"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the door, and on to the terrace. And as I wheeled my bicycle away from the porch, he took a step or two alongside me, his hands in his pockets, his lips humming a careless tune. And suddenly he ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... thrown up, the garrison in their steel caps and breastplates lining the bars, and perhaps the King himself tilting in the melee, while all the ladies were throned in their galleries like banks of flowers, what a magnificent spectacle! The half-empty streets below still humming with groups of gazers not able to squeeze among the throngs about the bars, but waiting the return of the splendid procession: and more and more banners and tapestries and guards of honour shining through the wide open gates of the port all the way down to Holyrood. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the humming-bird Tried with light bill, that scarce a petal stirred, The Old World flowers to virgin ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... he and Rowdy went humming down to the stables, gossiping like a couple of old women ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... the water below up and into the mill pond above. He never would have been able to discover just what the shadows were if one of them had not paused a moment while halfway to the top of the falling water. It poised itself for one brief instant, as a humming-bird poises over a flower, but during that fraction of time the little boy was able to see that what he thought was a shadow was really a fish going from the water below to the mill pond above. The child could hardly believe his eyes, and for a little while it seemed that the whole world ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... thy workes; the rouzing preface of all these Letters. Casars eye made his souldiers prodigall of their blood. The Atheist thinks God takes as much notice of him and his prayers, as hee doth of the humming of Flyes and Bees; and therefore, no marvell if his service bee formall and fashionable. The faithfull Christian by faiths prospective sees him at home, and heares him saying, Well done thou good servant; which maketh him to worke out his heart. Behold him as the ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... The lake was flooded with light, and the big trees of the forest crowning the hill were silver coroneted. The unfolding leaves had hidden the new cabin from the bridge, but the driveway shone white, and already the upspringing bushes hedged it in. Insects were humming lazily in the perfumed night air, and across the lake a courting whip-poor-will was explaining to his sweetheart just how much and why he loved her. A few bats were wavering in air hunting insects, and occasionally ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... loudly humming a music-hall song as she went, the requiem of her dead life with the old woman who held the Bible on her knees. When she returned, her mouth was hard and her eyes were shining ominously. Julian was still standing by the mantelpiece. As she came in he pointed ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... they reached the somewhat sheltering woods, there sounded from the air above them several explosions, and with them was an undercurrent of humming and droning as if from ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... they got the word, but there was no time to cipher on philological matters, because the whole knight-errantry hive was just humming now, and my prospect for trade couldn't have been better. The moment my lasso was released and Sir Sagramor had been assisted to his tent, I hauled in the slack, took my station and began to swing my loop around my head again. I was sure to have use for it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he was not himself. All afternoon in a mood of tropic sunrise he collected rents, or with glad vagueness consented instantly to their postponement. "I've come about the rent again," he said beamingly to one delinquent tenant of his father's best client; and turned and walked away, humming a waltz-song, while the man was still coughing as a ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... crowns, and at their departure would find fresh arrivals who would make good arrangements with her, and by this means she would be able to take back money and presents to her people. The girl cleaned the room and prepared the meals so well, singing and humming, that this day the soldiers found in their den the look of a monk's refectory. Then all being well content, each of them gave a sol to their handmaiden. Well satisfied, they put her into the bed of their commandant, who was in town with his lady, and they petted and ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... reckoned the space of time. The sun's level rays glimmered ruddy through the woods. A green fly appeared, buzzing about the dead man. Another zig-zagged through the sunshine, lacing it with streaks of greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not search the dead and take from it that for ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... Certain Humming-birds also, according to Gould, decorate their dwellings with great taste. "They instinctively fasten thereon," he stated, "beautiful pieces of flat lichen, the larger pieces in the middle, and the smaller on the ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... women are working today than were working 2 years ago. The average factory work week is once again more than 40 hours; our industries are turning out more goods than ever before; and more than half of the manufacturing capacity that lay silent and wasted 100 weeks ago is humming with activity. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... Sir, I heard a humming, (And that a strange one too) which did awake me: I shak'd you Sir, and cride: as mine eyes opend, I saw their weapons drawne: there was a noyse, That's verily: 'tis best we stand vpon our guard; Or that we quit this place: let's ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... an amorous Danae, or by whatever name a fair one visited by the gods might be called, if indeed it were not a shepherdess or huntress to whom they descended. And as elements of this kind, from "Ovid's Metamorphoses," or the "Pantheon Mythicum" of Pomey, were humming in swarms about my head, I had soon put together in my imagination a little piece of the kind, of which I can only say that the scene was rural, and that there was no lack in it of king's daughters, princes, or gods. Mercury, especially, made so vivid an impression ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... of a thin tendril instead of gut. Half a coco shell is fixed in the middle of the bow, which, when playing, is placed against the abdomen, and serves as a sounding board; and the string when struck with a short wand, gave out a pleasing humming sound, realizing the idea of the harp and plectrum in their simplest forms. Others accompanied the musician on Jews' harps of bamboos, as accurate as those of the Mintras on the Malay Peninsula; and there was one who played on a guitar, which he ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... the red sham to her skirt, Sissy was able to chaperon her senior all the more effectively at Crosby Pemberton's party. Irene danced like a thing whose vocation is motion. She was a twig in a rain-storm, a butterfly seeking sweets, a humming-bird whose wing beat the air with a very rhapsody of rhythm. She was on the floor with the first note Professor Trask struck, and she danced down the side of the little hall, when the waltz was over ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... the coming of his friend in the latter's study, and when Borgert entered, serene of brow and humming an operatic ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... and in both cases the people felt it. Away and alone, in the heart of Africa, when mourning "the pride and avarice that make man a wolf to man," Livingstone would welcome the "good time coming," humming the ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... we went to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. She hoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to himself: ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... night I was in Zinkand's," he said. "The music playing, glasses clinking, voices humming, women laughing, and I was ordering eggs—yes, sir, eggs, fried and boiled and poached and scrambled, and in all sorts of ways, and downing them as ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... at another tub of flowers where a humming-bird moth was gathering honey and jabbed his stick sharply at it, taking care that the stick did not reach ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... westerly arch which celebrates Waterloo, there to sniff and immerse myself in the town. The hour is 8:15 post meridien and the time is early summer. I have just rolled down Wellington Street from the Strand, smoking a ninepence Vuelta Abajo, humming an ancient air. One of Simpson's incomparable English dinners—salmon with lobster sauce, a cut from the joint, two vegetables, a cress salad, a slice of old Stilton and a mug of bitter—has lost itself, amazed and enchanted, ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air; ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine day in the early spring. He had his lap full of flowers, which the fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to himself as ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... the sullen thud and swish of racing seas along the vessel's skin, kept the storm ever in mind: the dizzy plunge of the bows into great gray seas, with its accompanying rise of the stern and the hollow jar and thump of the rudder-post in its port, kept the interior humming with sound ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... with a rich pearly shell prepared for the purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured by a gold or silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and blue claws in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used as natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of humming birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be imagined. One, of a rare species, was once sold in Europe for $5,000. Single birds are often worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the skin of the great auk would bring $8,000 or $10,000. Some of the most beautiful pheasants ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... upon discovery bent, upon adventure. Reconnoitering, as from some deep ambush in the shrubberies where the blackbirds hid and whistled, it flew down against the house, stared in at the nursery windows, fluttered up and down the glass with a marvellous, sweet humming—and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... door a humming voice floated out to her, and going inside, she found the girl, in a new frock, practising a dance step before the mirror. "This is the lame duck, mother, but it's different from the one we danced ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... slab of wood round his head, hitting it on the ground once or twice to make it spin. The thing gave out a droning sound. The crowd of yelling fiends around the corpse became suddenly quiet. The droning increased to a loud humming. Every eye ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... let his eyes wander to a far corner of the room. Humming a careless little tune, he sauntered across to the open liquor shelves, selected a garish green bottle and turned unhurriedly back toward the door. The group ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... too true. The Griffin's cup of sorrow and mortification was full. Four great indignant tears trembled upon his cheeks ready to fall. He had been compelled that day to stand and listen to people humming his, the Griffin's, own, pet song as they left the Court, and the Griffin had not been able to ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... summer afternoon, Paris sat in the shade of a tree at the foot of Mount Ida, while his flocks were pasturing upon the hillside before him. The bees were humming lazily among the flowers; the cicadas were chirping among the leaves above his head; and now and then a bird twittered softly among the bushes behind him. All else was still, as if enjoying to the full the delicious calm of ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... hopeless that the great jolly face of Mrs. Council stiffened into a look of horror such as she had not worn for years. The children, in two separate groups, could be heard rioting. Bees were humming around the clover in the grass, and the kingbird chattered ceaselessly from the Lombardy poplar-tip. Both women felt all this peace and beauty of the morning, dimly, and it disturbed Mrs. Council because the other ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... blotches on grass nibbled short by flocks of sheep, were fresh and green in the sunlight. Wild flowers spangled them with gold and silver. No horrors lurked in the woods, where birds sang shrill choruses to the humming undertone of nature's organists. Little French towns stood white on the hillsides and in villages of whitewashed houses under thatch roofs, with deep, low barns filled with the first fruits of the harvest, peasant girls laughed ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... leaves and the veining of each leaf—saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... a glimpse of Kitty curled up on the mat outside the door, with the skipping-rope still in her hand. She had evidently been listening to the singing, for she crept away, but in the distance I could hear her humming 'Ye banks and braes' in a sweet childish treble that was very harmonious ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the strange inebriate stood swaying over the prostrate girl, making a grave, drunken effort to grasp the situation, then the Italian proprietress came into the room humming a cheerful strain, and carrying a burden of fried sausages. She beheld the horror, uttered a piercing scream, and dashed up the narrow stairs. Nickie went up the stairs after her, anxious to explain. The horrified people pressing at the front door and the windows saw him pass out ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... little John bringing up the rear. But though often disturbed in the enjoyment of those delightful recitations, they nevertheless sunk deep into John Clare's mind, until he found himself repeating all day long the songs he had heard, and even in his dreams kept humming— ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... garden of the house in which he was born there was always a huge straggling patch of mignonette. His mother used to sit there on summer mornings and read to him, and when he lay on his back in the sunshine he used to watch the butterflies and humming-birds and trees, and sniff the fragrance that filled the air. When his mother died, he wandered into the garden, sought the familiar corner, and flung himself on the bed of mignonette to cry his ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... earth swarms with a billion other similar creatures with the same needs, the same destiny; for, after all, the difference between a Zulu and a Greek is not much greater than that between a purple-green humming-bird and a canary; and to think that this wave of man appearing to-day on the staid old earth, like the swarms of innumerable insects of June, is but one of a million other waves of a million other years. To consider, furthermore, that all those who have ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... military and proud. Then came the porters in single file, the one carrying the folded lion skin leading the way; those bearing the waterbuck trophy and meat bringing up the rear. They kept up an undertone of humming in a minor key; occasionally breaking into a short musical ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... sympathy is quickly influenced by the example of those around them. Mrs. Howard led the traveller to speak of what he had seen in different countries—of natural history—of the beaver, and the moose-deer, and the humming-bird, that is scarcely larger than a bumble bee; and the mocking-bird, that can imitate the notes of all other birds. Charles niched himself into a corner of the sofa upon which the gentlemen were sitting, and grew very attentive. He was rather surprised to perceive that ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the treasures of the estate, anxious to ascertain whether the night had stolen the statues and urns, uprooted the centenary trees, dried up the sparkling fountains that plashed noisily in their bowls. Then the bright southern sun, humming and vibrating, outlined upon the gravel of a path, or against the white supporting wall of a terrace, that tall old woman's figure, slender and straight as her distaff, picking up pieces of dead wood, breaking off a branch from ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... 3d. At 5 A.M. we saw three hands who had left us the day before on board the Humming Bird privateer, who had been enticed by some of the owners to leave us by making of them drunk. About 10 we saw their canoe going ashore with our hands in her, also Joseph Ferrow, whom we had brought from Rhode Island, and since given him clothes, but who had entered on board that sloop as boatswain. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... funereal order, with gently springing, mincing, jogging action, some holding up twigs, others balancing open baskets of grain and tools on their heads, and with their bodies, arms, and heads in unison with the whole hobbling-bobling motion, kept in harmony to a low, mixed, droning, humming chorus. As the sultan's door was approached, he likewise rose, and, mingling in the crowd, performed ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... magna neglecta. Horned lark. Otocoris alpestris leucolaema. Yellow warbler. Dendroica aestiva. Western wood-pewee. Contopus richardsonii. Humming-bird. Trochilus colubris. Long-tailed chat. Icteria ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... from the roar of the crowd, Hand of the beggar, and purse of the proud, Gladly go back to the humming of bees, Carols of birds, and the whisper of trees, Gladly dispense with the voices of men, Thankful to ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... and doubling the size of the building; the fruit trees had been pruned and tended; an old grape arbour raised and trained into a quaint sort of pergola, a strange sight, then, in America; a beautiful old sun-dial drowsed in a tangle of nasturtiums. A delicate, dreamy humming led my eyes to a group of beehives (always dear to me because of the Miel du Chamounix and our happy, sweet-toothed boyhood!) and near a border of poppies, marigold and hardy mignonette a great hound lay, vigilant beside a large, shallow basket, shaded by a gnarled wistaria clump. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... been done?" Newman repeated the words, unconscious of their comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying; M. de Bellegarde's superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All that he understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was not a violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious. "Do you suppose I can take this?" he asked. "Do you suppose it can matter to me what you say? Do you ...
— The American • Henry James
... great leap the Eagle soared away from the camp amidst the humming of bullets from the rifles of the angry Uhlans, who fired rapidly but without proper aim. Accustomed as they were to shooting at targets on a level with themselves, they found it an entirely different proposition to properly aim their weapons when their quarry was at some ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... or two to see if Basil would come to her. Then, as he did not, she returned to the morning room where he had had his lesson. He was still there, standing by the window, but she was pleased to hear as she went in that he was humming to himself the air that Ulric had ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... geese, canary birds, and native birds in cages. Here also were archaeological relics, plants, beetles and birds for gathering. And here too, for the first time, I had the opportunity of examining his great collection of Ecuadorean humming-birds and a magnificent lot of Guatemalan quetzal skins, among them probably ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... the children were really distressed, with the exception of Friedrich, who had, as usual, given about half his attention to the subject in hand; and who now sat absently humming to himself the account of Bluebeard's position and character, as ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... painful to spend an hour with him, although his conversation was very profound and interesting. But it was like attempting to take up and solve a difficult problem in geometry. I was tired, and wanted to be humming a negro melody to myself. He was a man of absolute integrity, not caring whether he pleased or displeased anybody. He had a good deal of literary knowledge, was specially fond of Emerson, and knew him very thoroughly, both prose and verse. He had a good deal ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... hide me in some hollow lair, Red hills of Var! and ye umbrella-pines, Cover me like a gamp! I cannot bear This Apparition with its armed lines Humming the strain, "Sir ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... felt her heart beat against their bark; when I look at the lake, the mountains, snows and meadows, trees and jagged rocks, swimming in a warm atmosphere which seems to bathe all nature in one perfumed liquid; when I hear the sighing breeze, the humming insects, and the quivering leaves, the waves of the lake breaking on the shore, with the gentle rustling sound of silken folds unrolling one by one; when I see the shadow of her whom God has made my companion until my life's end cast beside mine upon the grass ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of a little girl being carried on the shoulders of two others. She sits with outstretched arms as they walk about with her, and all the rest clap their hands and, stopping before each hut, sing pretty airs, some beating time on their little skirts of cow-skin, and others making a curious humming sound between the songs. Excepting this and the skipping-rope, the play of the girls consists in imitating the serious work of their mothers—building little huts, making small pots and cooking, pounding corn in miniature mortars, or hoeing tiny gardens. The boys play ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... distant encampment caught the keen eye of Jackson as he rode, humming, care-free, the burden of ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... the cause of the handsome corollas of the trumpet creeper (Tecoma radicans) being so often split and torn has been accounted for in various ways in published notes on the subject. Humming birds and ants have been blamed, the humming birds being such constant visitors of these flowers that it really seemed as though they must be the authors of the mischief. I have often watched them when they appeared ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... a very charming place. It is a place where it is permitted to you to surrender yourself to the most delicious reflections. You are in the presence of humming-birds, not ostriches or owls. The people are smoking cigarettes, or cigars at worst, not meerschaums. The establishment itself is a dazzle of decoration, a little corner of the Louvre. There is no shouting or swearing, but a pleasing hum. The calls ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... he heard of nothing else, but the daughters of the house, and the maids, humming it over in every corner, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... had become a warm and comfortable residence well finished and well furnished. In 1801 Nairne wrote to his sister, with some natural exultation, that where he had at first found an untrodden wilderness were now order, neatness, good buildings, a garden and plenty of flowers, fruits and humming birds. In the winter one might often say "O, it's cold," but means of warming oneself were always available. His wife had proved always a useful helper and was indeed a motherly, practical woman, beloved by the people. These came ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... in the suffocation of the cloak-room I was still under an exhilarating spell. I belonged, for time never so little, to the giant machine of which the fifth floor of Parsons' is only an infinitesimal humming, singing part. I had earned seven cents! Seven cents of the $4,000,000 paid to Lynn shoe employees were mine. I had bought the right to one piece of bread by the toil of my unskilled labour. As I ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... an apt pupil to Timothy's friendly instructions when he had come home from college and passed on his acquirements in the art terpsichorean. The lessons had taken place in the central, biggest space in the barn, as she had said, with Timothy humming an accompaniment until breathless, and then she taking up the tune in her turn. This little taste of the joys of dancing had made her long for more. She failed to see how anything that made for such pure and unadulterated delight could be so wicked ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... were soon to take up their attention. While they were talking a strange humming arose on every side and seemed to fill the entire hut. At first, it was like a swarm of bees, but it grew louder and louder till it threatened to swell ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... front gate, Simeon and Abel overtook a woman. She had a long shawl over her head, and she was humming some faint air of her ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... came humming out from Weald. It would be armed, of course. It came droning, droning up the forty-odd thousand miles from the planet. Calhoun swore. He could not call his students and tell them what was happening. The guard-ship ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... very good of you." And, pausing a few moments, he looked abstractedly into the air, humming ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... had been a trustworthy guide; she had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie's; but no, Elsie was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, recurred several times before I reached the outskirts ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... held on to life for your sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your notebook. Subjective sensations, swimming in the head, light flashes before the eyes, soothing torpor, some touch of coldness, constriction of the temples, humming in the ears, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... questioningly, some shouting words I could not hear. Then I saw some running; and next, as I stood there wondering, came another crack, and then a volley like the noise of a great fire licking into dry wood, and things that were not bees humming round about. A distant man in a yellow hunting shirt stumbled, and was drowned in the tangle as in water. Around me men dropped plough-handles and women baskets, and as we ran our legs grew numb and our bodies cold at a sound which had haunted us in dreams by night—the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... fourth was this elegant box, with a view of Margate on the lid; then came these six sherry labels with silver rims; a snuff-box with an inwisible mouse; a coral rattle with silver bells; a silk yard measure in a walnut-shell; a couple of West India beetles; a humming-bird in a glass case, which I lost; and then these dozen bodkins with silver eyes—so that altogether I have made a pretty good night's work of it. Kitey Graves wasn't in great force, so after I had sung ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... sudden fit of madness. She had caught up a light shawl, which she extended from hand to hand, as if she were dancing with some one, and then she proceeded to execute a slow waltz in this circumscribed space, humming the improvised music in a mystical and rhythmical manner. And what were these dark utterances that the inspired one gave forth, as she glanced from time to time at ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Ruby-throated humming-birds, with breasts of burnished gold, fluttered about the garden on the terrace in front of me in dainty flight, or else poised themselves in mid-air opposite the sweet-smelling blossoms of the frangipanni, their little wings moving so rapidly as to make them appear without motion; broad-backed ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... appeared PRECISELY AT THE RIGHT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH to which their adaptations were appropriate, and precisely at the proper place in which all the conditions of life to which they were adapted occurred: the humming-birds at the same time as the flowers; the trichina at the same time as the pig; the bark-coloured moth at the same time as the oak, and the wasp-like moth at the same time as the wasp which protects it. Without processes of selection we should be obliged ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... stood thus with his hand pressed against his breast until a wagon went through the street at a sharp pace; he followed it and went home. He had to stand for a long time and rattle the front door before it would open, then he ran humming up the stairs, and when he had entered the room he threw himself down on the sofa with one of Smollett's novels in his hand, and read and laughed till after midnight. At last it grew too cold in the room, he ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... generally am. Well, I can see what we don't want of these forests sailing sawn up to China, and this river sprinkled with sawmills and wood-pulp factories. Then I can hear the big dynamoes humming, and the thump of the mine stamps run with the current the men who put them down will get for nothing. What we're wasting round Somasco is going to feed ten thousand people by ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... nearer to the carcase of the hear, they became aware of a curious humming sound in the air. The cause was soon apparent and the mystery that had puzzled them was solved when they reached the beast. The carcase was covered with bees while close above it hummed a swarm of others watching for an exposed place to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... need of him, Shall want its Man, predestined by that need, To pour his life in fiery word or deed,— The strong Archangel of the Elohim! Earth's hollow want is prophet of his coming: In the low murmur of her famished cry, And heavy sobs breathed up despairingly, Ye hear the near invisible humming Of his wide wings that fan the lurid sky Into cool ripples of new life and hope, While far in its dissolving ether ope Deeps beyond deeps, of sapphire calm, to cheer With Sabbath gleams the troubled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... [Suddenly finding that he has nothing else to say, and being ill at ease in consequence, he strolls about the room humming a certain ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... great piles of a certain plant or weed are collected and put in such a position that the smoke will be carried against the nesting-places of the swarms. The piles are then fired. The smoke neither kills the bees nor does it drive them off; it merely stupefies them. When the humming of the bees is hushed, comb and honey are easily removed. A considerable part of the wax is exported, but thousands ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... blossoming of flowers. The corn-lands promised a rare harvest, and the apple orchards were weighed down with their red and white blossoms. The little brown streams in the woods brimmed over in the grass, and the air was full of sweet mellow sunlight, a cool fragrant breeze, a continual music of humming bees and soaring larks and mule-bells ringing on the roads, and childish laughter ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... among cushions, and gently to ride out along streets and roads that she had so often tramped in every kind of weather, was enough to intoxicate Jenny. She heard the soft humming of the engine, and saw lamps and other vehicles flashing by, with a sense of effortless speed that was to her incomparable. If only she had been mentally at ease, and free from distraction, she would have enjoyed every instant of ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... was as taut as a bowstring and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea gully, and the Hispaniola would go humming ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about one hundred and fifty kinds of birds on the island of Puerto Rico. Among these are the mocking bird, the wild canary, the sugar bird, the thrush, the humming bird, the owl, the hawk, the dove, the cuckoo, the oriole, the nightingale, and the Guinea bird. During the migrating season, many other birds fly ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... The slope was free from snow, and as the electrical waves swept in close succession, about thirty seconds apart, they snapped, hummed, and buzzed in such a manner that their advance and retreat could be plainly heard. In passing by me, the noise was more of a crackling and humming nature, while a million faint sparks flashed from the stones (porphyry and rhyolite) as the wave passed over. But the effect on me became constant. Every muscle was almost immovable. I could climb only a few steps without weakening ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... had set Odo's memories humming like a hive of bees, and without heeding his companion's allusions he asked—"And ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... kirkyard, "just," as they said, "to hae anither look at the orator;" and he must pass through the midst of them. With his very soul steeped in shame, and his cheeks covered with confusion, he stepped from the kirk door. A humming noise issued through the crowd, and every one turned their faces towards him. His misery was greater than he could bear. "Yon was oratory for ye!" said one. "Poor deevil!" added another, "I'm sorry for him; but it was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the papers. We think the tale one of the quietest, prettiest things we have seen. You have been temperate in the use of localities, which generally spoil poems laid in exotic regions. You mostly cannot stir out (in such things) for humming-birds and fireflies. A tree is a Magnolia, etc.—Can I but like the truly Catholic spirit? "Blame as thou mayest the Papist's erring creed,"—which and other passages brought me back to the old Anthology days and the admonitory lesson to "Dear George" on "The Vesper ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... lake about one hundred and fifty miles west of the point of junction. The two rivers, about the place of their confluence, are bordered by immense prairies covered with herbage, but destitute of trees. The point itself was ornamented with wild flowers of every hue, in which innumerable humming-birds were "banqueting ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... crowd about the hole, crawling over each other, and going in and coming out. Thorn could hear them humming from where he stood. He swung his torch from his arm; then, hand over hand, up the tree ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... clear and intelligible. Thus I passed three weeks at Nether Stowey and in the neighbourhood, generally devoting the afternoons to a delightful chat in an arbour made of bark by the poet's friend Tom Poole, sitting under two fine elm-trees, and listening to the bees humming round us, while we quaffed our flip. It was agreed, among other things, that we should make a jaunt down the Bristol-Channel, as far as Linton. We set off together on foot, Coleridge, John Chester, and I. This Chester was a native of Nether Stowey, one of those who were attracted to Coleridge's ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... seemed very curious to watch the sails going round in the darkness, but Jimmy could see them rise and fall, because they looked black against the blue sky. The mill was so near that he could hear the noise of the sails as they went round, it sounded like a very loud humming-top, and there were one or two patches of light to be seen in ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb
... common instinct, and, without speech, made our way back slowly to the stockade, Maloney humming snatches of his songs, Sangree in front with his gun, prepared to shoot at a moment's notice, and the women floundering in the rear with myself and the ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and saw that Rose's eyes were just closing. Still humming the last lines of the lullaby, she cast about in her mind for something else; and there came to her another song of quaint old Thomas Dekker, which she loved even more than ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... fire: the unfriendly elements Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze; Where, for a monument upon thy bones, And e'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse, Lying with simple shells. O Lychorida. Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper, My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say A priestly farewell ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... "I guess it didn't take me thinking five seconds. I set the wires humming asking a description of this fighting kid. I got it. It was my man. The feller ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... I loved her as I might have discovered a new world; and I tried to express this fact, as I should have learned a new, unworldly language. I could no more have spoken unkindly to her than I could vivisect a humming-bird. I obeyed her lightest look as if she had given me an anaesthetic. Her love intoxicated me. I seemed to be the first lover who had ever used this phrase. My heart originated it, with a sense of surprise at my own imaginative quality. I was chloroformed ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... is enjoyed while she is watching alone the opening of her buds of beauty, and steeping their slumbering senses in the sweet wild music of her country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep—although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... that?" she asked, and looked round on all sides; but the old man was gone, and her little child was gone; he had taken it with him. And there in the corner the old clock was humming and whirring; the heavy leaden weight ran down to the floor—plump!—and ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... Well, my dear fellow, the remedy's easy; work at it a little harder;" and Somers walked on, humming a tune. ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... cables of orchids, of weird shapes and vivid colouring reaching from bough to bough. Yes, there was plenty to see and marvel at, and there would be more when those few yards of rippling water had been spanned and their feet pressed the lush grass of yonder flowery mead close by the river's margin; humming birds, the plumage of which shone in the sun like burnished gold and glowing gems, butterflies as big as sparrows, with wings painted in hues so gorgeous that the painter who should attempt to reproduce them would be driven to despair, enormous dragon-flies flitting hither and thither ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... working the elevating gear, as the gun moved slowly round. The gun roared and jumped back on its mount six or eight inches, but promptly slid back again—forced back by powerful springs. The shell sped on its way, humming as it went, and struck a little short of the target, sending up a great fountain as it was exploded by the ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday |
