he did not like it. But ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... him that he should be made to know by some signal from her how it was going with her feelings. As he spoke of his danger, there came a gurgling little trill of wailing from her throat, a soft, almost musical sound of woe, which seemed to add an unaccustomed eloquence to his words. When he spoke of his own hope the sound was somewhat changed, but it was still continued. When he alluded to the disposition of his fortune, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... stalked along, more or less conscious that a pair of dark blue eyes were regarding them, and they thought they heard a trill of laughter, but it might have been one of the maids. They need not have felt embarrassed for there was the grace in their movements that goes with strength ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... the boughs I sat and listened still, I could not have my fill. 'How comes,' I said, 'such music to his bill? Tell me for whom he sings so beautiful a trill.' ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... was to drive forth and exorcize, once and for all, the demon who possessed her, by whose vile aid she wrought her charms and spells. So country wenches pushed and strove amid the throng, and dainty ladies leaned from canopied galleries to shudder with dread or trill soft laughter; but each and every stared at one who stood alone, 'twixt armed guards, so young and fair and pale within her bonds, oft turning piteous face to heaven or looking with quailing eye where stake and chain and faggot menaced her with awful ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer; Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still You struggle to look fair; You drink, and dance, and trill Your songs to youthful love, in accents weak With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love! He dwells in Chia's cheek, And hears her harp-strings move. Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath Past withered trees like you; ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... God, seest me."' When wasn't I tempted to do wrong? and I had for a long time the uncomfortable feeling that two great eyes were always staring at me. But this isn't sleigh-riding chit-chat," and she broke into a merry little trill from a ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... of bees from the hives beneath the eaves of the house. Great bronze butterflies fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds plunged deep into the long trumpet-flowers; from the topmost bough of a locust, heavy with bloom, came the liquid trill of ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... minutes the Queen and all her courtiers were enthralled by the music. It was not only the novelty and bird-like sweetness of the instrument itself that charmed, but also the fine taste and wonderful touch of the sailor. The warbling notes seemed to trill, rise and fall, and float about on the atmosphere, as it were, like fairy music, filling the air with melody and the soul ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... plumes, the thrush clad all in brown, the robin jerking his spasmodic throat, the oriole drifting like a flake of fire, the jolly bobolink and his happy mate, the mocking-bird imitating the notes of all, the red-bird with his one sweet trill, and the busy little wren, are all making the trees in our front yard ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... like to crack out a winnin', this play. Sit tight, now, and listen to the meller trill o' ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... a bit. She looked at him oddly, an inscrutable little light flickering in her eyes. All at once she broke out with a merry trill ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... notes, singing song after song, quaint stornelli and ritornelli—songs of the people, full of wild and passionate beauty. In these Guido would often join her, his full barytone chiming in with her delicate and clear soprano as deliciously as the fall of a fountain with the trill of a bird. I can hear those two voices now; their united melody still rings mockingly in my ears; the heavy perfume of orange-blossom, mingled with myrtle, floats toward me on the air; the yellow moon burns round and full in the dense blue sky, like ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the edge of the cottonwoods beyond them. It was a clear, wild voice with a sweet trill in it. "Maa-rie!" it ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... had been the day, how tender the tone of every voice. The road under the moon was white and from a persimmon tree in an old field came the trill of a mockingbird. Two happy men were ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... Beau proves the good right he has to his name. Trill and quavers and roulades are shaken from his bow as lightly as foam from the prow of a ship. The music leaps rollicking up and down, here and there, till the air is all a-quiver with merriment. The old man draws himself up to his full height, all save that loving bend of the ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... here comes his little mate, "Phoe-be, phoe-be," both on the garden gate, "Phoe-be, phoe-be," loving now they trill, Planning to build a ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... This is Miss Melville, whom I went to meet. She is going to marry Richard very soon." Marion did not, Ellen noticed with exasperation, make any adequate response to this generous little trill of greeting. The best she seemed able to do was to speak slowly, as if to disclaim any desire ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange-flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, Sits hush'd his partner nigh; Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, But where ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... But as spring began to stir his blood he changed a little; he grew somewhat belligerent, refused to let any one alight in his chosen places, and even drove others away from his side of the room. Now, too, he added to his already melting song an indescribable trill, something so spiritual, so charged with the wildness of the woods, that no words—even of a poet—can do it justice. Now, too, he began to turn longing glances out of the window, and evidently his heart was no longer with us. So, on the first ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... twenty feet of him. "As I came near," he says, "the shrike began to scold at me, a sharp, buzzing, squeaking sound not easy to describe. After a little he came out on the end of the limb nearest me, then he posed himself, and, opening his wings a little, began to trill and warble under his breath, as it were, with an occasional squeak, and vibrating his half-open wings in time with his song." Some of his notes resembled those of the bluebird, and the whole performance is described ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... tunes He would bow at nights or noons That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure, When he made you speak his heart As in dream, Without book or music-chart, On some theme Elusive as a jack-o'-lanthorn's gleam, And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... inland fanning districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle, or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... little notes of the same quality as before and then a little trill, and the whole accompanied by a smile so sweet that I suddenly began to wish the doctor had been blown off the top of the moon. It was a wicked thought and I put it away from me as quickly as possible, being ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... be werie, Then to be merie, To laugh and sing they be free With chip and cherie Heigh derie derie, Trill on the berie, And ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... (hayricks are so romantic, and I always adored cows—in pictures), is dreadfully quiet, and I freely confess that I generally prefer a man to a hop-pole (though I do wear a wig), and the voice of a man to the babble of brooks, or the trill of a skylark,—though I protest, I wouldn't be without them (I mean the larks) for the world,—they make ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... together in the bright moonlight our ears were suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music—wild, unearthly melody that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance, only, however, to burst forth anew after ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... up his fiddle and his bow. His hands were still for a minute, and then the instrument began to sigh and trill. The sounds gathered in strength, soared high, then thinned and sank to no more than the whisper of a tune—and then Pat began to sing. This is ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... Then she could not refrain from laughter, he looked so hapless. She burst into an engaging trill. "Why don't you light your pipe?" she said. "You look ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... habit of occasionally soaring into the air and descending in loops and spirals. The scarlet tyrant I saw in the orchards and gardens. The male is a fascinating little bird, coal- black above, while his crested head and the body beneath are brilliant scarlet. He utters his rapid, low-voiced musical trill in the air, rising with fluttering wings to a height of a hundred feet, hovering while he sings, and then falling back to earth. The color of the bird and the character of his performance attract the attention of every observer, bird, beast, or man, within ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... as long as the young man's footsteps resounded on the stony paths; but when they died gradually away in the distance, when nothing could be heard save the monotonous trill of the grasshoppers basking in the sun, she threw herself down on the green heap of rubbish; she covered her face with her hands and gave way to a passionate ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... breathing quite a different air, a different scent ... a breeze was blowing upon me, fresh and invigorating, as though from a great river, and there was a smell of hay, smoke and hemp. The long-drawn-out note was followed by a second, and a third, but with an expression so unmistakable, a trill so familiar, so peculiarly our own, that I said to myself at once: 'That's a Russian singing a Russian song!' and at that very instant everything ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... life. It is a mistake, indeed, to suppose that the Greek was insensible to natural beauty. The daffodils, crocuses, anemones, and hyacinths, the countless laughter of the AEgean and the gleaming Cyclades, were delightful to his eye, the trill of the nightingale to his ear; but neither he nor the Hebrew could have felt much sympathy with the state of mind of a Wordsworth, to whom nature, in and for itself, had the effect of a living and inspiring power. Neither ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... until they became so tired and hungry that at length they sat down at the foot of a tree and cried as if their hearts would break. The little birds heard them and began to trill sweet lullabies, which ...
— Children's Hour with Red Riding Hood and Other Stories • Watty Piper
... enjoyment of a schoolboy, and Lynette's laugh, sweet and gay as a thrush's sudden trill of melody, answered: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... That's all nonsense. I say teach them the scales, to run up and down the gamut! Gradus ad Parnassum's the thing! Classical, classical! Yesterday you made your daughter play that Trill-Etude by Carl Meyer. Altogether too fine-sounding! It tickles the ear, to be sure, especially when it is played in such a studied manner. We stick to Clementi and Cramer, and to Hummel's piano-school,—the ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... flying-machine, or dofunny, as we scientists would term it, in 1600 and something, whereby he could sail down from the woodshed and not break his neck. He could not rise from the ground like a lark and trill a few notes as he skimmed through the sky, but he could fall off an ordinary hay stack like a setting hen, with the aid of his ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... likely, braw fellows, who can push their own way in the world and fend for themselves. Not like—" he glanced over to the group on the grass, and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty trill of thoroughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... hear of the ship-fever?" said Potts, in a low voice which sent a sharp trill through every fibre of Brandon's being. He ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... look came in her hardened face— She had not wept for years; But the robin's trill, as some sounds will, Jarred open the door of tears. She thought of the old home far away; She heard the whr-r-r of the mill; She heard the turtle's wild, sweet call, And the wail of the ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 2. Hues, colors. Ca'lyx, the outer covering of a flower. 4. Ho-ri'zon, the line where the sky and earth seem to meet. 5. War'ble, a trill of the voice. Spears, ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Fomishka said, "but what about the trill, Snandulia Samsonovna? After my verse there must be ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... out of the cypress tree and perched on the gate top, looked up at Cleek with bright, sharp eyes, flung out a wee little trill, ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... concluded he was singing to her, and not to me. Now that he was so near, I heard more than I had before, certain low, sweet notes, plainly not intended for the public ear. This undertone song ended always in "sweet! sweet! sweet!" usually followed by a trill, and was far more effective than his state performances. Sometimes, after the "sweet" repeated half a dozen times, each note lower than the preceding one, he ended with a sort of purr ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... rush of winter's rain The dripping forests welter, The shepherd opes his door amain, And gives me food and shelter. I touch my chords, I trill my lay, The firelight glances o'er us, And wind and rain, in stormy play, Join ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... its corner against the stone breast of the image, and the darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and unhappiness. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... like the trill of a bird. "Harvey dear, do you remember the day when we went to Roan Kiti in Ponape—when you were sailing ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... few seconds before, and could not begin the repetition till the concert-master had plucked the first note of the air on his violin. A short time before I heard Mme. Patti perform the feat of beginning the trill which accompanies the melody by the orchestra in the middle of the dance song in "Dinorah" without a suggestive tone or chord after a hubbub and gladsome tumult that seemed, to have lasted several ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... ran by her side, keeping pace with her flying Indian pony. How beautiful and fresh the picture of her remained in his memory!—the soft white dress she wore, her black hair streaming over her shoulders, her dark eyes flashing delight, her merry laugh rivalling the trill of the blackbird which flew over their heads chattering for very joy. Before him lay the pretty brook with its rustic bridge reflecting itself in the clear water as in a mirror. That path along the bank led down to the willows where the big mossy stones lay in the stream ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... sharp, chirruping trill, and Abel and Tregelly darted into the light as if urged forward by the same spring, while Dallas stood for the moment petrified—unable to stir. For from the upright logs close to which he stood a great hand seemed to dart out, holding him fast, while simultaneously another hand ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... Content, with a long breath. "My sister Solly is married." Smiles broke all over her little face. She hid it in Sally's skirts, and a little peal of laughter like a bird-trill came from the ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his—this Miguel de Rueda,—a jolly lad, who whistled and sang inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill. ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... touches very near the quick of life: the fable of the monk who passed into the woods, heard a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and found himself on his return a stranger at his convent gates; for he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there survived but one to recognise him. It is not only in the woods that this enchanter carols, though perhaps he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wont to be Often alone within the sanctuary; But now, not so—another: it was she! Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saint Before a crucifix; but sad and faint The tone of her devotion, as the trill Of a ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... his heart before thy view, Told all its inmost beatings—told them true; Nay, e'en the pulse, the secret, trembling thrill, On which the slightest touch alone would trill [Errata: kill]; While thou, with secret aim, collected art, Didst wind around that bold, confiding heart, And, in its warm and healthful breathings fling A subtle poison, and a ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... the lead and splice th' topsail, Tie her down, and let her fill, We're agoin' to Madagascar, Where th' little tom-tits trill, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... kettle that was just about to boil. So vividly did the whole scene suggest the painted bliss of a stage setting, that it would have been hardly surprising to see her step forward among the flowers and trill out her virtuous ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... too; Trill on, ye two, the song of future years, Move, Palgrave, move, with bosom rent anew, An audience multitudinous to tears; Scratch on with quill unwearied and no fears, The world shall fling thee thy resplendent bays, For Popular Opinion safely steers His barque upon the river ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... contentment and enjoyment. As for Reuben's honest phiz, it was a sight to behold in its perfect satisfaction. Even the negro driver of the heavy wagon let his horses take their time as he raised his ear to catch some very delicate trill in a bird's song, or turned his head to inhale the perfume ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to be dudgeoned by wry faces in the refectory. As for the little sister (if she did have finger in the concoction)—no fear of offence there! I dare vow, who know somewhat the fashion of her, she will but trill a pretty titter or ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... beating her fan restlessly on the empty air, and breathing rapid and audible breath. And now, at this last word of Israel, though so sadly spoken, and so solemn in its note of suffering, she broke into a trill of laughter, and said lightly, "Ah! I thought your love of the poor was young. Not yet cut its teeth, poor thing! A babe in swaddling clothes, eh? When was ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... persevered with undiminished ardour; but the Cricket took first fiddle, and kept it. Good Heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. There was an indescribable little trill and tremble in it at its loudest, which suggested its being carried off its legs, and made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they went very well together, the Cricket and the kettle. The burden of the song ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... with a little trill of laughter. "Oh simple, simple!" And she was off down the passage like arrow from bow, while Alleyne stood gazing after her, betwixt hope and doubt, scarce daring to put faith in the meaning which seemed to underlie ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was a common ancient practice; the very words "thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots "thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. Cic. 26; and Juv. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... How the August sun arose, And how his face Woke to trill and carolette All the cages that were set ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Jess and Jill can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I who wear ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... beasts, Sink to the earth, stone dead!" While she did speak, The hunter breathless fell to earth, stone dead, As falls a tree-trunk blasted by the bolt. That ravisher destroyed, the lotus-eyed Fared forward, threading still the fearful wood, Lonely and dim, with trill of jhillikas[22] Resounding, and fierce noise of many beasts Laired in its shade, lions and leopards, deer, Close-hiding tigers, sullen bisons, wolves, And shaggy bears. Also the glades of it Were filled ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... went down the hill-tops to the west became vividly purple with a subtle illusive deep-crimson glow beneath, while the sky above their tops, a saffron dome rose almost to the zenith. These mystical things are here joined: The trill of black-birds near at hand, the cackle of barn-yard fowls, the sound of hammers, a plowman talking to his team, the pungent smoke of burning leaves, the cool, sweet, spring wind and the glowing down-pouring sunshine—all marvelous ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... breeze that rose as the sun threw its first beams over the earth. Birds of all kinds vied with each other, as they sang their joy on that beautiful morning. The priest stood listening. Suddenly, off at one side, he heard a trill that rose higher and clearer than all the rest. He moved toward the place whence the song came, that he might see what manner of bird it was that could send farther than all the others its happy, laughing notes. ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... by the sharp trill of the telephone. Slavin arose lethargically from the mess-table ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... eggs, quite warm and white, Were waiting for the brooding wing, That from each shell there might take flight A bird, to trill and sing. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... began playing "Money Musk," and "Old Dan Tucker." Oh, I put vim into it, I can tell you! And bad as my playing was, I had from the start an absorption of attention from my audience that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the surprise and interest in the children's faces, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days {158} of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... us to examine which fingers would allow the quickest alternation of key movements.[29] If any two of the ten fingers perform for ten seconds the quickest possible alternation of motion, as in a trill, the experiment can demonstrate exactly the differences between the various combinations of fingers and the individual fluctuations for these differences. With an electrical registration of the movements of the alternating fingers we studied in hundredths of a second the time for the ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly—whose name happens to be Mary—is watching as I take ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... two—'two actors,' let us say—'and a passion'—provided your terms are not prohibitive . . . Hi, Smiles! Approach, Smiles, and be introduced to Thespis. His charge is three shillings. At the price of three shillings behold, Smiles, the golden age returned! Comedy carted home through leafy ways shall trill her woodnotes—her ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to Cecilia's ears as she sat in her little room, sewing a frock of Queenie's. The children were out in the garden at the back of the house. Mrs. Rainham was practising in the drawing-room. The sound of a high trill floated upwards as she opened ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... triumph of expression purely, and not a physical marvel. The gradual growth and sostenuto of her tones; the light and shade, the rhythmic undulation and balance of her passages; the bird-like ecstacy of her trill; the faultless precision and fluency of her chromatic scales; above all, the sure reservation of such volume of voice as to crown each protracted climax with glory, not needing a new effort to raise force for the final blow; and indeed all the points one looks for in a mistress of the vocal ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... soliloquizes and drinks his sack the orchestra takes part in a trill given out by piccolo, and gradually taken by one instrument after the other, until the whole orchestra is in a hearty laugh and shaking with string, brass, and wood wind glee. Then enters Dame Quickly, mischief-maker, and sets the trap at Herne's Oak in Windsor ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... for I saw her there, and she looked so blithe and young; (Not white and still, as I saw her last) and the rose that she wore was red; And her voice soared up in a bird-like trill, at the end of the song she sung, And she mimicked a soldier's warlike stride, and tossed back her dear ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... from the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate; and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the soft murmur of a viol still strumming ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... real music lessons, and taught him how to whistle and how to warble and trill. "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" intoned the king. "Coo Cher! Coo Cher!" imitated the Cardinal. These songs were only studied repetitions, but there was a depth and volume in his voice that gave promise of future greatness, when age should have ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... in the direction of Upton Wood, thoroughly enjoying their walk. Occasionally, they stopped to gather a few wild flowers, or listen to the joyous trill of a bird. They were at the edge of the wood, when Grace suddenly put up ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... went out, for the fire-flies fled in every direction; but in the darkness Twinkle thought she could still hear the drone of the big bass fiddle and the flute-like trill of the ladybugs. ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... be noted [Crenellation], and if the note came down on a second instead of the original note it became [Podium] [G: g' b' a']. The quilisma ([Upper Mordent]) indicated a repetition of two notes, one above the other, and we still use much the same sign for our trill. Also the two forms of the circumflex, [Over-slur] [Under-slur], were joined ([Turn]) and thus we have the modern turn, so ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but Hamdi!—" she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the shoes—the fairy tale—as Hamdi ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... mind the weather, so long as we're together," sang Patty with a little trill, as she danced about the room. Then she seated herself at the old, square piano, and began to sing ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... furiously to annex and drill into submission the alien and distracting mass of food that you have taken on board. They are like stevedores, stowing the cargo for portability. A little later, however, when this excellent work is accomplished, the bosun may trill his whistle, and the deck hands can be summoned back to the navigating bridge. The mind casts off its corporeal hawsers and puts out to sea. You begin once more to live as a rational composition of reason, emotion, and will. The heavy dinner postpones and stultifies this desirable state. Let it then ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... port, though something squat— Pursy, play'd-out Philistine— Dazzled Nelly's youthful eyne. But, far in, obscure, there stirr'd On his perch a sprightlier bird, Courteous-eyed, erect and slim; And I whisper'd: "Fix on him!" Home we brought him, young and fair, Songs to trill in Surrey air. Here Matthias sang his fill, Saw the cedars of Pains Hill; Here he pour'd his little soul, Heard the murmur of the Mole. Eight in number now the years He hath pleased our eyes and ears; Other favourites he hath known Go, and now himself ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... almost over his head, began to pour forth his liquid song, and from another far away came the same song like an echo. Dick looked up but he could not see the bird among the branches. Nevertheless he waved his hand toward the place from which the melody came and gave a little trill in ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... coquette been practising it all winter, in some gay Southern society, where cat-birds and bobolinks grow intimate, just as Southern fashionables from different States may meet and sing duets at Saratoga? There sounds the sweet, low, long-continued trill of the little hair-bird, or chipping-sparrow, a suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer, and produced, like them, by a slight fluttering of the wings against the sides: by-and-by we shall sometimes hear that same delicate rhythm burst the silence of the June midnights, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... flower-border near, Amy would hear such a vigorous scratching among the leaves that she might well believe that a motherly hen was at work, but presently one of these little sober-coated creatures that Thoreau well calls a "ground-bird" would fly to the top of a plum-tree and trill out a song as sweet as the perfume that came from the blossoming willows not far away. The busy plows made it a high festival for the robins, for with a confidence not misplaced they followed near in the ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... she, with a trill of laughter. "Here is one that talketh very loud and fool-like and flourisheth iron claw to no purpose, since I heed ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... not understand The magic touches of a hand That seemed, beneath her strange control, To smooth the plumage of the soul And calm it, till, with folded wings, It half forgot its flutterings, And, nestled in her palm, did seem To trill a song that called ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... august ears. An act of gracious condescension follows. Her Ladyship has the supreme delight of leading a scion of Royalty to a chair of state in her drawing-room, to hear Sir Raucisonous bleat and Miss Quaver trill. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... in gleeful joy, In songbirds trill, in flowerlets coy, Shall we, also, voices raise, Sing our gentle ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... G. He diminuendoed, struck a cantable movement, slid up over a crescendo, tackled a second ending by mistake—but it went—caught his second wind on a moderato, signified his desire for a raise in salary on a trill, did some brilliant work on a maestoso, reached high C with ease, went down into the bass clef and climbed out again, quavered and held, did sixteen notes by the handful—payable on demand—waltzed along a minor passage, gracefully turned the dal segno, skipped a chromatic run, did the con expressione ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... have spoken without laughing! That little meaningless trill at the end of everything made Diana nearly wild. She could find no answer to the last speech, and ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... crystal spring,[27] Where opening flowers, refreshing odours fling, Cheerful he sits, and forms the banquet scene, In regal splendour on the crowded green; And as around he greets his valiant bands, Showers golden presents from his bounteous hands;[28] Voluptuous damsels trill the sportive lay, Whose sparkling glances beam celestial day; Fill'd with delight the heroes closer join, And quaff till midnight cups of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... without fail, Rusty sang his dawn song right under Farmer Green's window. His musical trill, sounding very much like the brook that rippled its way down the side of Blue Mountain, always made Farmer Green feel glad that ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... universe—a rapture of love awakened by a morning in spring, by the blue infinity of the sky, by the eternal loneliness and sublimity of the sea. Or, in some moment of susceptibility, the smiles of dear home faces, the tender trill of a voice, a surge of solemn music, may have power over the young heart to change its entire future. And again, it is some vivid experience of temptation and suffering that shapes the great hereafter. For the Divinity that maketh and loveth ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... the palace until the evening. But when the sun was low, she loved to linger among the roses in the garden, till the bright shield of the moon was high in the east, or till the faint stars burned in their full splendour, and the nightingales began to call and trill their melancholy song from end to end of the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... she took them, read them in my presence; And now and then an ample tear trill'd down Her delicate cheek: it seem'd she was a queen Over her passion; who, most rebel-like, Sought ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... facility she could rise with ease from the faintest sound to the most superb crescendo, could send her tones sweeping through the air with the most delicious undulations, imitating the swell and fall of a bell, and could trill like a bird on each note of a chromatic passage. She dazzled her listeners, but left the ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... rustle of a bird as it flew from the thinning branches, the soft sigh of a faint breeze as it whispered its message of decay to the trees, the gentle trill of a robin at intervals, were the only sounds that fell upon the ear as Lady Pembroke and Sir Fulke Greville spoke of him who ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... lustre tremble through the grove, And sacred airs of minstrelsy divine Are harp'd around, and flutt'ring pinions move. Ah, hark! a voice, to which the vocal rill, The lark's extatic harmony is rude; Distant it swells with many a holy trill, Now breaks wide ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... horn-like quality to the crowing of Gildersleeve's rooster, and his hens chant cheerily as they kick the litter about. But it wasn't these cheerful sounds that wakened us with a start. There! Hear that? Hear it? Two or three long-drawn, reedy notes, and an awkward boggle at a trill, but oh, how sweet! How sweet! It is the song-sparrow, blessed bird! It won't be long now; ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... explained, taking his own deliberate time in making the explanation. Miss Hunniwell wrinkled her dainty upturned nose and burst into a trill of laughter. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hour of silence. Not a trill sounded from among the softly moving leaves, not a chirp, not a twitter. The stillness seemed almost oppressive. The one brilliant spot of colour in the landscape was a large scarlet macaw, asleep on his stand ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms throughout the city stirred dreamily in the tempered moonlight; and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... mind of the listener. The song of the Veery consists of five distinct strains or bars. They might, perhaps, be represented on the musical staff, by commencing the first note on D above the staff and sliding down with a trill to C, one fifth below. The second, third, fourth, and fifth bars are repetitions of the first, except that each commences and ends a few tones ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... somewhere above him came such a trill of demoniacal laughter as chilled his blood. The top of the wall was concealed by the overhanging branch of a tree ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace |
