"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... For a moment I almost surrendered myself to despair. I had had no sleep for two nights, I was overwhelmed with mortification and disgust, and here I was in a country store pranked out like a popinjay, the keeper of a half-crazy wretch who made me dance to any tune he chose to pipe; but I pulled myself together and cajoled Hawkins into leaving the place and giving me back a ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... varying pitch and loudness, odours, savours, and the like. It has also a form or formal constituent. Our data, when we know anything at all, are arranged on some definite principle of order. When we recognize an object by the eye or a tune by the ear, we do not apprehend simply so much colour or sound, but colours spread out and forming a pattern or notes following one another in a fixed order. (If you reverse the movement of a gramophone, you get the same notes as before, but you do not get the same tune.) Further, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... "the graceful movement of the body adjusted by art, to the measures or tune of instruments, or of the voice." All nations have danced. The ancients thought that Pollux and Castor at first taught the practice to the Lacedaemonians; but, whatever be its origin, all climes ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... to be thought decorous for church music. Still the New England churches clung to and loved their poor confused psalm-singing as one of their few delights, and whenever a Puritan, even in road or field, heard the distant sound of a psalm-tune he removed his hat and bowed his ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... will practise your music of course, and I trust to you for taking care of my instrument and not letting it be ill-used in any respect. Do not allow anything to be put on it but what is very light. I hope you will try to make out some other tune besides the Hermit. . ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... handkerchief. The colt stands still and composed, with one ear warily cocked, the other indifferently slouched; with his back slightly arched, and—ah! the saints preserve us!—with his tail jammed hard down. Carelessly humming a little tune, you hang your coat on the fence; and in the saying of two credos (note the appositeness of Cervantes' expression here), you are in the saddle—the same saddle, by the way, with which you took the flashness out of the roan filly that had broken the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... laughed a little, and he spoke of his people.... Nobody could have quite told what he said to them about his people. But flutes sang. The sound of feet was on the grass—touching it in tune—swift-flitting feet that paused and held a rhythmic measure while it swung. Quick-beating feet across the green. Shadowy forms. The sway of gowns, light-falling, and the call of voices low and sweet. Greek youth and maid in swiftest play. ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... 15 Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, 20 And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells, 25 What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels 30 To the swinging and the ringing ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... dense still. She went by, her eyes fixed upon the ground, with her supple and rhythmical step. She walked as far as the little pond that received the waters of the brook, stood dreaming for a few moments upon its edge, and then returned. A second tune she went by the ruins, without raising her eyes, and as if deeply absorbed. Lucan remained convinced that she had not suspected his presence, when suddenly she turned her head slightly around, without interrupting her march, and she cast behind her that single word, "Farewell," in a tone so gentle, ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... with a friend who, for a commission, took the unsophisticated lad about, hired some furnished rooms, and finally introduced him to the best ladies in the town, while Norbert ordered clothes to the tune of five hundred francs. He now thought himself on the high road to the full gratification of his desires; but, alas! the reality, compared with what his imagination had pictured, appeared rank and ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... an open door! A footfall like the wind's upon the grass! A rustle like the wind's among the leaves!... Dim as a dream of pale peach blooms of light, Blue in the blue soft pallor of the moon, She comes between the trees as a faint tune Falls from a flute far off into the night.... So Death might come to one who ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... for a few minutes, and whistled a tune. Then he began again. "I've made a study of horses, Joe. Over forty years I've studied them, and it's my opinion that the average horse knows more than the average man that drives him. When I think ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... chairs, back to back, in the center of the room, allowing one chair less than the number of players. Some one begins to play a tune, and at once the players start to walk or run round the chairs, to the ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... spectacle, called Choulette from the threshold. He was softly humming a tune, and she asked him why he had not gone with her to visit the ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... laid the trunk on his shoulder, but the tailor sat at his ease among the branches; and the giant, who couldn't see what was going on behind him, had to carry the whole tree, and the little tailor into the bargain. There he sat behind in the best of spirits, lustily whistling a tune, as if carrying the tree were mere sport. The giant, after dragging the heavy weight for some time, could get on no further, and shouted out: "Hi! I must let the tree fall." The tailor sprang nimbly down, seized the tree with both hands as if he had carried ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... now had seemed unable to move, he threw both arms around her, bringing the rat close to her face. Around the laboratory they danced to the tune of the woman's shrieks. The professor held on, and the woman yelled. Up and down spasmodically on the laboratory floor came the two hundred and ninety pounds with the ...
— Advanced Chemistry • Jack G. Huekels
... went into the well warmed and lighted crimson drawing room. And Claudia sat down before her grand piano, and tried its keys. From long disuse it was somewhat out of tune, certainly; but her fingers evoked from those keys a beautiful prelude, and her voice rose in that simple, but soul-stirring little ballad, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... dim vestibule Thou with a faithful hand didst toil to tune That harp of praise within the unfolding heart Which 'neath the temple-arch not made with hands Swells the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... from stringed instruments or singing voices. By climbing up on the sofa in my sitting-room I could look out through the port-hole on the near sea, rippling close to me, and bringing, as I fancied, with every ripple a new cadence, a tenderer snatch of tune. A subtle scent was on the salt air, as of roses mingling with the freshness of the scarcely moving waters,—it came, I thought, from the beautiful blossoms which so lavishly adorned my rooms. I could not see the yacht from my point of observation, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... everything else, just as Bonypart desired him. An' sure enough, whin Billy Malowney heerd the music where he was standin' taking a blast of the dhudheen to compose his mind for murdherin' the Frinchmen as usual, being mighty partial to that tune intirely, he cocks his ear a one side, an' down he stoops to listen to the music; but, begorra, who should be in his rare all the time but a Frinch grannideer behind a bush, and seeing him stooped in a convanient forum, bedad he let ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... forehead, a deplorably defective ear. My uncle Sandy, who was profoundly skilled in psalmody, had done his best to make a singer of me; but he was at length content to stop short, after a world of effort, when he had, as he thought, brought me to distinguish St. George's from any other psalm-tune. On the introduction, however, of a second tune into the parish church that repeated the line at the end of the stanza, even this poor fragment of ability deserted me; and to this day—though I rather like the strains ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... watched their approach. The waiting moments were burdened with awe, but the Covenanters knew how to turn awful moments into power. They carried the Psalms in their hearts. Some one began to sing. The Psalm was pensive and the tune solemn. All hearts were responsive; from 900 voices a wave of sacred music rolled up the mountain-side against the heavens. The very sentiment seemed to be the stirring of hearts, that were consciously entering into a ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... echo'd Again the well-known tune That promised this bright future, And ask'd her for its own: Then words of sorrow, broken By half-reproachful pain; And then a farewell, spoken In words ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... the cottage and the highroad, throwing stones at the birds now and then or singing out of tune: ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... come to our aid, or send," spoke Tom, "but I can not make their wireless operator pick up our message. Either his apparatus is not in tune, or in accord with ours, or ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... incapable of judging of the force of arguments adduced on one side or the other, but conceived that everything spoken from the pulpit was of equal authority, great confusion and perplexity of mind ensued. In order to "tune the pulpits" and to effect uniformity of doctrine and service, the Lord Protector resorted to proclamations, which, although no longer having the authority of statutes as in the reign of Henry VIII, practically answered the same purpose. Preaching ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... by far the justest and wisest estimate of both the man and the poet that has yet by any one been said or sung. He is at his best in his "Songs," he says, which he thinks "by far the best that Britain has yet produced.... In them," he adds, "he has found a tune and words for every mood of man's heart; in hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in many-coloured joy and woe of existence, the name, the voice of that joy and that woe, is the name and voice ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... inscrutable. She gave no clue to what she really thought of him. When "They" went for him she soothed him. She spread her warm angel's wing, and wrapped him from the howling blast. But, as far as we could make out, she never committed herself to an opinion. All her consolations went to the tune of "They say. What say they? Let them say." Which might have applied to anybody. We couldn't tell whether, like her mother, she believed implicitly or ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... learn to rule myself, To be the child I should,— Honest and brave,—nor ever tire Of trying to be good? How can I keep a sunny soul To shine along life's way? How can I tune my little heart To sweetly sing ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... particularly sorry that he had to go himself without company. But, concluding that he would adopt Forester's principle of making the best of everything, in the events which occur in travelling, he walked along the road, singing a tune which he had learned at a juvenile singing school in New York, and watching the pulsations of the steam, as it issued from the ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... man's faith," answered Bertram. "You may trust to him as to the best knight or gentleman of the land. We may make good our lodging by a tune or a song; and it may remember you that I undertook (provided it pleased your ladyship) to temporize a little with the Scots, who, poor souls, love minstrelsy, and when they have but a silver penny, will willingly bestow it to encourage the gay science—I ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... who have been trampled on for hundreds of years and have not learned to submit. The Garde Civique had two bands in front of the Senate, and they tried to play the Brabanconne in unison. Neither of them could play the air in tune, and they were about a bar apart all the time. They played it through and then began to play it over again without a pause between. They blew and pounded steadily for nearly half an hour, and the more they played, the more ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... hard work! Drills as arduous in the engine- room as at the guns; machinery kept in tune; traditions in manoeuvring in all weathers, which is kept ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... more taciturn, less free of advice, perhaps less frank than formerly. A sort of strangeness shadowed him, and only his mother or his son could dispel it. The latter soon learnt to understand his father's many moods, and would laugh or cry, show joy or fear, according to the tune of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Glumdalclitch kept one in her chamber, and a master attended twice a-week to teach her: I called it a spinet, because it somewhat resembled that instrument, and was played upon in the same manner. A fancy came into my head, that I would entertain the king and queen with an English tune upon this instrument. But this appeared extremely difficult: for the spinet was near sixty feet long, each key being almost a foot wide, so that with my arms extended I could not reach to above five keys, and to press ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... steps to the poet's voice Who speaks his odes and rhapsodies; They tap their bells and beat their chimes Rigidly, lest harp and flute Should mar the measure. Then rival singers of the Four Domains Compete in melody, till not a tune Is left unsung that human voice could sing. O Soul come back and listen ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... young Englishman, came in from mowing, gaily whistling the refrain the Yankee band had been playing at intervals all afternoon. It was "Dixie Land," and at first Thomas did not notice it. Rousing at last to the sinister significance of the tune, he ordered its cessation, in rosy-hued terms, and commended all such Yankee tunes and those that whistled them to that region where popular rumor has it that pots boil with ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall forever play his diabolical tune of Hell's Unutterable Lament!" And, if this doctrine be true, no ingenuity, however fertile in expedients and however fiendish in cruelty, can possibly devise emblems and paint pictures half terrific ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Philadelphia this morning. If you're off to Philadelphia this morning, And wish to prove the truth of what I say, I pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way. Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the cat-bird sings his tune; Still Autumn sets the maple-forest blazing. Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk; Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing. They are there, there, there with ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... his head back, opened his mouth, dropped the cake in with a sudden motion, looked at the little boy with an expression of astonishment, and then closed his eyes, and begun to chew, mumbling as an accompaniment the plaintive tune of ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... the door. Prayers over, Miss Elizabeth Blake, the senior lady teacher, sat down to the harmonium and played the first few bars of a hymn. Then the little congregation stood up and sang. They kept good time, and their singing was fairly in tune, but the voices of some of the native girls were very harsh and shrill, and somewhat spoilt the general effect. The probationer, Samuel Gozani, led the singing from his place close to the instrumentalist. The choir stood facing the right-hand end of the ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... began. 'There'll be no shooting to-day, I guess.' Then, suddenly lifting up his voice, he regaled us with a few bars of a rollicking song, which abruptly ceasing, he finished the tune with a whistle, and then continued:—'I say, Mrs. Huntingdon, what a fine stud your husband has! not large, but good. I've been looking at them a bit this morning; and upon my word, Black Boss, and Grey Tom, and that young Nimrod are the finest ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... not say you did," cried Griselda, and her colour rose as she spoke: she tuned her harp with some precipitation—"This harp is terribly out of tune." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... his readers. The three spiritual realms had their local bounds marked out as clearly as those of time earth itself. Their cosmography was but an extension of the largely hypothetical geography of the tune. ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... upon meat, drink, garments, sleep, Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin. They are those brittle evidences of law, Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate For leaving out one syllable. What are whores! They are those flattering bells have all one tune, At weddings, and at funerals. Your rich whores Are only treasures by extortion fill'd, And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse, Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows, And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man Wherein he is imperfect. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... thowt he'd gethered squirrels enew, he started to play a tune, an' 'twere an uncouth tune an' all. Soomtimes 'twere like t' yowlin' o' t' wind i' t' chimley, an' soomtimes 'twere like t' yammerin' o' tewits an' curlews on t' moor. But when t' squirrels heerd t' tune, they gat theirsens ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... was gazing out to sea, Bland tapped me on the arm and drew my attention to the fact that a company of volunteers was marching out along our muddy causeway. They were Bob Power's men and they came along whistling "The Protestant Boys," a tune which makes an excellent quick-step march. They had spades with them as well as rifles, and they set to work ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... morning down by the Pacific, with "Blix" and "The Seven Seas," it all came over "Landy," that "living was better than reading and life was better than literature." And so it is; once, and only once, for each of us; and that is the tune that sings and sings through one's head when one puts the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... place when she is absent," Alice replied, whereupon, the doctor said he must have her up at Terrace Hill some day, to try Anna's long-neglected instrument. "It was once a most superb affair, but I believe it is sadly out of tune. Anna is very fond of you, Miss Johnson, and your visits would benefit her greatly. I assure you there's a duty of charity to be discharged at Terrace Hill as well as elsewhere. Anna suffers from too close confinement indoors, but, with a little ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Gertrude had complained was in her way. His wife usually followed him to the door to tell him good-by; but to-day she was sweeping the dining-room vigorously, singing the while a very gay and cheerful tune. It was one to which they had often danced together in the old days; at the same moment at which he realized it, the song stopped, as though Gertrude had been silenced by the same memory that had come to him. He whistled tentatively; but she did not answer, though she was near enough to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... old rogue, worshipping that snob's two thousand pounds per annum," whispered Lawless; "we'll alter his tune before long. Fascinating man, Mr. Brown, ma'am," he continued, addressing ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the comer, whoever he was, could get sight of us, he was sure to tread right on the top of us! Luckily the moon was out, and with her aid I made myself as bright as possible. The footsteps belonged to a youth, not, certainly, oppressed by melancholy, to judge by the tune he was whistling, or very infirm, to judge by the pace at which ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... lifted out of himself and who complained that music jarred his nerves, was shrewd enough to observe its effect on marching troops, and to order the bands of different regiments to play daily in front of hospitals to soothe and cheer the wounded. The one tune he prized, Malbrook, he hummed as he started for his last campaign. In the solitude of St. Helena he said: "Of all liberal arts music has the greatest influence over the passions, and it is that to which the legislator ought ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... from the Fort, and, so far as they could tell, without being seen. Then ammunition went round, and they marched upon the Fort. Pierre eyed Macavoy—measured him, as it were, for what he was worth. The giant seemed happy. He was humming a tune softly through his beard. Suddenly Jose paused, dropped to the foot of a pine, and put his ear to it. Pierre understood. He had caught at the same thing. "There is a dance on," said Jose, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and restraint. She first went through the air, then he joined in with his violin with indescribable charm. Critics said he lacked technique. I am glad he did: his music went straight to the heart. At the last he told us he would give the tune always played after a wedding when the guests had stayed long enough—usually three days—and their departure was desired. We were to listen for one shrill note which was imperative. No one would care or dare to ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... surprise when one day Padre Colbacchini treated me, after dinner, to an orchestral concert of such operas as Il Trovatore, Aida, and the Barbiere di Seviglia, played on brass and stringed instruments by Indian boys. The Bororos showed great fondness for music, and readily learned to play any tune without knowing a single note of music. Naturally great patience was required on the part of the teacher in order to obtain a collective melody which would not seriously impair the drum of one's ear. The result was truly marvellous. Brass instruments were ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... snubbed, the drum of the rusty winch rattled and banged on worn bearings to a tune of escaping steam, laboriously warping the smelly hull alongside the dock. Terry watched the sturdy little Moros spring into agile life as the vessel slowly neared the pier, then he turned to look over the town which was ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... the most unreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say to him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with these two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune (to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and over again ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the hall; shortly afterwards the door is heard to open. Enter NORA, humming a tune and in high spirits. She is in outdoor dress and carries a number of parcels; these she lays on the table to the right. She leaves the outer door open after her, and through it is seen a PORTER who is carrying a Christmas Tree and ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... the cheering, animating songs of our voyageurs, was out of the question; for the river, though deep, is so narrow that, in many places, there is no room for the regular play of the oars; and the voices of Frenchmen can never "keep tune" unless their oars can "keep time." Lapierre, one of our men, did his best with a paddle, or, as he called it, the "little row," but it was to no purpose—it would not go. Besides this, the wild ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... It was somewhere in the immediate neighbourhood of Queen's Gate, and a fashionable band, tired of modernist tunes, was throbbing out the old Wiener Blatter. . . . If Constantia remembered that sacred tune, she ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... back to her chair, humming a little tune almost inaudibly; and in passing lightly brushed his forehead with her ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... clock in the hall, and set it to tell out the time again for another week. There were musical instruments in a room adjoining, and over one of these Ellen timidly passed her fingers. It was out of tune, and the sounds, though sweet in themselves, all jarred with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... boom, boom!" went the drums, and then the fifers struck up a lively tune, and around the academy marched the two companies at company front. Then they went around again by column of fours, and then marched into the messroom, where they stacked arms and sat down at the long mess tables. The movements were patterned ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield
... song she'd croon, And feign the world a kindly place; And tender was the haunting tune To match her haunting grace; And tenderly the witching moon Toyed with ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... I think I've calculated an opener for it, Fred, but I'll have to have number ten projector and the whole output of number ten power room. Can you let me play with that much juice for a while? All right, Blake, tune her up to fifty-five thousand—there, hold it! Now, you other fellows, listen! I'm going to try to drill a hole through that screen with a hollow, quasi-solid beam: like a diamond drill cutting out a core. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... comes; if it does not {148} come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment; and it sets the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new issue to his life. So with fear, with indignation, jealousy, ambition, worship. If they are there, life changes. And whether they shall be there or not depends almost always upon non-logical, often on organic conditions. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... supposed to have given him, and which he expanded into verse. But "he spins the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." All that he says, "the very words, and to the self-same tune," would prove just as well that whatever is, is wrong, as that whatever is, is right. The Dunciad has splendid passages, but in general it is dull, heavy, and mechanical. The sarcasm already quoted on Settle, the Lord Mayor's ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... a little crooning song from the waters—no words, no tune that could be called a tune. It reminded him more of a baby's toneless cooing of joy, and yet it had a rhythm to it, too, and both joy and pathos in its cadence. Across the bright path of the moon's reflection he saw her come. Her head and neck were ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... immensely valuable in the district where men are billeted. It revives memories, it quickens association, it opens and unites the hearts of men more surely than any other appeal can, and in this respect it aids recruiting perhaps more than any other agency. I wonder whether I should say this—the tune that it employs and the words that go with that tune are sometimes very remote from heroism or devotion, but the magic and the compelling power is in them, and it makes men's souls realize certain truths that their minds ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... argues that, till the early spring of 1578, Philip held his hand because Perez lulled his fears; that Escovedo then began to threaten to disclose the love affair of Perez to his royal rival, and that Perez, in his own private interest, now changed his tune, and, in place of mollifying Philip, urged him to the crime. But Philip was so dilatory that he could not even commit a murder with decent promptitude. Escovedo was not dangerous, even to his mind, while he was apart from Don John. But ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... a proud man in the county: he would not hear of any festival attendant upon his marriage being less than gorgeous and dazzling before the eyes of the whole countryside. He chose to pay the piper, so that he might call the tune, and though Elsa—wounded in her own pride—did her best to protest, she was overruled by her mother, who was only too thankful to see this expensive burden ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... field near their house, I saw at one end of it, in the direction of the parade ground, something very huge and black, and I heard sounds of fife and drum proceeding from it. My heart had been full of song, and I had heard in imagination the tune of the mazurka, but this was very harsh music. It ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... seen, an' I hoped that things was fixed so 'at that mother could keep on comin' back now an' again to put a dream into her lonely little heart like she'd already done that night; but I carried her into her little white bedroom hummin' a dance-tune, took off her shoes an' stockin's, covered her up warm, an' told her she could sleep late, as we wasn't goin' to have an early breakfast. The big lids closed down over her bright little eyes, an' purty soon she was breathin' soft an' quiet, an' then I left her. I stopped in the ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... certain picturesque weirdness in these night marches in the desert—when one could dissociate one's self from the discomforts. The camel men had some sad, plaintive songs of their own—quite melodious and in good tune with the accompaniment of dingling bells hanging from the camels' necks. There was a musician in our party—Ali Murat's young brother—who carried a flute in his girdle during the day, but played upon the instrument the whole night—some doleful tunes of his own composition, ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... They screamed loudly. People looked up and saw Bert making what he meant to be genial salutations, but what they considered, in view of the feminine outcry, to be insulting gestures. Then the car hit the roof of the gatehouse smartly, snapped a flag staff, played a tune upon some telegraph wires, and sent a broken wire like a whip-lash to do its share in accumulating unpopularity. Bert, by clutching convulsively, just escaped being pitched headlong. Two young soldiers and several peasants ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... I bade her, gayly. For my heart was singing a good tune, well pleased with itself and willing to be at amity with every one else—counting indeed, as is the wont of brisk hearts, a gloomy face little less than a ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... sky be without a cloud. All joyous and happy will we tune our harps anew to the praise of Him who loved us and hath ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... Card,' was dropped, and the general noise and confusion, indicated that recess had arrived. A line of military characters, bearing the title of the 'Freedom's Band,' was soon called out, headed by one of their own number. The tune chosen to guide them was ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... of a woman's horizon; but it goes deeper with men,—of the right sort, even if they are artists! Look at Browning. He knew. A big brain may set you on a pinnacle, Michel; but a big love keeps you human, sets your pulses beating in tune with all the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... in his buckled shoon. We shall never see his face, Twisted to that queer grimace, Waiting in the wind and rain, till we called his tune; Very whimsical and white, Waiting on a blue Twelfth Night! He is grown too proud at ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... quality of sound are very different. Some persons who have an extremely acute ear for delicate sounds, and who are fond of music, have yet an incapacity for detecting whether an instrument is slightly out of tune. ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... tapping like drums in time with the music. They had to pass the night outside, and it was the custom, but the singing irritated him. He could fancy heads nodding and bodies swaying from side to side with the rhythm. He recognized the tune, and it began to run through his head, and he could not put it out of it. The lilt of it captured him, and suddenly he began thinking of the wonderful brain that musicians must have to compose music. And then his thoughts switched ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... He is an ugly brute in shape and plumage, but is a magnificent songster. His own notes ring through the wilds, and there is not a bird of the forest that he does not imitate. One of these birds regularly visited the camp at Flood Creek every morning to learn a tune one of the men used to whistle to him, and he always gave notice of his presence by a loud note of the most metallic sound. It breeds on the hills, and is generally found wherever there ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... gibberish with the best of them. But to-night he was on such a wonderful sacred errand bent, that it seemed as though he wanted to keep his soul from contact with rougher things lest somehow it might get out of tune and so unfit him for the ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... play life's sweet keys if we would keep them in tune. Charles Kingsley says: "Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... time we had sung the first three verses the drum and fife sounded so near, that I could discern they played the tune of "John, come kiss me now," which left me in no doubt that the soldiers in the mist were my own friends and neighbours; for it was the same tune which was played when the men of our parish went to the raid of Dunse-hill, and which, in memorial of that era, had ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... for you a little tune on the fiddle. I imagine there is nothing better and finer in the world than to be able to play on the fiddle. What? Perhaps it is not so? I don't know how it is with you. But I know that since I first reached the age of understanding, my heart longed for a ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... you in the hope that you may perhaps feel inclined to have a little work of mine listed on a convenient occasion at a theatre. The Opus would take at most 15-20 minutes in performance. Tune and scores are throughout clearly ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... manipulation of speculators. Rogers and Ellis had no wells and were at the mercy of the wolves. They struggled on, trying to live up to their contract with Pratt, but soon their surplus was wiped out, and they found themselves in debt to Pratt to the tune of several ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... the cricket, who is justly one of the most famous songsters in the world, would get his pretty voice in tune ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... A beautiful youth, who was changed into the flower narcissus. nectar (nek' ter). The drink of the gods. Neptune (nep' tune). The ruler of the sea. Norwegian (nor we' ji an). ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... skip, and set her on her feet so suddenly that it scared all the naughtiness out of her. She stood looking at these curious shoes; and the bright buttons on them seemed to wink at her like eyes, while the heels tapped on the floor a sort of tune. Before she dared to stir, her mother called ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... me to a different tune, before I've done! One-eye says it never paid to carry a tusk weighing less than sixty pounds. Some tusks weigh two hundred—some even more—took four men to carry some of 'em! Call it an average weight of one hundred pounds and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... shores of France, in a little cobbled lane by the water front, Jacques swung into the rhythm of the Sailor's Hornpipe. Raoul stood in the doorway of his low-roofed house, with his violin, directing the tune and swings until he pronounced ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... we have the following reference to this City music-seller: "My brother introduced me to old Johnson, who at that time kept a capital music-shop in Cheapside.[1] I soon, however, grew tired of an attendance on him. He set me down to tune Harpsichords, a mere mechanical employment, not at all to my taste." "I saw plainly that I might have screwed up Harpsichords in old Johnson's shop to all eternity, without advancing my fortune; and as to the songs and sonatas that I brought him for sale, they had not been performed ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... allowing the eye to recognize the beauties of a great work, but would have its defects passed over. It is an unhappy, luckless organization which will be perpetually fault-finding, and in the midst of a grand concert of music will persist only in hearing that unfortunate fiddle out of tune. ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... may be out o' tune, True harmony may fail in't, But deil a cockney tinkler loon We need to rant and rail in't. Our fathers on occasion fought, And so can we, if needed; But windy words with frenzy fraught Sound Scots should pass unheeded. Fal ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... sustain themselves like true song-birds, and fall to the ground like spent rockets. This applies to Byron's lyrics generally; turn to the incantation in the Deformed Transformed: the first line and a half are in tune,— ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... the nice old lady, shaking her toes and making the bells jingle a pretty tune. "What is the matter with ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... and exaggeration. He grew passionate in his praise of tidiness and propriety. All the time there was a smell of lilac all round him. Once he heard very faintly in some distant street a barrel-organ begin to play, and it seemed to him that his heroic words were moving to a tiny tune from under ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... at once. "Mr. Giddings," he said, "I think you have the right idea. Bob and Paul can't help me much from now on, and if we take that trip around the world next summer this machine must be done some weeks ahead, so that we can have a chance to test her out and tune her up. Now, it happens that Paul and I have a cousin—Tom Meeks—who is about my age and who flew in the same squadron with me over on the French front during the war. I will vouch for Tom's ability as a mechanic and flyer, also as to his trustworthiness. It happens my mother just ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... Split and parched with heat of June, Flying hoof and tightened rein, Hearts that beat the old, old tune. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... silly Janet," said she on the horse; "you'll never make a Sweet-Singer, for there's not a notion of a tune in your head." ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... 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? ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... if we consider forgetting to be a mode of dying. So the ancients called their River of Death, Lethe—the River of Forgetfulness. They ought also to have called their River of Life, Mnemosyne—the River of Memory. We should learn to tune death a good deal flatter than according ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself. Among the blooming bushes she was moving listlessly and yet restlessly, and each rose she plucked was speedily pulled to pieces in her nervous fingers. A particularly ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Vaudeville performers who sued Marconi for inventing the radio had to go from a regime where they had *one hundred percent* control over who could get into the theater and hear them perform to a regime where they had *zero* percent control over who could build or acquire a radio and tune into a recording of them performing. For that matter, look at the difference between a monkish Bible and a Luther Bible — next to that phase-change, Napster ...
— Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books • Cory Doctorow
... happened to Peter before. It was not likely, he argued optimistically, that it could happen now. Considerably cheered by this logic he slipped his grimy report into its still more grimy envelope and began to whistle. Buoyed up by comfortable reveries he whistled fully five minutes, when the tune came to an abrupt end. A step on the gravel had arrested it. Looking around Peter saw his father coming ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... your composition. The words seem to be what my friend Pope calls 'an echo to the sense.'" "I am pleased and proud," answered Macgowran, "that it has afforded you any amusement: and when you, Sir," addressing himself to the Dean, "put all the strings of the Irish harp in tune, it will yield your Reverence a double pleasure, and perhaps put me out of my senses with joy." Macgowran, in a short time, presented the Dean with a literal translation, for which he rewarded him very ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... shall die. 260 Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay! To thy far wishes will thy streams obey: Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain, Alone they can drink up the morning rain: Though a descended Pleiad, will not one Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine? So sweetly to these ravish'd ears of mine Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade Thy memory will waste me to a shade:— 270 For pity do not melt!"—"If I should stay," Said Lamia, "here, upon this floor of clay, And pain ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... Louisbourg," muttered one of the midshipmen to Colin, showing how easily he understood what was passing; "but they sang to a different tune when they had heard the music of ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... immediately obeyed. Off they dashed to Virginia Water, where there was a great barge, full of lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with a band; and the King ogled Feodora, and praised her manners, and then turned to his own small niece. "What is your favourite tune? The band shall play it." "God save the King, sir," was the instant answer. The Princess's reply has been praised as an early example of a tact which was afterwards famous. But she was a very truthful child, and perhaps it ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... came in that night from a vestry meeting to which he went after dinner. The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed into the study for prayers. Prayers over they rose and went out, and he sat down. His habits were becoming fixed and for some years he had always read in the evening the friends of his youth. No sermon ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... correction of false habits, the strengthening grasp of thought, and the growth of character. Are they any less desirous than the physician that the delicate instrument which puts the soul in communication with the external world, and by means of which it must be developed, be in perfect tune? Do they desire any less earnestly than he, that they may assist in forming from the effervescent girl-life of America a gracious womanhood, fully able to bear any strain which active life may bring, rejoicing to become in due time true wives and real mothers? ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... bal champetre was beginning, and through the open window one could see all that was going on. Lanterns, hung from the branches, gave the leaves a grayish green tint. Rustics and their partners danced in a circle shouting a wild dance tune to the feeble accompaniment of two violins and a clarinet, the players seated on a large table as a platform. The boisterous singing of the peasants at times completely drowned the instruments, and the feeble strains torn to tatters by the ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... never very far from the lips of any Italian soldier, and those endless stornelli, which to an invariable tune they multiply ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... on my gun claimed that he could play a tune while the gun was actually firing, and demonstrated this fact one day on the target range. We were very enthusiastic and decided ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... that is in the world, now and then, in spite of your own little single worries? Well, that's what God means; and the worry is the interruption. He never means that. There's a great song forever singing, and we're all parts and notes of it, if we will just let Him put us in tune. What we call trouble is only his key, that draws our heart-strings truer, and brings them up sweet and even to the heavenly pitch. Don't mind the strain; believe in the note, every time his finger touches and sounds it. If you are glad ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... to consider ways for destroying the eggs left by the grasshoppers in the honey-combed ground, and to trade help in the wheat-breaking to begin the next day. The women lingered to plan a picnic dinner for the coming Saturday. Jim Shirley hummed an old love tune as he helped Pryor Gaines to close the windows and door for the week. Only little Todd Stewart, with sober face, scratched thoughtfully at the hard earth with his hard ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have ensured him from censure, and would join with others of the young men in the college in hunting, as they called it, the servitor who was thus diligent in his duty, and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, singing to the tune of Chevy Chase the words ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the neighbourhood of Warsaw. His wonder always was who could have composed the quaint and beautiful strains of those mazurkas, polonaises, and krakowiaks, and who had taught these simple men and women to play and sing so truly in tune. The conditions then existing in Poland were very favourable to the study of folk-lore of any kind. Art-music had not yet corrupted folk-music; indeed, it could hardly be said that civilisation had affected the lower strata of society at all. Notwithstanding the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... song or ballad consisting of four ten-line stanzas. Now Barboza was a singer but not a player on the guitar, so that an accompanist had to be called for. A stranger at the meeting quickly responded to the call. Yes, he could play to any man's singing—any tune he liked to call. He was a big, loud-voiced, talkative man, not known to any person present; he was a passer-by, and seeing a crowd at a rancho had ridden up and joined them, ready to take a hand in ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... therein making necessity a virtue; he is a gallant, for he carries all his wealth upon his back; or a philosopher, for he bears all his substance with him. He is always furnished with a song, to which his hammer, keeping tune, proves that he was the first founder of the kettle drum; where the best ale is, there stands his music most upon crotchets. The companion of his travel is some foul, sunburnt quean, that, since the terrible statute, has recanted gypsyism, and is turned pedlaress. So marches he all over ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... year or so. At sixteen, Harry gave me a guitar. Here was a new field where I would have no competitors. I knew no one who played on it; so I set to work, and taught myself to manage it, mother only teaching me how to tune it. But Miriam took a fancy to it, and I taught her all I knew; but as she gained, I lost my relish, and if she had not soon abandoned it, I would know nothing of it now. She does not know half that I do about it; they tell me I play much better than she; yet they let her play ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... she stood beside the huge bulk of her proud father! I tried to say something in reply, but the light in her eyes seemed to hypnotise me, and after a few incoherent sentences Chilvers came to my relief by striking up our club song, to the tune of a ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... post tricesimum annum, quia jam virium abunde habeat, nec sit sui dimidia. Omnia sanantem appellantes suo vocabulo, sacrificiis epulisque rite sub arbore praeparatis, duos admovent candidi coloria tauros, quorum cornua tune primum vinciantur. Sacerdos candida veste cultus arborem scandit, falce aurea demetit; candido id excipitur sago. Tum deinde victimas immolant, precantes ut suum donum deus prosperum facial ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... as "Mind" without weighing his words, and nothing has transpired lately, apropos of evolution, which will account for his present recantation. I said in my book "Selections," &c., that when Mr. Allen made stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumped upon them to some tune. I was a little scandalised then at the completeness and suddenness of the movement he executed, and spoke severely; I have sometimes feared I may have spoken too severely, but his recent performance goes far ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... what fashion did our revered grandfather do his rigadoon and his gavot? What manner of thing was that pirouet in the deft execution of which he felt an honest exultation? And what were the steps of his contra (or country) and Cossack dances? What tune was that—"The Devil amongst the Fiddlers"—for which he clamored, to inspire ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... words to their airs, with the view of interesting her friends, or producing good humour and happiness in the family circle. She had formed the acquaintance of Neil Gow, the celebrated violinist, and composed, at his particular request, the words to his popular tune "Farewell to Whisky,"—the only lyric from her pen which has hitherto been published. In all the collections of Scottish song, it appears as anonymous. In the present work, it is printed from a copy in one ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... He has "seen the King in His beauty and the land that is far off." Columbus like, he steers his barque toward the new world his faith has gazed upon, and, as with Columbus, the passion of the coming victory holds him, heart in tune and head erect, while others mournfully prophesy the disasters ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... attentively to what she had to say. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wished to absorb the real meaning of a recital that might be inadequately expressed, for by this method he found it easier to set himself in tune with the living thoughts that lay ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... grotesque antics as Jones did cut up was perfectly dreadful. He laughed, he mimicked the priest, kicked at the mourners, and once tried to grab the tactics. The Major and his assistants pitched the tune on a high key. Captain Wright braced it with loud, strong bass, while Martin and Sim Pratt came in on the home stretch with tenor and alto that shook the rafters in the house. Then all dispersed as silently and sorrowfully as they ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... The boys are all bubbling over and don't know how to bear themselves. Nothing like a few kicks up and down the deck to a well-played old tune, to get rid of ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... merriment of the ancient porches; they take the popular rhythm of the crowd, as in the Christmas carol "Adeste Fideles" and in the Paschal hymn "O Filii et Filiae;" they become trivial and familiar like the Gospels, submitting themselves to the humble wishes of the poor, lending them a holiday tune easy to catch, a running melody which carries them into pure regions where these simple souls can cast themselves at the indulgent feet ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... ain't they? Proud to have you, gentlemen. Charley, we are obliged to have several tables; but you are to be beside Maurice, so take your friends with you. There goes the 'Roast Beef;' my heart warms to that old tune." ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... sleighs with three horses abreast to each, their harness jingling with bells, drew up in a line before the steps, the runners creaking and crunching over the frozen snow. Natacha was the foremost, and the first to tune her spirits to the pitch of this carnival freak. This mirth, in fact, proved highly infectious, and reached its height of tumult and excitement when the party went down the steps and packed themselves into the sleighs, laughing and shouting to each other at the top ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... really were altogether without meaning. Regiment after regiment marched past, the men swinging their arms regularly as they moved, and trying to persuade themselves they were British grenadiers. At all events the band was playing that tune. Suddenly the music changed; they struck up a lively polka, and a number of little boys in a sort of penwiper costume, clasping one another like civilized ladies and gentlemen, began to caper about, after which they went through various antics that surpassed even ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... insured against total loss, an' if we went on that reef to-night, Messrs. Crubred, Orr, and Glasswell 'ud drink champagne to it an' book our half-pay in tobacco and stamps. But then—ah, Mr. McAlnwick, then it was different. The Lorenzo was insured against accidents to the tune o' three thousand pound sterling, provided—provided, ye understand, that repairs came up to that figure. An' that was ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Madame Scarron found the tune of good society with wit, she looked upon herself as in her proper sphere, as long as no open scandal was brought to her notice. She consented still to remain her friend; but the fear of passing for an approver or an accomplice prevented her from remaining if there were any publicity. It ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... guarantee my guest's brains," said the Britt in the door, "but I do vouch for the correctness of his memory when it comes to the matter of Gospel quotations. And a cracked record doesn't always spoil a good tune." ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... seem to be quite right." Taking a hymn book, she asked, "What had we better sing, Mrs. B., have you any choice?" No choice being signified, the leaves were turned over and over, and "Plunged in a gulf of dark despair" selected and read. "Will some one start the tune? Mrs. C. will you?" Mrs. C. looked around, waited a minute, and then asked, "Is it common or long meter?" Another pause. The little timid woman began a familiar tune, and had the privilege of singing the first two lines ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... supplying the canes, to sing, and they began at first with some of their own wild African airs, with words adopted at the moment to suit the occasion. She then told them to sing their hymns to the Virgin; when, regularly in tune and time, and with some sweet voices, the evening and other hymns were sung; and we accompanied Dona Mariana into the house, where we found that while we had been occupied in looking at the machinery, the boilers, and the distillery, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... sure, that, in the nature of things, many minds must change their key now and then, on penalty of getting out of tune or losing their voices. You know, I suppose,—he said,—what is meant by complementary colors? You know the effect, too, which the prolonged impression of any one color has on the retina. If you close your eyes after ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... wedding-bells, Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... wife. Something whispered that she would not refuse him, and with this hope to buoy him up, his two miles walk that warm afternoon was neither long nor tiresome, and the old lady, by whose bedside he had read and prayed, was surprised to hear him as he left her door whistling an old love-tune which she, too, had known and sung fifty ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the bandmaster, indignantly, breaking in on the tune with his baton. "I know my business! Now, then, men," he commanded, "'I'll Leave My Happy Home ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... played first the strings of sweetness, and of the noise of shouting, and then he sang his own grief and the grief of all the Fianna. And at that the Grey Man said it would not be long before he would put the whole of the Fianna to death; and then Daire played a tune of heavy shouts of lamentation. And then at Finn's bidding he played the music of sweet ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... was called on to sing, which he did of Norway with tremendous enthusiasm and noise but little melody. Then another man sang a love-ditty in a very gruff voice and much out of tune, which, nevertheless, to the man's evident satisfaction, was laughingly applauded. After him a sentimental youth sang, in a sweet tenor voice, an Icelandic air, and then Tyrker was called on to do his part, but flatly refused to sing. He ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... him. Through the darkness they could only vaguely see his silhouette, with the great bundle under his arm. Whatever may have been Rateau's fears of being shadowed awhile ago, he certainly seemed free of them now. He sauntered along, whistling a tune, down the Montagne Ste. Genevieve to the Place Maubert, and thence straight towards ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices, that I may be consul, I have ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... plain hinglish," said the clarionist; "but, I say, lug out t'other browns, or I shall say vot the flute said ven his master said as how he'd play a tune on him." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... tapers burning in silver candelabra, pictures, incense filling the air, mysterious chants, and people sinking on their knees at the sound of a bell. Here sat long rows of men and women apart, each with their book before them, and after the precentor had set the tune, all the congregation joined in unison. Then silence, and the minister mounted the high pulpit and began to preach without any ceremony. He did not sing, nor drink from the chalice, nor show any holy ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... thou wast with thy husband, thou wast watch'd Like a tame elephant:—still you are to thank me:— Thou hadst only kisses from him and high feeding; But what delight was that? 'Twas just like one That hath a little fing'ring on the lute, Yet cannot tune it:—still you are to ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... been able to analyse, and which the ingenious speculation of Mr. Herbert Spencer as to the origin of music leaves quite unexplained. For it is certain that the MELODIC effect of a series of sounds does not depend in the least on their loudness or softness, or on their ABSOLUTE pitch. A tune is always the same tune, whether it is sung loudly or softly, by a child or a man; whether it is played on a flute or on a trombone. The purely musical effect of any sound depends on its place in what is technically called a 'scale;' the same sound producing ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... papers—I forget what was in them. And they may be gone by this time. But, leaving that out, I've got a pretty sure thing up my sleeve. What happened in Germany put me on the track—but for that I wouldn't have suspected. I'll make somebody fork over to a stiff tune, and serve him d—— right. It's the first time I was ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Cobblers are always philosophers. Not pretty men, but thinkers. In their little, dingy shops they sit all day with their eyes down, isolated from the "hum and scum" about them, to the tune of their "tap, tap, tap," their minds are detached to ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... contracting, breaks into a whistle, horribly out of tune. He rather fancies his musical powers, and is proud of his intimate acquaintance with the fashionable chansons current in London to-day, or as he puts it, "Vat dey shings at de Carrelton Clob." Then he warbles a line of the happily long-forgotten ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various |
