"Piping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dreams. As I rode along I imagined myself in that great arena and sitting where I could see the flash of its swords and hear the thunder of Homeric voices. That is the way I thought of it. Well, those were no weak, piping times of peace, my brothers. They were times of battle and as I rode through that peaceful summer afternoon I mapped my way to the fighting line. I knew that I should enjoy the practise of the law but I had begun to feel ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... this apparatus when applied to moderate temperatures lies in the adoption of a closed system of piping of small bore, a certain portion of which is wound into a coil and placed in a furnace situated in any convenient position outside the drying chamber or hot closet. The circulation is thus hermetically sealed ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... a spot on the shore where a ship was being unloaded of its cargo of granite blocks from Syene. Black and brown slaves were dragging them to land. An old blind man was piping a dismal tune on a small reed flute to encourage them in their work, while two men of fairer hue, whose burden had been too heavy for them, had let the end of the column they were carrying sink on the ground, and were being mercilessly flogged ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... but now the war-drum rumbles from afar, the brazen trumpet brays its thrilling note, and the rude clash of hostile arms speaks fearful prophecies of coming troubles. The gallant warrior starts from soft repose—from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet "piping time of peace," he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in Beauty's siren lap reclined he weaves fair garlands for his lady's brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword nor through the livelong lazy summer's day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... for, while I linger here, Piping these dainty ditties for your ear, To win that dearer honey for my own, Daylong my Thestylis doth sit alone, Weeping, mayhap, because the gods have given Song but not sheep—the rarer gift of heaven; And little Phyllis ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... Meantime let all in Thessaly who dread My sceptre join in mourning for the dead With temples sorrow-shorn and sable weed. Ye chariot-lords, ye spurrers of the steed, Shear close your horses' manes! Let there be found Through all my realm no lute, nor lyre, nor sound Of piping, till twelve moons are at an end. For never shall I lose a closer friend, Nor braver in my need. And worthy is she Of honour, who alone hath died ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... fled to the cottage, swift and sly; Rapped softly, with a dreadful grin. "Who's there?" asked granny. "Only I!" Piping his voice up high and thin. "Pull the string, and the latch will fly!" Old granny said; and ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... wrath at Emory, where the colonel found himself ordered to send all his transportation to Frayne forthwith, and all his remaining troops except one of foot. "Damnation! I've only got two companies of foot," he screamed, in the shrill treble of piping senility. "And they mean to rob me of my cavalry, too! 'C' troop is ordered to be held in readiness for ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... kind, therefore, where the best specimens of either sex were to be met with, were sure to be well attended, and in spite of an enactment passed in the preceding reign of Elizabeth, prohibiting "piping, playing, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting on the Sabbath-days, or on any other days, and also superstitious ringing of bells, wakes, and common feasts," they were not only not interfered with, but rather encouraged by the higher ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a piping his eye like a great gal on Shoreport Hard. Panny-mar, I'm proud o' you, I am; but I feel that bad, Mr Belton, sir, that I'd take it kindly if you'd order me a tot ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... I begin to lose it," he said presently. "O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... I holding him one side, and ye other, with cords they brought and tyed him in ye bow of a boat with 6 warriors to paddle him. Ye dogg boat was ye Head, while ye rest came on up ye river singing fatal songs, triumph songs, piping, howling, & ye dogg above all with his great noise. Ye Barbars weare more delighted att ye captyve dogg than att all of us poore Christians, for that they did say he was no dogg. Ye doggs which ye wild men have ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... purchased with almost any sacrifice. In truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, to sell anything valuable for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; and there were innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, could not be found genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to renew his stock of youth the dealers offered him a set of false teeth ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... confusion and noise. There was piping, hissing, chattering and clacking, and finally it was decided that the bird that could fly the highest should ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a piping boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen, to sea, bound for an unknown island, and to ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... multifarious fools? Serpent, tempter, evil one, how many hast thou seduced from the plough tail, the carpenter's bench, the schoolmaster's desk, the rural scene, to plunge them into misery and contempt in this, the abiding-place of their betters, thou unhanged cheat? Hence the querulous piping against the world and the times, and the neglect of genius, and appeals to posterity, and damnation of managers, publishers, and the public; hence cliques, and claqueurs, and coteries, and the would-if-I-could-be aristocracy of letters; hence bickerings, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... wake him at dawn that he might dress and go out to the archaic swing that hung from an apple-tree near the sixth-form house. Seating himself in this he would pump higher and higher until he got the effect of swinging into the wide air, into a fairyland of piping satyrs and nymphs with the faces of fair-haired girls he passed in the streets of Eastchester. As the swing reached its highest point, Arcady really lay just over the brow of a certain hill, where the brown road dwindled out of sight in a ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... it sufficiently, adding the sugar when the fruit is almost done. If you cook the fruit in syrup, do not have a heavy syrup. Put into jar while piping hot, filling the jar as full as possible, put on the cover immediately, turning until it fits snugly; turn jar upside down for a few hours to see if it leaks; tighten again ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... At last methought he bought the hog for nine pounds, and had no sooner concluded his bargain than turning round to me, who was standing close by staring at him, he slapped me on the shoulder with a hand of immense weight, crying with a half-piping, half-wheezing voice, "Coom, neighbour, coom, I and thou have often dealt; gi' me noo a poond for my bargain, and it shall be all thy own." I felt in a great rage at his unceremonious behaviour, and, owing to the flutter of my spirits, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... turkeys and mound builders, the only feathered things that never sit upon their own eggs, but allow them to be hatched, after the fashion of reptiles, by the heat of the sand or of fermenting vegetable matter. The piping crows, the honey-suckers, the lyre-birds, and the more-porks are all peculiar to the Australian region. So are the wonderful and aesthetic bower-birds. Brush-tongued lories, black cockatoos, and gorgeously coloured pigeons, though somewhat less antique, perhaps, in type, give a special character ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the peculiarities of the bark. Previous to this time, poets borrowed from Theocritus and Vergil piping shepherds reclining in the shade, whom no Englishman had ever seen. In Michael Wordsworth pictures a genuine ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... silence in this coming of night. Among the foliage of the trees they heard the piping of sparrows. From far away there came, from time to time, ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... piping hot, Broke out in unexpected Pyrrhics; No Poet Laureate on the spot Composed apologetic lyrics; Transpiring slowly by-and-by, The act was voted one of loyalty; The nation winked the other eye, And pocketed the ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... want takes me like a fit, at uncertain intervals—suddenly, under the most incomprehensible influences. A glance up at the blue sky—starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret window—a child's voice coming suddenly, I don't know where from—the piping of my neighbor's linnet in his little cage—now one trifling thing, now another—wakes up that want in me in a moment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn't it? I am amazed ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... attempt to gain a view of her—or indeed of any fascinating woman—from a measured category, is as difficult as to appreciate the effect of a landscape by exploring it at night with a lantern—or of a full chord of music by piping the notes in succession. Nevertheless it may readily be believed from the description here ventured, that among the many winning phases of her aspect, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... to see it, but she always insisted on his doing so, and used to enjoy his masculine amazement at the queer things women wanted, and made him guess what piping was, demand fiercely the meaning of a hug-me-tight, or wonder how a little thing composed of three rosebuds, a bit of velvet, and a pair of strings, could possibly be a bonnet, and cost six dollars. That night he looked ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... greenfinch settled in the thick shelter of the cypresses; the sparrow carted rags and straw under every slate; the Serin finch, whose downy nest is no bigger than half an apricot, came and chirped in the plane tree tops; the Scops made a habit of uttering his monotonous, piping note here, of an evening; the bird of Pallas Athene, the owl, came hurrying along ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... few minutes the signals "Enemy in sight," and "Get under way," were flying from the masthead of the flag-ship; and the merry piping of the boatswains' whistles, and the measured tramp of the sailors around the capstans, told that signals were observed, and were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Piping, Lighting, Warming, Ventilating, Decorating, Laying out of Grounds, etc., are illustrated. An extensive Compendium of Manufacturers' Announcements is also given, in which the most reliable and approved Building Materials, Goods, Machines, Tools, and Appliances ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... weidlich anstrengte), and did my very utmost; at the end of some short space, I was uniformly seized with not so much what I can call a drumming in my ears, as a kind of infinite, unsufferable, Jews-harping and scrannel-piping there; to which the frightfullest species of Magnetic Sleep soon supervened. And if I strove to shake this away, and absolutely would not yield, there came a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of Delirium ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... gasp of amazement the man halted and gazed at the British as though bewildered. One look he gave them and then exclaimed in a shrill piping ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... wresting out of iron and brass from the windows and graves—what defacing of arms—what demolishing of curious stone-work, that had not any representation in the world but only of the cast of the founder, and the skill of the mason—what tooting and piping upon the destroyed organ-pipes, and what a hideous triumph on the market-day before all the country, when, in a kind of sacrilegious and profane procession, all the organ-pipes, vestments, copes and surplices, together ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... and the brief twilight gave place to a night that was little less than day. The northern lights danced their mystic measure in the starlit vault to the piping of the Spirit of the North. The hush of the Silent Land was only broken by the cries which came up from the dark valleys and darker forests. And the lonely giant, Jean Leblaude, slept the light slumber of the journeyer in the wild; the slumber that sees and hears when danger is abroad, and ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... man stood within the flame! Stood there and waved an arm at Scorio. The piping voice came out of the heart of ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... such was the voice of the Singing Mouse; faint, small and clear, a piping of fifes so fine, a touching of strings so delicate, that it seemed to come from instruments of beryl and of diamond, a phantom music, impossible to fetter with staff or bar, and past the hope of compassing ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... then have they their hobby horses, dragons and other antiques, togither with their baudie pipers and thundering drummers, to strike up the devil's daunce withall. Then marche these heathen company towards the church and church yard, their pipers piping, their drummers thundring, their stumps dauncing, their bels jyngling, their handkerchefs swinging about their heds like madmen, their hobbie horses and other monsters skirmishing amongst the route; and in this sorte they ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... day for all of us. To make things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen; heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird. You can't conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank God it seems as if ours was going to bear it ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lover and patron especially of the music of the pipe, in all its varieties. Here, too, there had been evident those three fashions or "modes":—first, the simple and pastoral, the homely note of the pipe, like the piping of the wind itself from off the distant fields; then, the wild, savage din, that had cost so much to quiet people, and [72] driven excitable people mad. Now he would compose all this to sweeter purposes; and the building of the first organ became like the book of his life: it ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... occurred—unless a smothered exclamation of "Piping hot!" which escaped from Clara's lips as the basket vanished round a corner could be counted as such—until they reached the old Chelsea mansion, where Clara's father was then staying, with his three ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... flower-beds below the window. Distant voices from the far-away fields in which they were making hay—the scent of which came in sudden wafts distinct from that of the nearer roses and honey-suckles—these merry piping voices just made Molly feel the depth of the present silence. She had left off copying, her hand weary with the unusual exertion of so much writing, and she was lazily trying to learn one or two of the poems off ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... next three days it blew a gale, moderating at times, and then piping up again. To a sailor it was not bad weather, but Christy learned from the surgeon that his cousin was confined to his berth during all this time. The prisoner went on deck for the time permitted each forenoon and afternoon. He had ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... young boys and maidens dancing round. Surely, in some far-off glade, by the side of lemon-grove or garden, near the village, there must be still a pagan remnant of glad Nature-worship. Surely I shall chance upon some Thyrsis piping in the pine-tree shade, or Daphne flying from the arms of Phoebus. So I dream until I come upon the Calvary set on a solitary hillock, with its prayer-steps lending a wide prospect across the olives and the orange-trees, and the broad valleys, to immeasurable ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... leave us, Those we love, and those who love us! Just when they have learned to help us, When we are old and lean upon them, Comes a youth with flaunting feathers, With his flute of reeds, a stranger, Wanders piping through the village, Beckons to the fairest maiden, And she follows where he leads her, Leaving all ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... THE piping of our slender, peaceful reeds Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray; Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds, Following the mighty van that Freedom leads, Her glorious ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of his piping spread over the land; Respectable widows proposed for his hand, And maidens came flocking to sit on the green— Especially ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... birds?" he cried, moving back to the window, through which the merry piping of a robin was audible. "How inept, how spiteful, of them to go on singing, singing, in the face of such odious weather. Tell Wickersmith or someone to take a gun and an umbrella, and to go out and shoot ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... was nearly out, he chilly, and the flame of the candles throbbing strangely in their sockets, shed alternate glare and shadow round the old wainscoted room and its quaint furniture. Outside were all the wild thunder and piping of the storm; and the rattling of distant windows sounded through the passages, and down the stairs, like angry people ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... navy blue frock, cut low in the neck with a touch of cream upon it, and edged with scarlet piping—a dress which at ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... in a musical country [Italy], where singing, fiddling, and piping are not only the common topics of conversation but almost the principal objects of attention, I cannot help cautioning you against giving in to those—I will call them illiberal—pleasures, though music is commonly reckoned ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... I hurried to see What the bit of sky might be, When a tender piping note, Soft as a flute, I heard; And there upon a bough, Wintry and bare till now, In a sky-colored coat, Trying his little throat, Was perched the ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said, "Give us, O Lord, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... squally; stormy, tempestuous, blustering; boisterous &c. (violent) 173. pulmonic[Med], pulmonary. Phr. "lull'd by soft zephyrs" [Pope]; "the storm is up and all is on the hazard" [Julius Caesar]; "the winds were wither'd in the stagnant air" [Byron]; "while mocking winds are piping loud" [Milton]; "winged with red lightning ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and the babbling of the brook, and by the cool airs that glide down from the white cliffs of Aetna. There once more he saw the shepherds tend their flocks, singing or wrangling with one another, dreamily piping on their wax-stopped reeds or plotting to annex their neighbours' gear; or else there sounded in his ears the love-song or the dirge, or the incantation of the forsaken girl rose amid the silence to the silver moon. Once again he stood upon the shore ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Mrs Nickleby, angrily, 'but that's just the way. If they had said I was niece to a piping bullfinch, what would you care? But I have no sympathy,' whimpered Mrs Nickleby. 'I don't expect ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... window and balcony and were even strung across the narrow street, almost brushing the faces of the motley throng that passed beneath. Tom-toms and cymbals beat and clashed, while from the Chinese theater came the shrill piping of reeds and the ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... say all? No, one little frog failed to hear his mother's voice and, piping in his little shrill tone: "Who's afraid! Who's afraid! Who's afraid!" he swam straight on. Suddenly one of his hind legs got tangled among the weeds at the bottom of the pond; and, though he pulled and jerked with all his little ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... sun seemed to have made a successful struggle with the dense London atmosphere, and shone full in Mr. Vanderclump's face while he was at breakfast, and set a piping bullfinch singing a tune, which his master loved rather for the sake of old associations, than from any delight in music. Then Lloyd's List was full of arrivals, and the Price Current had that morning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... you stirred a book you brought enough snuffy dust into the air to make you sneeze for ten minutes. But his own room, which was above the shop, was blithe enough, and it was there I had my lessons. Mr. Davies kept a piping bullfinch in it, and a linnet, and there was a little window garden on the sill, where tulips bloomed in their season, and under a glass case there was a plaster model of the Arch of Titus in Rome, of which he ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... northern land, with a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods. Hudson and the loyal members of the crew attempted to replenish provisions by fishing. Then a brilliant thought penetrated the wooden ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... C. I can say less. She looks like one of the English poor women of our childhood—lean, clean, toothless, and speaks, like some of them, in a piping, discontented voice, which seems to convey a personal reproach. All her waking hours are spent in a large sun-bonnet. She is never idle for one minute, is severe and hard, and despises everything ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds If I don't mind his orders he won't mind my draughts Inattentive, absent; and distrait Incontinency of friendship among young fellows Indiscriminate familiarity Inquisition Insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself Insolent civility It is not sufficient to deserve well; one must please well too Know the true value of time Known people pretend to vices they had not Knows what things are little, ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... nearly a mile inland not a bird was visible. There was the loud whizzing whirr of innumerable cicadas, and once or twice they heard a piping cry, after that all was stifling ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... central tent, set beside a great wine sap just coming into bloom. Around it was a space of trodden earth, to one side a cheerful fire and a darky cook, in front a pine table, over which a coloured boy was spreading a very clean tablecloth. Out of the tent came a high, piping voice. "Good-morning, Hamilton! What is it? What is it?—An officer from General Jackson? All right! All right! glad to see him. Tell him to wait—Jim, you black idiot, what have I ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... a chickadee had heart enough to cheep. But little Hyla, the tree-frog, was nothing daunted. Since the last week in February, throughout the spring and the noisy summer on till this dreary time, he had been cheerfully, continuously piping. This was ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... taught, Rome was a cesspool of moral putridity and Nero butchered. So it always is. There may be noble teachings about self-control, purity, and the like, but an evil and adulterous generation is slow to dance to such piping. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... what a joyous, exhilarating sensation it was to feel the ship alive once more, as it were, heeling steeply over to the shrill piping of the strong salt breeze, bounding from wave to wave, plunging her sharp stem deep into the heart of each oncoming surge, and cleaving its indigo crest asunder in a perfect storm of sparkling foam above which played a miniature rainbow, after being compelled for ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... them there kites till you git me," he challenged in a piping little voice. "I 'm 'Reddy' Simpson, an' you ain't licked the fambly till you 've ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... sound. When my friends call upon me, my deafness generally compels me to use an ear-trumpet, and I yesterday took it to our college walks, to try if I could catch the notes of the singing birds, which were piping all round me. But, alas! I could not hear the notes of the singing birds, though I did catch the harsher and louder notes of the rooks, which have their nests ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... he shrugged his shoulders. Curse it, a fellow was never himself when with that hunch-backed dwarf. That he had no neck—and that huge head! He was supposed to be as strong as a lion, and there was brain too. He made folk dance to his piping, and got his own way. There was no getting the better of him. Just as he thought of something cutting which would settle him, the inn-keeper's face would send his thoughts all ways at once. He was not satisfied with the result of his visit, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... table, where, leaning his head in his hands, he pondered over what Claudet had said. He placed his hand so as to screen his eyes, and bit his lips as if a painful struggle was going on within him. The splendors of the setting sun had merged into the dusky twilight, and the last piping notes of the birds sounded faintly among the sombre trees. A fresh breeze had sprung up, and filled the darkening room with ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... boot-hoses with penny-poses, and twenty fools opinions, who looked on you but piping rites that knew you would be prizing, and Prentices in Paul's Church-yard, that scented your want of ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... The Mother—that mighty figure I saw dimly there behind The Child—to save The Child. But there replied only the faint, piping voices of a million mothers, isolated and alone, each sorrowing one heart-full for one ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... that were a type of cartilaginous fish closer to the shark, trunkfish known as dromedaries that were one and a half feet long and had humps ending in backward-curving stings, serpentine moray eels with silver tails and bluish backs plus brown pectorals trimmed in gray piping, a species of butterfish called the fiatola decked out in thin gold stripes and the three colors of the French flag, Montague blennies four decimeters long, superb jacks handsomely embellished by seven black crosswise ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... heat water," Dick announced. "Each fellow can bathe his feet in cold water before turning in. But, when one's feet ache, or are blistered, then a wash in piping hot water is the thing to take ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... troubled frown. And the august hand holding up those sooty pants, and the august voice: "These appear to be yours, Freeland minimus. Were you so good as to put them down my chimneys?" And the little piping, "Yes, sir." ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... those lives are making for, think I. The sea flings itself up in foam, and rolls and rolls, as if inhabited by great fierce figures that fling their limbs about and roar at one another; nay, a festival of ten thousand piping devils that duck their heads down between their shoulders and circle about, lashing the sea white with the tips of their wings. Far, far out lies a hidden reef, and from that hidden reef rises a white merman, shaking his head after ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... eyes. What on earth was that? A small voice piping at him from within close range? But how could ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... have once more the regular alternation of mild and severe winters. During very open winters, like that of 1879-80, nature in my latitude, eighty miles north of New York, hardly shuts up house at all. That season I heard a little piping frog on the 7th of December, and on the 18th of January, in a spring run, I saw the common bullfrog out of his hibernaculum, evidently thinking it was spring. A copperhead snake was killed here about the same date; caterpillars did not seem to retire, as they usually do, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... the shaman, who does not himself sing, but only starts each song. The women never sing at these gatherings, although on other occasions, when they get together by themselves, they sing very sweetly. It is quite common to hear a primitive kind of part singing, some piping in a curious falsetto, others droning a ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... beaten path, the refugees threaded their way through cactus and sage to a gate, entering which they approached the straw-thatched jacal they had seen. A naked boy baby watched them draw near, then scuttled for shelter, piping an alarm. A man appeared from somewhere, at sight of whom the priest rode forward with a pleasant greeting. But the fellow was unfriendly. His wife, too, emerged from the dwelling and joined her husband in warning Father ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... his breath to listen. It came suddenly; and from a tree close beside him, a sweet low murmuring song, and then it changed to a swift "jug, jug." This was followed by a shake, clear and prolonged, and then came a "low piping sound," which, as the song ceased, the air gave back, as if it were loth to lose ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... the organ piping like a northeast snow squall, and the whole assembly on their knees. The stranger and myself ensconced ourselves near a large pillar, and I stood by to keep a bright look out ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... conscientious fashion. To this, when she was alone after school hours, she sometimes added a faint, colorless voice of limited range and gentlewomanly expression. It was on one of these occasions that Twing, becoming an accidental auditor of this chaste, sad piping, was not only permitted to remain to hear the end of a love song of strictly guarded passion in the subjunctive mood, but at the close was invited to try his hand—a quick, if not a cultivated one—at the instrument. He did ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The auger and piping shot out of the hole like stones driven by a catapult. Following the broken tools was a column of gas, gravel, water and mud that rose two hundred feet in the air. The earth trembled, and squawking like frightened geese, the Aleuts took to the tall timber, ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... his courage Tom Rover began to whistle, but soon the sound was drowned out by the high piping of the wind, as it tore over the deck and through the rigging of the Swallow. They were certainly in for a storm, and a heavy one ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... pictures; the long glassy shallow, paved with yellow gravel, where he wades up between low walls of fern-fringed rock, beneath nut, and oak, and alder, to the low bar over which the stream comes swirling and dimpling, as the water-ouzel flits piping before him, and the murmur of the ringdove comes soft and sleepy through the wood. There, as he wades, he sees a hundred sights and hears a hundred tones, which are hidden from the traveller on the dusty highway above. The traveller fancies ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... voice came very low, and somewhat piping, too, and broken—an eerie sort of voice it was, of brittle and erratic timbre and undulant inflection. Yet it was beautiful. It had the ring of childhood in it, though the ring was not pure golden, and at times fell echoless. The spirit of its utterance was always clear and pure and crisp ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... Jacobin club they recite the nonsense they have committed to memory; and, on the fourth day, admitted to the bar of the Assembly, their spokesman, a poor little thing of twelve years, repeats the parrot-like tirade. He winds up with the accustomed oath, upon which all the others cry out in their piping, shrill voices, "We swear!" As a climax, the President, Trejlhard, a sober lawyer, replies to the little gamins with perfect gravity in a similar strain, employing metaphors, personifications, and everything else belonging to the stock-in-trade of a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fire burned cheerily on the white marble hearth, and the winter sunlight fell brightly on the flower-stand full of flowers—amidst which the piping bullfinch, Puffball, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... appear to have taken coachmen seriously, or to have regarded them as responsible and civilized men. Abuse of the railway from a pastoral point of view is obsolete. There are millions of grown persons in England to whom the far sound of the train is as pleasantly suggestive as the piping of a blackbird. Again—is not that Lord Worthington getting out of the train? Yes, that one, at the third ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... how to make a bed?" faltered the visitor in a thin, piping voice. "It isn't made, and I don't ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... that seldom fail to hit. 390 Valour's a mouse-trap, wit a gin, Which women oft are taken in. Then, HUDIBRAS, why should'st thou fear To be, that art a conqueror? Fortune th' audacious doth juvare, 395 But lets the timidous miscarry. Then while the honour thou hast got Is spick and span new, piping hot, Strike her up bravely, thou hadst best, And trust thy fortune with the rest. 400 Such thoughts as these the Knight did keep, More than his bangs or fleas, from sleep. And as an owl, that in a barn Sees a mouse creeping in the corn, Sits still, and shuts his round blue ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... is considered somewhat vulgar for members of the congregation to give specimens of their vocalisation; and you can only find in out- of-the-way side and back pews odd persons warbling a mild falsetto, or piping an eccentric tenor, or doing a heavy bass on their own responsibility; but at Lune-street Chapel the general members of the congregation go into the work with a distinct determination to either sing or make a righteous noise worthy of the occasion. They are neither ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... and held out the lovely presents—the first was an enchanting wax doll, the biggest beauty in the whole garden—instead of reaching out her hands for them, she just drew back, and said in her little sweet, piping voice: "Please, I ain't a millacle, I'm only Peter's ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... margin of the strait, while, at every turn, it seemed guided by the desire to select a choice and contrast of beauty. Variety of scenes and manners enlivened, from their novelty, the landscape to the pilgrims. By the sea-shore, nymphs were seen dancing, and shepherds piping, or beating the tambourine to their steps, as represented in some groups of ancient statuary. The very faces had a singular resemblance to the antique. If old, their long robes, their attitudes, and magnificent heads, presented the ideas which distinguish prophets and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... d'Isola, a tiny blonde with a cloud of fluffy curls all over her forehead, vivacious and grimacing as a young monkey, called to him in her piping voice: ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... with its tongue. It caught a fly at every shot. A hedgehog trotted about in the dried, rustling beech leaves. Dragonflies darted about with glittering wings. The people sat down around the luncheon-baskets. The piping, chirping crickets tried to make their Sunday ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... it into its head to go on strike; that is, it would work when it pleased, and be idle if it wished; so I had to supplement it with another kind of apparatus. This contrivance was by using a nine-foot length of four-inch iron piping, which I found in the boat-store, and which had probably belonged to some vessel as the barrel of a pump, or something of the kind. To this I fitted a long wooden piston, having a wooden disk on the end, through ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... copying-clerk," observed the secretary. "Last summer he received the wages of the whole office, and pretended to have lost the money when he was drunk. And where was it found? Why, in just such pipings in his cap. The hundred-rouble notes were screwed up in little rolls and sewed in the piping." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... momentarily blinded by the sudden deluge in their eyes. Robertson, the Winchester Blue, was heavily struck. In a wild rage he jumped into the fountain and closed with Radowitz. The Pole had no chance against him, and after a short struggle, Radowitz fell heavily, catching in his fall at a piece of rusty piping, part of some ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... trophies hung, Of forests, and enchantments drear, Where more is meant than meets the ear. Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career, Till civil-suited Morn appear, Not trick'd and frounced as she was wont With the Attic Boy to hunt, But kercheft in a comely cloud While rocking winds are piping loud, Or usher'd with a shower still, When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the rustling leaves With minute drops from off the eaves. And when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... mad maiden, wilt thou roam? Far safer 'twere to stay at home, Where thou mayst sit and piping please The poor and private cottages, Since cotes and hamlets best agree With this thy meaner minstrelsy. There with the reed thou mayst express The shepherd's fleecy happiness, And with thy eclogues intermix Some smooth and harmless bucolics. There on ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... land where not the least desire Need prey upon your mettle. There are hours A god might gladly take in these basking dunes,— Nothing but summer and piping larks, and air All a warm breath of honey, and a grass All flowers—sweet thyme and golden heart's-ease here! And under scent and song of flowers and birds, Far inland out of the golden bays the air Is charged with briny savour, and ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder? why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him, but that's rotten ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... friends call him, 'Piping Tom,' from his vocal powers; or, as some nickname him, 'Organ Loftus,' from his imitation of that instrument, which is an excessively comical ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... penetrating sound of a flute, which executed trills and shakes. The old man (for he was now in his sixtieth year) first put his fingers in his ears, but then continued to write.... "And then his confounded flute! He is playing on it just now ... that means we are all to dance to his piping. But still worse than the flute is something which they call a fugue; I do not know whether one can call it music, but yesterday Sebastian Bach was here—'the great Bach' of course—and had his son ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... warm, dark evening in late May, with the frogs piping their sweet, high note, and the first of the fireflies wheeling over the wet meadows near the tumble-down house where 'Lias lived. The girls took turns in carrying the big paper-wrapped bundle, and stole along in the shadow of the trees, full of ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... own up to the entire truth, the cat was feeling decidedly unwell; when suddenly the cook popped his head in at the scullery entry, crying, "How now, how now, you vagabonds! The war is done, but the breakfast is not. Hurry up, scurry up, scamper and trot! The cakes are all cooked and are piping hot! Then why is the coffee so slow?" The King was in the dining-hall, in dressing-gown and slippers, irately calling ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... detected the mistake that had been made, and knowing the father of the boy, seized upon the diverting situation, entering with all his heart into the possibilities the joke might yield. He turned landlord for the nonce, brought in the supper piping hot, and then was ordered to bring a bottle of good wine. This the lad cordially, yet with some condescension, shared with the supposed master of the hostelry. More than this, at last putting all pride of place aside, he told the good ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... were drawn together by the fact that they had acquaintances in common and could compare memories of the same places. The stout woman was a flattering, affected, fawning creature. She said: "My love" to everybody, talked in a piping voice, and played the child with the querulous languor of corpulent persons. She detested vulgar remarks and would blush and take alarm at trifles. She adored secrets, twisted everything into a confidential communication, invented stories and always whispered in your ear. Her life was passed ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... over him could, and the piping was not pleasing to him, and scarcely intelligible to the drowsy villagers; and when in obedience to his vicar's wish he went back to preach again of the Jews and Jehovah's dealings with them, his sermons ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... any of them. An old binding is like an old picture! Just look at this French binding! It's very dingy, and a good deal broken, but you never see anything like that nowadays—as mellow as modest, and as rich as roses! Here's one says the same thing as your grand hall out there, only in a piping voice." ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald |
