"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... affair of some sixty feet long and twenty wide, were a succession of small fires. The villagers themselves, however, were the striking features in the picture. They were painted vermilion all over their nearly naked bodies, and were dancing enthusiastically to the good old rump-a-tump-tump-tump tune, played energetically by an old gentleman on a long, high-standing, white- and-black painted drum. They said that as they had been dancing when we arrived they had failed to hear us. M'bo secured a—well, I don't exactly know what to call it—for my use. It ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Phillips' burden, the stranger said, enviously: "Looks like you wouldn't have to make more than a trip or two. I wish I could pack like you do, but I'm stove up. At that, I'm better than my partner! He couldn't carry a tune." There was a pause. "He eats good, though; eats like a hired man and he snores so I can't sleep. I just lie awake nights and groan at the joints and listen to him grow old. He can't even ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... she said softly. "After all, Isobel is but a child. What cunning tune can she have played upon your heartstrings that you should espouse her cause with so much fervour? If she were a few years older ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... like listening, in the sad yellow evening, to the strains of a barrel organ, faint and sweet, and far away. A world of memories come jigging back—foolish fancies, dreams, desires, all beckoning and bobbing to the old tune: ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... impressive by its force. Thought was beaten down by the confounding uproar; a gleeful vacancy possessed the brains of men, a state akin to madness; and I found myself at times following the dance of the Merry Men as it were a tune upon ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps "Dundee's" wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive "Martyrs," worthy of the name; Or noble "Elgin" beets[37] the heavenward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame; The tickled ears no heart-felt ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... feeling somewhat light-headed but otherwise in perfectly magnificent fettle, Forrester found himself on the downtown subway. He'd showered and changed and he was whistling a gay little tune ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... care if you dew," again turning the new ticket in his hand; and, scratching his head more earnestly, he said, "I've one of the smartest boys you ever seed; he's a fust-rate ear for music; he can whistle any tune he hears right straight off. Then there's my wife's sister a-staying with us jist now; she's ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... was dragging her to the stone a robin began to sing on a branch outside the Stones. It was the same tune as Bloom-of-Youth had sung her song to as she went through the wood. Now all the words in her song came ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... but to the lover of the art they yield no greater pleasure than the rhymes of a poem. Often the grandest passages are most melodious, as in poems the greatest thought suggests the happiest expression. Tune and song occupy a distinct portion of the realm of music. They are attaches to the royal court. Perhaps the finest music is allied to verse, but if it be a true marriage, the music comprehends the whole. No artist would hear the words ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... nothing in the Fields, the Woods, and the Rivers, that appeared natural. Several of the Trees blossomed in Leaf-Gold, some of them produced Bone-Lace, and some of them precious Stones. The Fountains bubbled in an Opera Tune, and were filled with Stags, Wild-Boars, and Mermaids, that lived among the Waters; at the same time that Dolphins and several kinds of Fish played upon the Banks or took their Pastime in the Meadows. The Birds ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... hear old Hail Columbia, that good old national air, played on all our martial instruments! long may we hear, and never repudiate, the old tune of Yankee Doodle! Long may wave that gallant old flag which went through the Revolution, and which was borne by Tennessee and Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans, upon that soil the right to navigate the Mississippi ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... a real tune," she explained shyly, when she had reached the end. "I liked the words so much that I learnt them by heart, and they ran in my head until I found myself singing them to any sort of drone ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... digging between the cottage and the highroad, throwing stones at the birds now and then or singing out of tune: ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... a charming little dinner by themselves to the tune of the rain outside, and were having their coffee by the drawing-room fire; and Miss Sallie was thinking by what phrase one could do justice to the massive, crass ugliness of that self-satisfied apartment, furnished in the hideous sixties, when the word was sent in that ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... with his bosom friend Tomtit Dorkin, whose sole occupation in life up to that time had been to put screws on nuts; this must have been "nuts" to him, as the Yankees have it, because, being a diligent little fellow, he managed to screw himself through life at the Clatterby Works to the tune of twelve shillings a week. Joseph Tipps, having got leave of absence for an evening, was also there,—modest amiable, active and self-abnegating. So was Mrs Natly, who, in consideration of her delicate ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... have coffee and reading rooms already. Say that to such an institution, we add a music and conversation room; this, as a beginning. There, when the newspaper or book had ceased to charm, let a group assemble, and, according as there might be power present, enjoy itself with a tune, a song, a chorus, a recital, an elocutionary reading, a debate on some question, or a scene from a play. Presuming that the house is under the care of an honest, well-meaning person, there could be little fear ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... and one who played the flute and caused all the others to tear their hair. There was a boy fresh from the country, who declared that he had run away from home because the family sang hymns all day Sunday, and never sang in tune. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... well ahead in the narrow road; we could just hear faintly the harmony of the tune they were humming in concert, as one hears the murmur of an AEolian harp. As a guard, they were of course ridiculous: the veriest suspicion of peril would have sent them all galloping helter-skelter, with frantic shrieks of fright. But the road was perfectly ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... literature generally, illustrative of the Old and New Testaments. He has also compiled from Henry and Scott a Bible which has gone through many editions, and has commanded a sale of not fewer than 60,000 or 70,000 copies. First published in folio form, it had been sold within seven years to the tune of 36,000 copies, and thousands of working men were enabled from the cheapness with which it was issued, to possess themselves of this Bible who might otherwise never have had a Family Bible in their houses. The first edition was issued ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... Webster's talismanic name, commanded by his only surviving son, carrying a banner prepared by the fairest daughters of Massachusetts, carrying also the benediction of Edward Everett, and of "the solid men of Boston," and marching to the tune of Old John Brown! Did the weird prophet-orator who spoke of "carrying the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union" ever dream of ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... this being public spirited. But just wait until you get hungry or sleepy; you'll sing to another tune then." ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... of the "Confession": "Ego Patritius, peccator, rustissimus et minimus omnium fidelium, et contemptabilissimus apud plurimos, patrem habui Calphurnium diaconum, filium quondam Potiti, presbyteri, qui fuit vico Bonaven Taberniae, villulam enim prope habuit ubi ego in capturam dedi. Annorum tune eram fere XVI." ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... He heard the name of each with a slight inclination of his head, gazed on the coffins for some moments in silence, and then turned about, and, as if to shew that he was not to be moved by his recollections, he strode out of the chapel humming a tune. ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Well, I'll make you change that tune, sir, your very own self, and make you realize that your wife is a pious, honest woman, sir. I'll soon give you signs and proofs of that. First of all, she has given birth to ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... only worse," answered Jack. "Tune up to 1,375 meters for receiving and then comes that snarling, whining, shrieking sound. It's steady, too. If it were dot and dash stuff, I might be able to make something out of it. But somebody somewhere is sending a continuous wave, at ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... surprised that no one can be found to listen to them. Gideon McNeice's Unionism was of a much more vigorous and militant kind. He respected England and had no objection to singing "God save the King" very much out of tune, so long as England and her King were obviously and blatantly on the side of Protestantism. He was quite prepared to substitute some other form of government for our present Imperial system if either the King, his representative the Lord Lieutenant, or the ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... tune again, saying how she had kneaded him with her own hands of sugar and almonds, how she had made his hair of gold, and his eyes and mouth of pearls and precious stones, and how he was indebted to her for his life, which the gods had granted to her prayers, ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... it, when they became aware that the stream beneath them differed from all streams in their experience. It was not rippling like other streams; it was not murmuring; it was tinkling out a gay little operatic tune! ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... The tune changed now. Satan was driven away. The enemy whom Alice Benden had seen that day, and from whom she had suffered so sorely, she should see again no more for ever. From that hour all was ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 liberally, and recommended him to the protection ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to another tune, if I pleased," said Sir Philip; "but, damme, it would cost me too much—a wife's too expensive a thing, now-a-days. Why, a man could have twenty curricles, and a fine stud, and a pack of hounds, and as many mistresses as he chooses into the bargain, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... grew bolder, and forgot in singing that she was not at the bend in the old home-road, where she had practised once or twice since she had decided upon her career. Her voice rose clearly—shrilly—and sometimes she remembered the tune quite fairly. When she forgot it, she filled in what would have otherwise been a pause with a little bit out of any other tune that came into ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... one side, eyes gazing up at the ceiling, and an idiotic smile on his face, fiddling as if his life depended on it. If the dancers had been as tireless as Simon, they would never have stopped to rest, for he ran on from one tune to another without the slightest intermission; indeed, the only times he paused at all would come right in the middle of the piece, and the dancers would wait, stranded in the center of the floor, while he raised the mug of ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... the machine, Dona Mariana desired the women, who were 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, dinner had ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... went by. Things were livening up a bit. We began to hum a tune or two from the latest revue. Suddenly we were brought to our feet by a crashing sound that was absolutely indescribable in its intensity. I rushed up the incline into the trench. What a sight! The whole of our front for the distance of a mile was one frightful inferno of fire. The concentration ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... love-airs for the ladies, and solemn sounds for the aged. I never draw a crowd, but I know from their faces what airs will best please them; I never stop before a house, but I judge from its portico for what tune they will soonest toss me some silver. And I ever play sad airs to the merry, and merry airs to the sad; and most always the rich best fancy the sad, and ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... under the circumstances, encounter his eye without confusion. I have assisted besides, by the ear, at the act of butchery itself; the victim's cries of pain I think I could have borne, but the execution was mismanaged, and his expression of terror was contagious: that small heart moved to the same tune with ours. Upon such "dread foundations" the life of the European reposes, and yet the European is among the less cruel of races. The paraphernalia of murder, the preparatory brutalities of his existence, are all hid away; an extreme sensibility reigns upon the surface; and ladies ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... might give to their brethren a sample of their skill. Walking within a short interval, and eyeing each other with looks in which self-importance and defiance might be traced, they strutted, puffed, and plied their screaming instruments, each playing his own favourite tune with such a din, that if an Italian musician had lain buried within ten miles of them, he must have risen from the dead to run ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... hospital for the fortieth time the other day, with his mite, consisting of several papers of fine-cut chewing-tobacco, Solace for the wounded, as he called it. He came to one bed, where a poor fellow lay cheerfully humming a tune, and studying out faces on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... kept guard," said Philip. "I was there only as a burglar. I came to rob. But I was a coward, or else I had a conscience, or else I knew my own unworthiness." There was a long pause. As both of them, whenever they heard the tune afterward, always remembered, the Hungarian band, with rare inconsequence, was playing the "Grizzly Bear," and people were trying to speak to Helen. By her they were received with a look of so complete a ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... forms may be uncomely and our features not the prettiest, our spirits may be beautiful. And this inward beauty always shines through. A beautiful heart will flash out in the eye. A lovely soul will glow in the face. A sweet spirit will tune the voice, wreathe the countenance in charms. Oh, there is a power in interior beauty that melts the ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... on the rich-hued leaves sparkled with an unusual radiance. A thrush looked down at her from a bough and began its morning song. Anna smiled up at the little bird and began herself to sing a merry tune. ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... my tastes, and observe that I do not like those who sing to a tune of fibs. Thou must have relatives since you ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... man, somewhat advanced in years, had taken a seat behind the reading-desk, and opening the large Bible that lay upon it, selected a chapter, and now invited the attention of the audience to its contents. Upon its conclusion he gave out a hymn, the tune of which was announced by another person, who immediately on naming it pulled out a pitch-pipe from his pocket and making a slight sound, furnished the starting note. The singing proceeded principally from a certain part of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... revelling in "sweet sounds;" they are too fond of humming tunes, solfaing, and rehearsing graces in society; they have plenty to sing, but nothing to say for themselves; they chime the quarters like "our grandmother's clock," and at every revolution of the minute index, strike up their favourite tune. This is as bad as being half-smothered in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... puckered the lips of the Abbe Fontanon, a pale man, who directed the consciences of this household. Mademoiselle Bontems, by a slight nod, seemed to promise that she would never take an unfair advantage of this freedom. As to the old Count, he gently whistled the tune of an old song, Va-t-en-voir s'ils viennent ("Go and see if they are ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... got to get in tune with the sending station in order to understand the sounds you hear. When your vibration frequency is the same as that from which the message is sent, you can hear as clearly as though the voice or instrument were in the next room. Now here's a piece of a curtain pole that's about a foot and a half ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... he should fall down and tear his new rabbit-skin overcoat, while Tom, the Piper's son, played "Over the hills and far away" on his pipe, and all the little folks danced and skipped along to the gay tune. ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hubbub, noisy and senseless. The rosy, flaxen-haired, pleasing Tolpygin was playing LA SEGUIDILLE from CARMEN on the piano, while Roly-Poly was dancing a Kamarinsky peasant dance to its tune. His narrow shoulders hunched up, twisted all to one side, the fingers of his hanging hands widely spread, he intricately hopped on one spot from one long, thin leg to the other, then suddenly letting out a piercing ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... miners, armed for the most part with picks, which it appeared they were skilled in using in a variety of ways. These combined with the stationarii; for an hour red death swept through hall and court and chamber, to the tune of the yelling of the human wolf-pack loosed for blood. At the end of it the barbarians, harried before and behind, unable to rally, fell into panic and started to flee, laden with what spoil they could bear away. By dawn what was left of ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... outline, and I feel confident, that with your kind assistance, I may accomplish it. But, Barnstaple, the beginning is everything. If I only had the first chapter as a start, I think I could get on. It is the modus that I want—the style. A first chapter would be a keynote for the remainder of the tune, with all ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... confidence; but the flag was not presented by Mr. Adet till several months after the treaty had been ratified. Mr. Washington made this the occasion of saying some fine things to the French Minister; and the better to get himself into tune to do this, he began by saying the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... monotony of imprisonment brought to light many talents for camaraderie which amused not only the suffrage prisoners but the "regulars." Locked in separate cells, as in the District Jail, the suffragists could still communicate by song. The following lively doggerel to the tune of "Captain Kidd" was sung in chorus to the accompaniment of a hair comb. It became a saga. Each day a new verse was added, relating the day's particular controversy with the ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... it to our American tune of "Coronation," but to the old English "Miles Lane." That tune, you remember, repeats over four times the words, "Crown Him," in the last line, gradually increasing in volume, and the fourth time touched with ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one's friends at any moment, for any reason or ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... King's highway, and I find a harper, and I say: "What is your name?" The harper makes no response, but leaves me to guess, as, with his eyes toward heaven and his hand upon the trembling strings this tune comes rippling on the air: "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" I go a little further on the same road and meet a trumpeter of ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... from a City in Germany, whereof the Duke of Saxony beareth the Title of Lord at this Day. And this Town, which the Britains perhaps call'd Hesk of Reed, which doth abound much in this Place; the Sazons call'd Heckstanes-Tune, that is the Town of Reed and Stones, if not rather Hockstanes-Tune, that is, the Town of Mire and Stones, for old Englishmen, call deep Mire, Hocks: Or may be from Grates set in Rivers or Waters before Floodgates, which are call'd Hecks; neither is it unlikely but that the Danes made some ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... classical concert to you would make you feel like being asked to begin the day's work all over again without a night's rest in between. As for Wagner, that would be worse than straightening out an intricate account after a day spent in poring over a ledger. No. Music without any tune to it may be all right for some people, but comic opera is "good enough" for you. You like that coon song you heard the other night. How you would enjoy playing it on the pianoforte if you only knew how! But you don't, so you have ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... offers—if you're fool enough to take it; but if you'll stick to me, we can wring him to the tune of ten ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... after dinner, and Maude sat alone at work in the banquet-hall. She was almost unconsciously humming to herself the air of a troubadour chanson—an air as well-known to ourselves as to her, though we have turned it into a hymn tune, and have christened it Innocents, or Durham. A fresh stave was just begun, when the hall door opened, and a voice at the ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... like that of the cats which make Trajan's Forum their favorite resort. All that I can positively say is that if I were a bird I would ask nothing better than to frequent the cypresses of that garden and tune my numbers for the entertainment of the audience of extraordinary monsters in the aisles below, which bea'in plinths of clipped privet and end marble heads of horses, bulls, elephants, rhinoceroses, and their like. I do not pretend to be exact in their nomination; they may ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... he was exciting, presently struck across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all day long been ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... of us had a good shillelah in our hands, we would be after making them sing a different tune," exclaimed Desmond, turning round every now and then, and casting a contemptuous look on the mob. Higson and Archy Gordon walked on, however, in an unconcerned manner, thinking it more dignified to take no notice of the ill-feeling ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... so long, went wandering up the brook, peeping into the hollow willow trees, wishing he could dive like the rats, and singing to the brook, who sang to him again, and taught him a very old tune. By-and-by he came to the hatch, where the brook fell over with a splash, and a constant bubbling, and churning, and gurgling. A kingfisher, who had been perched on the rail of the hatch, flew off when he ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... date Burns wrote to another friend: "Is not the Scottish phrase, auld lang syne, exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune that has often thrilled through my soul. Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... upon holiness of living and consecration to God; he is followed by the eldress; and thereupon the ranks are broken, and a dozen of the brethren and sisters, forming a separate square on the floor, begin a lively hymn tune, in which all the rest join, marching around the room to a quick step, the women following the men, and all often ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... formed themselves upon the girl's lips before the message of the tune reached her brain and brought her, breathless, to her ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... or they visited us, or we read what books, papers, and magazines we could get hold of. John and I also amused ourselves by writing down all the songs that were sung around camp, to which I added a composition of my own to the tune of Farewell to the Star Spangled Banner, an abandoned rebel one. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... did not heed the picturesque effect of all this, yet the sweet influences of nature reached her, and softened while they increased her sorrow. She felt her own heart sadly out of tune with the peace and loveliness of all she saw. Her eye sought those distant hills how very far off they were! and yet all that wide tract of country was but a little piece of what lay between her and her mother. Her eye sought those hills but her mind overpassed them, and went far ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... what the Allies are, it did not need a lord of language to dilate upon "the thirty-two teeth of Wilson's undecipherable smile," to say that the French "drunk with victory, again fly all their plumes in the wind, tune up all their fanfares, quicken their pace in order to pass the most resolute and speedy—and we step aside to let them pass." No laurel will be added to his fame for having spoken of "the people of the five meals" [the English] which, "its bloody work ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... as a seer of visions, Nor yet as a dreamer of dreams, I send you these partial decisions On hackney'd, impoverish'd themes; But with song out of tune, sung to pass time, Flung heedless to friends or to foes, Where the false notes that ring for the last time, May blend with some ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... in a sea-way. And, be it noted, they would not be so extravagantly far ahead of the Ariadne even in point of speed, say, between the Cape and Australia, when, in running her easting down with a living gale on her quarter, she spurned the foam from her streaming sides to the tune of a steady fourteen to fifteen knots in an hour; 'snoring along,' as seamen say, with all her cordage taut as harp-strings, and her clouds of canvas soaring heavenward tier on tier, strained to the extreme ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... I could I nould believe your tales and fables stale and trite, Irksome as twice-sung tune that tires the dulld ear of ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... the joke, and drew me to them, while their chains clanked, and pressed to my face their wild and prickly beards. There was one of them, named Drummond, who swore he would cut my heart out, and they executed a sort of death-tune on the floor with their balls and links. I lost all knowledge and perception in my fright, and cannot, at this interval, remember anything succeeding, but the execution. They were put to death upon a single long scaffold, the counterpart of that erected ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... would have been much more successful if he had executed what he had designed, because painters express the conceptions of their own minds better than those of others. On the other hand, it is only right that he who pays the piper should call the tune. The design for the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is in the hands of Bartolommeo Gondi, who, in addition to a large picture that he has by the hand of Sogliani, also possesses many drawings and heads painted from life on ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... and tied down on the hatch, close to the wheel. But the man must have been a philosopher, for his bonds distressed him not at all. For several hours he lifted up his voice in continuous song. His repertoire was extensive and varied. To this day I can clearly recall the words as well as the tune of two of his ditties. One related to the history of a pair of corduroy breeches, year by year, since the close of the last decade, each year being treated of in a couplet. The ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... way, Isaiah Savvich. You throw the fiddle away for one little minute. Listen a little to me. Here is the tune." ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... didn't sleep that night; she was up before daylight, had the kettle on and some chops ready to fry, and at daybreak she was down by the sliprails again. She was turning away for the second time when she heard a clear whistle round the Spur—then the tune of "Willie Riley," and the hobble-chains and camp-ware on the packhorse ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... She pulls on one hastily and begins buttoning it with ostentatious unconcern]. Go further away from me, quick. [He walks doggedly away from her until the piano prevents his going farther]. If I button my glove, and you were to hum a tune, ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... course. A strange minister preached that day, and Nettie could not understand him always; but the words of the hymn and Mr. Folke's words ran in her head then, and she was very happy all church time. And as she was walking home, still the tune and the words ran ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... hurry of hoisting, the Siamese elephant got turned upside down, and now danced gayly on his head, with the stars and stripes waving proudly over him. A green flag with a yellow harp and sprig of shamrock hung in sight of the kitchen window, and Katy, the cook, got breakfast to the tune of "St. Patrick's day in the morning." Sancho's kennel was half hidden under a rustling paper imitation of the gorgeous Spanish banner, and the scarlet sun-and-moon flag of Arabia snapped and flaunted from the pole over the coach-house, as a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... his death was the last thing placed upon the pyre. Then came the match, and the flames made ashes of all those things which once he called his own. Standing apart, Tekewani and his braves watched the ceremonial of fire with a sympathy born of primitive custom. It was all in tune with the traditions ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... needed rousing, was himself never still for a moment until the dance was over. He was very fond of a country dance which he learned at the house of some dear friends at Rockingham Castle, which began with quite a stately minuet to the tune of "God save the Queen," and then dashed suddenly into "Down the Middle and up Again." His enthusiasm in this dance, I remember, was so great that, one evening after some of our Tavistock House theatricals, ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... necktie with a disgracefully consequential air, though he was trying very hard not to look conceited; and while he was endeavouring to appear easy and gracefully careless, he began accidentally to hum, "See the Conquering Hero Comes," which was not the right tune under the circumstances. ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of Catharine Maxwell might be heard mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big wheel, as she passed to and fro guiding the thread of yarn in its course: and now she sang snatches of old mountain songs, such as she had learned from her father; and now, with livelier air, hummed some gay French tune to the household melody of her spinning wheel, as she advanced and retreated with her thread, unconscious of the laughing black eye that was watching her movements from among the embowering foliage that shielded her from ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... toward a part of the diminutive house where a mild rattle of domestic movements could be heard, and whence he had, a little before, been adroitly requested to absent himself. He moved restlessly on his feet, blowing a soft tune. ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... make you understand—two things which help to make music—melody and harmony. Now, as most of you know, there is melody in music when the different sounds of the same tune follow each other, so as to give us pleasure; there is harmony in music when different sounds, instead of following each other, come at the same time, so as to give ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... shall tell of the stars and moon, And their lips shall move to a glad sweet tune, Till upon your cool, white bed Fall at last your nodding head; Then in dreamland fair and blest, Farther off than East and West, They give ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... use her own words, "was made by so delicate, so cunning a hand, that it needs less than a breath to put it out of tune; and an invisible touch, known only to its own consciousness, may set all its silvery bells to ringing out a joyous chime. Happy he, thrice blessed she, who is striving to hush its discords and to awaken its harmonies by never so imperceptible a motion!" Surely, the triple benediction ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... had long wondered why darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak the omission ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Captain Barfoot is in Scarborough: Seabrook is dead. Tears made all the dahlias in her garden undulate in red waves and flashed the glass house in her eyes, and spangled the kitchen with bright knives, and made Mrs. Jarvis, the rector's wife, think at church, while the hymn-tune played and Mrs. Flanders bent low over her little boys' heads, that marriage is a fortress and widows stray solitary in the open fields, picking up stones, gleaning a few golden straws, lonely, unprotected, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... before her death, she requested me to sing "The Christian's Home in Glory," or "Rest for the Weary"—a hymn, with its tune, dear to her for itself and for its associations. As I repeated the chorus, she exclaimed, again and again, with great tenderness and emphasis, "Rest, rest, rest! Oh, brother Lockwood, there I shall rest, rest, rest! This weary head shall rest on my ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... there suddenly arose a voice, singing. Others picked up the tune, one of the army songs. Just as Kirby had sung to them on the big retreat, so this unknown voice was singing them on to whatever was awaiting at Plantersville. The end was waiting and they would have to face it, just as they had faced carbine, saber, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... 7th when the House refused to grant to the government a short delay of twenty-four hours for the purpose of considering a question of privilege which had been raised by the Opposition. On this occasion, Dr. Rolph, who had been quite restless in the government for some tune, voted against his colleagues and gave conclusive evidence that Hincks was deserted by the majority of the Reform party in his own province, and could no longer bring that support to the French Canadian ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony is yet to be proved. Misery is often ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... concluded between the different colonies; Virginia marched in tune with Massachusetts; the pride of a new power, young and already victorious, animated the troops which marched to the conquest of Canada. "If we manage to remove from Canada these turbulent Gauls," exclaimed John Adams, "our territory, in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... reins; and that which, to justify the prerogative of the will, St. Augustine urges, of having seen a man who could command his rear to discharge as often together as he pleased, Vives, his commentator, yet further fortifies with another example in his time,—of one that could break wind in tune; but these cases do not suppose any more pure obedience in that part; for is anything commonly more tumultuary or indiscreet? To which let me add, that I myself knew one so rude and ungoverned, as for forty years ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... cool and dark, and sometimes when the garden is hot and sunny, I go to the parlor, and try to amuse myself, but oh, I wish I had someone to play with. When I try to pick out a tune on the piano, the notes sound so loud, I turn around to see if Aunt Rose is provokt, but she never folows me. There's a portrate of a funny old man that hangs at the end of the parlor, and I always think he's watching me. When ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... at times, endeavour to subdue his haughtiness by a tune on this wonderful machine. "You know I have no ear," William would sternly say, in recompense for one of Henry's best solos. Yet was William enraged at Henry's answer, when, after taking him to hear him preach, he asked him, "how he liked his sermon," ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... old clergyman has read two verses of the psalm, the country chorister turns around to his little group of aids—consisting of the blacksmith, a carroty-headed schoolmaster, two women in snuff-colored silks, and a girl in pink bonnet—to announce the tune. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... danced she sang. He heard her voice as before, fluttering like a bird's in the full sweetness of her utter music. It was no tune nor melody, it was just formless, boundless music. The boy forgot himself and all the world besides. All his darkness was sudden light; dazzled he crept forward, bewildered, fascinated, until with one last wild whirl the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... forth. About all I did for that was to convince the policeman that I was not a stable character. His attitude seemed to indicate that any man travelling with a nurse must either be physically sick or maybe mentally out of tune. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Truxy," as Leicester called him, continued to earn golden opinions, and followed up his conversion of Hohenlo by undertaking to "bring Maurice into tune again also," and the young Prince was soon on better terms with his "affectionate father" than he had ever been before. Paul Buys was not so easily put down, however, nor the two magnates so thoroughly gained over. Before the end of the season Maurice ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... an excellent performer, and his book, 'The Violin: Solo Playing, Soloists and Solos,' is the result of considerable practice in the art he discusses.... The opening advice to violin students, the insistence on tune first and then on tone, the latter depending greatly for its excellence upon the correctness of the former, is not only worth saying, but is said well, and with conviction. Mr. Henley discriminates well between violinists: Joachim, the classic; Carrodus, the plain; Sarasate, the neat ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... hope to please your ear, Accustomed Constant's strains to hear. The harp full deftly can he strike, And wake the lover's lute alike; To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush, No nightingale her lovelorn tune More sweetly warbles to the moon. Woe to the cause, whate'er it be, Detains from us his melody, Lavished on rocks, and billows stern, Or duller monks of Lindisfarne. Now must I venture, as I may To sing ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... looser on de knee— On de shoulder, ev'ryw'ere—ba tonder! I don't care, I 'le spen' a couple o' dollar, mebbe t'ree— Jus' to larn dem feller dere how to skip an' how to jomp, On de way I beat deir fader long ago— Yass siree! an' purty soon dey 'll sing anoder tune, An' wonder w'at de devil 's dere to show De ole man's ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... have heard together The North Sea sing his tune, And felt the wind's wild feather Brush past our cheeks at noon, And seen the cloudy weather Made wondrous with ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... plain 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
... a boy in camp who is out of tune with the camp life or its standards, and whose presence only serves to militate against the real purpose of the camp. "Grouchitis" is a ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... Twopenny Toff of 'Ighgate 'Ill," and "Tommy Robinson's Last Cigar," and also play piano if required, with one finger, but prefers to be accompanied by indefatigable friend, who plays entirely by ear, and if allowed to smoke freely, can "pick up" any tune in a quarter of an hour. Seldom breaks down or forgets words, except before large or unsympathetic audience. Fetching comic "biz," and superlative Music-hall "chic." Would have no objection to black face and appear at evening parties, or in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... remarkably dissimilar; and perhaps I may be allowed to preface the narrative of their adventures by a delineation; as in country churches an individual pipes the keynote, and the tune comes raging after. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the ladies have so much less leisure, it is still less desirable. Add to this, they never know how to tune their own instruments, and as persons seldom visit them who can do so, these pianos are constantly out of tune, and would spoil the ear of one who began by ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... this power so great, so universal? Who can explain the psychology of this fact? Every spring and fall of the year Dame Fashion has an opening-ball—Paris plays the tune, New York wields the baton, the ladies of the world . . . keep time . . . and the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... the fair green; there will be music in it; there was a fiddler having no legs would set men of threescore years and of fourscore years dancing. I can nearly hear his tune. ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... ease to hear the merry tune Of mating warblers in the boughs above And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon That like the voice of visionary love Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze (Even as ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... to remember what a new interest that silent watcher of us gave to our gambols. It was with one eye on the pale young man at the window that I marched to the tune of Old Bob Ridley on the field of Waterloo; and Willy became so painfully realistic in giving me my quietus, when I lay dying and at his mercy after the battle, that I had to turn on my face and cry secretly, he ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... as a piccolo the air of a recently published waltz. After a few bars he sprang to his feet and—still whistling—quickly shoved the table and chairs to the wall, clearing the middle of the floor. The tune stopped long enough for him ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... bantam," cried Wainwright angrily. "Thou wilt sing another tune when Sir Francis Walsingham hath thee. And mark me, sirrah! The track will be regained, and the game brought to cover ere thou dost reach the Tower. Then upon Tower Hill thou canst ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... dinner is served, a reel, a strathspey, and a march while the meal is going on, and, last of all, the 'Highland Wedding.' Ronald does not know whether there are any Lowland Scots or English words to this pipe tune, but it is always played in the Highlands after the actual marriage, and the words in Gaelic are, 'Alas for me if the wife I have married is not a good one, for she will eat the food and ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... doing a lot of work on that, and 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 ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... 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 small part of ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns: Here can I sit alone unseen of any, And to the nightingale's complaining notes Tune my distresses and ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the philosopher playing with his own thoughts; but soon the Hamlet-melancholy comes to tune the meditation to sadness, and Shakespeare ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... manner of inclination to rowt out my name to the country-side," said Alan; "but what brings me here is another story, being more of your affair than mine; and if ye're sure it's what ye would like, I'll set it to a tune and ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they were humming them, or repeating them over in their hearts. The bells did not ring the melody alone. The message was well known and came to every heart. Mark and Billy knew them too. Perhaps by telepathy the tune would travel to their minds and bring their ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... consented to entertain their hosts. It was then that Casey was once more blinded by the brilliance of the lady and forgot certain little blemishes that had seemed to him quite pronounced. The cowboys obligingly built a bonfire before the tent, into which the couple retired to set their stage and tune their instruments. Casey lay back on a cowboy's rolled bed with his knees crossed, his hands clasped behind his thinning hair, and smoked and watched the first pale stars come out while he listened to the pleasant twang of banjos in ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... revoir, friend, adieu till noon; Just now you are rather out of tune, Your visage is too sharp; Your ear perhaps a trifle flat: When I return, 'All round my hat' We'll have upon ...
— The True Legend of St. Dunstan and the Devil • Edward G. Flight
... Sam,' was his only reply. Now I've learned lots of the ways of the world since then. I've seen people pleasant to each other, and behind their backs the tune changed. But I want to say to you fellows that those two old boys were not throwing off on each other—not a little bit. They meant every word and meant it deep. It was months afterwards, and father ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... thereby making short work with it, would have let it render any further acquaintance with Miss Theale impossible. He had talked with Kate of this young woman's being "sacrificed," and that would have been one way, so far as he was concerned, to sacrifice her. Such, however, had not been the tune to which his at first bewildered view had, since the night before, cleared itself up. It wasn't so much that he failed of being the kind of man who "chucked," for he knew himself as the kind of man wise enough to mark the case in which chucking might be the minor evil and the least ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... negro hut-removals already mentioned. Here, at least, we have a very ancient custom, which would be familiar to British seamen visiting West Indian seaports. The object moved was a shanty; the music accompanying the operation was called, by the negroes, a shanty tune; its musical form (solo and chorus) was identical with the sailor shanty; the pulls on the rope followed the same method which obtained at sea; the soloist was called a shantyman; like the shantyman at sea he did ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... Kelmar was. But the Jew store-keepers of California, profiting at once by the needs and habits of the people, have made themselves in too many cases the tyrants of the rural population. Credit is offered, is pressed on the new customer, and when once he is beyond his depth, the tune changes, and he is from thenceforth a white slave. I believe, even from the little I saw, that Kelmar, if he choose to put on the screw, could send half the settlers packing in a radius of seven or eight miles round Calistoga. These are ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... played their Christmas tune To-night beneath my cottage eaves; While smitten by a lofty moon, The encircling laurels thick with leaves, Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen, That ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... glimmering red, With which my closed fingers thou hadst made Like rainy clouds that curtain the sun's bed! And how I loved thee always in the moon! But most about the harvest-time, When corn and moonlight made a mellow tune, And thou wast grave and tender as a cooing dove! And then the stars that flashed cold, deathless love! And the ghost-stars that shimmered in the tide! And more mysterious earthly stars, That shone from windows of the hill and glen— Thee prisoned in with lattice-bars, Mingling with household love ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... of music, touching all The keys of thrifty life,—the mill-stream's fall, The engine's pant along its quivering rails, The anvil's ring, the measured beat of flails, The sweep of scythes, the reaper's whistled tune, Answering the summons of the bells of noon, The woodman's hail along the river shores, The steamboat's signal, and the dip of oars Slowly the curtain rose from off a land Fair as God's garden. Broad on either hand The golden ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a lull, Miss Welch caught her own tune and started bravely on her song, only to be again drowned out. She did not give up. She sang in spite of all opposition, for the most part out of the tune. Then with the airs and manner of one who had succeeded beyond all expectations, ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... bitterness to remember that St. Clare loved that face. For no one now loved her face except perhaps Chad, and they wanted her to give him up. It was the knowledge that the time of her youth was at an end that forced Mrs. Lahens to say that Lilian sang out of tune, and to revive an ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... Oig, or young Rob Roy, as the Lowlanders called him, was celebrated in a ballad, of which there are twenty different and various editions. The tune is lively and wild, and we select ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... miles they sailed among wooded islands and rocky ledges, and then entered the canal which connects the Baltic Sea with Lake Roxen. On the way the boat stopped at two or three ports, and each tune the children went ashore to ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... happy, there is a chest for you to sit on and another on which your supper shall be placed. As to your bed and bedding we will see about that by-and-by, and the violin you ask for shall be brought forthwith. Perhaps in return you will favour me with a tune, as I am a lover of music, and shall be pleased to hear ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... other sort of labour; and that of the noblest and most useful, produces nothing which could afterwards purchase or procure an equal quantity of labour. Like the declamation of the actor, the harangue of the orator, or the tune of the musician, the work of all of them perishes in the very instant ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... angry flush had faded now, Leaving her bosom, cheek, and brow Whiter than sea-foam 'neath the moon; Her low voice as sad wind-harp's tune. ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey |
