"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which he would not otherwise have felt. He recognized a merit in this forbearance of his, and once, towards the end of his work, when he was taking a little rest, he said: "Reporters get as much abuse as plumbers; but if people only knew what we kept back, perhaps they would sing a different tune. Of course, it's a temptation to describe his daughter, poor old thing, and give the interview in full, but I don't quite like to. I've got to cut it down to the fact that she evidently hadn't the least idea of the defalcation, or why he was on the way to Canada. Might work ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... shoes gave a skip, and set her on her feet so suddenly that it scared all the naughtiness out of her. She stood looking at these curious shoes; and the bright buttons on them seemed to wink at her like eyes, while the heels tapped on the floor a sort of tune. Before she dared to stir, her mother called ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... thin little tune began to wander from the black box, none other than "The Wearing of the Green." Inside the box was one of those little, old-fashioned Swiss music boxes, and May was ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... himself into the work. The songs (mostly his own writing) were quite inoffensive, and very funny. I am very glad to be able to think that his influence on public taste is towards refinement and purity. I liked best "The Future Mrs. 'Awkins," with its taking tune, and "My Old Dutch," which revealed powers that, I should think, would come out grandly in Robsonian parts, such as "The Porter's Knot." "The Little Nipper" ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the mission on which the gunboat had been sent. He sat on Mrs Neverbend's left hand, and did seem in some respect to be the chief man on that occasion. However, he proposed Mrs Neverbend's health and the ladies, and the captain instantly called upon the band to play some favourite tune. After that there was no attempt at speaking. We sat with the officers some little time after dinner, and then went ashore. "Sir Ferdinando and I," said the captain, as we shook hands with him, "will do ourselves the honour of calling on you at ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... with the entire animal creation, excepting only the canines; and even the howling of the dog—one cannot be sure—may be an honest, however unsatisfactory, attempt towards a music of his own. I had a fox terrier once who invariably howled in tune. Jubal hampered, not helped us. He it was who stifled music with the curse of professionalism; so that now, like shivering shop-boys paying gate- money to watch games they cannot play, we sit mute in our stalls listening to the paid performer. But for the musician, music might have been ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... we starve, we must get out before we starve," sang the regular blows of the bar to a queer little tune which ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... joked, she told a number of things that happened, she hummed the air of the last waltz. "Isn't it divine?" she asked. "Oh! I feel as if I could dance for a week." She was still dancing; she gave Colville's foot an accidental tap in keeping time on the floor of the carriage to the tune she was humming. No one said anything about a next meeting when they parted at the gate of Palazzo Pinti, and Mrs. Bowen bade her coachman drive Colville to his hotel. But both the ladies' voices called good-night to him as he drove ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... belonged to an English line, and it was one of the most pleasant incidents of my entire tour, to hear a company of sailors chime in one evening and sing "Kiss Me Mother, Kiss Your Darling." I had heard little English speaking for months, and now to hear that old familiar tune, five thousand miles away from home, made me feel as if America could after all not be so very far off! There were no storms, nor was their any cool night air upon that "summer seat." I slept one night on deck, without even an awning of canvass over me,—how pleasant it was at night to awake ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... only thing necessary to the thorough cultivation of the voice if the conditions were so perfect that there were no habits of stricture and our instrument were thus in perfect tune. And in spite of the fact that it is not usually found in perfect tune, the influence of practice under right mental conditions is the most potent and indispensable part of voice culture. Let this fact not be lost sight of while we are discussing those more ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... a disappointment; but, however, I, that was to be discouraged with nothing, told my husband that since we could not get passage to Caroline, and that the country we was in was very fertile and good, we would, if he liked of it, see if we could find out anything for our tune where we was, and that if he liked ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June. My Luve's like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune. ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... glorious, can so little express God's glory, than if stupid and senseless creatures should break out in singing and praising of his majesty. The creatures are the books wherein the lines of the song of God's praises are written; and man is made a creature capable to read them, and to tune that song. They are appointed to bring in brick to our hand; and God has fashioned us for this employment, to make such a building of it. We are the mouth of the creation; but ere God want praises when our mouth is dumb, and our ears deaf, God will open ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... environment. The dialect in which they are written enhances their verisimilitude without impairing their dignity; and the flashes of humour which light up the gravity of the narrative are never out of place nor out of tune. The cunning and resourcefulness of his boyish heroes are the cunning and resourcefulness of America, and the sombre Mississippi is the proper background for this national epic. The danger, the excitement, the ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... banal waltz again, till the lad caught the tune. He hit it amazingly well, and his ear was unusually true. The dark one had been in Canada and was hungry for American rag-time. "'The Good Old Summer Time'—you know that? 'Harrigan'—you know that?" he said in English. The rag-time of "Harrigan" floated ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... Charlecote at dusk, and air herself with her brothers in the garden. The weather was close and misty, and Honora set open the door to admit the air from the open passage window. A low, soft, lulling sound came in, so much softened by distance that the tune alone showed that it was an infant school ditty sung by Maria, while rocking herself in her low chair over the school-room fire. Turning to discover whether the invalid were annoyed by it, Honor beheld the hard, keen little eyes intently fixed, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... usual, was loitering along, his hands in his pockets, his lips puckered up for the whistle that didn't come. Tim never quite did anything he started to do, whether it was to weed his father's garden or whistle a tune. ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... to handle, one mast, made like the rest of steel, was transformed into a smokestack—still bearing sails—a donkey engine was installed in the hold, and the booms went aloft, or the anchor rose to the peak to the tune of smoky puffing instead of the rhythmical chanty songs of the sailors. So the modern schooner, a very leviathan of sailing craft, plows the seas, electric-lighted, steering by steam, a telephone system connecting ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... was good, of course all in unison. The first hymn was to the tune of our "Old Hundredth," the chapters read by the minister were Ezek. xviii. and Rom. iii., and the text of the sermon was Ps. lxxxix. 14, "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face." The style of language ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... stolidly at the gorgeously gilded and painted entrance, with an affectation of superior wisdom to that of the weaker-minded, who sneak apologetically up the steps from time to time. A tall-hatted orchestra have just finished a tune, and hung their brazen instruments up like joints on the hooks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... and vex my life Have changed to the flowers in June, All sounds, disorders, pain and strife Have rounded into tune." ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... moment before a looking-glass arranging her hair, and then left the room humming a light tune. Sydney Barnes, with his hands in his pockets, flung himself ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... snubbed, the drum of the rusty winch rattled and banged on worn bearings to a tune of escaping steam, laboriously warping the smelly hull alongside the dock. Terry watched the sturdy little Moros spring into agile life as the vessel slowly neared the pier, then he turned to look over the town ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... and drank a little, after which they again sat down on the sofa. Schemselnihar asked the jeweller if he had a lute, or any other instrument. The jeweller, who took care to provide all that might please them, brought her a lute, which she took some time to tune, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... his head and shoulders and the rest of him half-naked, gritty with cinders, and as cold as a well curb. Through the ventilators (tightly closed) daylight was struggling with gas-light. The car smelled of stale steam and man. The car wheels played a headachy tune to the metre of the Phoebe-Snow-upon-the-road-of-anthracite verses. David cursed Phoebe Snow, and determined that if ever God vouchsafed him a honey-moon it should be ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... in the storage and stockpile business to the melancholy tune of more than $16 billion. We must continue to support farm income, but we should not pile more farm surpluses on top of the $7.5 billion we already own. We must maintain a stockpile of strategic materials, but the $8.5 billion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... indeed. At that moment, wearying perhaps of the howls, the brown men began to make experiments with a view toward changing the tune. Closing in upon the thrall, they commenced to feel of his clothing and his shaven head, and to pinch him tentatively ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... who, irritated by his wounds, wished for revenge and longed to give back blow for blow, "shall I fire off a ball to punish that jester, and to warn him not to sing so much out of tune in the future?" ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Tom's eyes. It held his heroes, and on some of those drowsy nights when the only sounds to break the stillness of the room were the scratching of his father's pen, the soft humming of some little tune by his mother sitting and sewing by the evening lamp, and the fierce crackling of the burning logs, Tom could almost see these heroes stepping down from the shelves and like so many phantoms flitting in and about the room. ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... and hand ever afterwards, and one day Preacher Morris, white man, made us husband and wife. I 'members de song de white folks sung dat day. 'Hark from de tomb a doleful sound'. Don't you think dat a wrong song to sing on a weddin' day? 'Joy to de World,' was in our heart and dat tune would have been more 'propriate, seems ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... early, for they've been longing for it so much." She hadn't felt so happy and contented for a good while, for besides rejoicing in her boys' pleasure, Mr. Atkins had given her this very morning an order to knit as many mittens as she could, and she even caught herself humming a little tune. ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... and a good meal in a cottage by the wayside. Having finished their dinner, they went out of doors and looked about the beautiful yard, which was all blooming with flowers. A bird cage was hanging by the side of the door, and the bird was singing the tune to ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... pretend we don't care a cent. Mother sha'n't have the satisfaction of knowing that I do anyhow;" and Dick whistled a lively tune as he pulled off his boots and ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... of universal human life in harmony with the best life of all the ages, in tune with the sublimest and finest spiritual music of the universe, which you can live in your ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
... the shore, the sound of the river flowing past the tall reeds, the whispering sound of the river at night. And all the time he played cunningly on the dulcimer. The girls of Novgorod had never danced to so sweet a tune when in the old days Sadko played his dulcimer to earn kopecks ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... Hawaiian address, another original native hymn was sung, composed by Samuela, and sung to the tune of "Farewell, farewell is ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... Let it scramble by hook or by crook For wealth or a name with a sound. You are welcome to amble your ways, Aspirers to place or to glory; May big bells jangle your praise, And golden pens blazon your story; For me, let me dwell in my nook, Here by the curve of this brook, That croons to the tune of my book: Whose melody wafts me forever On the waves of ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... depict) by shapes and colours. (Obs. sometimes by art, sometimes by habit.) Some by voice. Similarly the above arts all imitate by rhythm, language, and tune, and these either ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... very nice," said the Talking Doll, when the Trumpeter had finished the tune. "Did you say you just came here ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... his hands into his pockets, but he stood still upon the hearth-rug and looked at the ceiling, softly whistling a little tune, a habit he had in moments of great anxiety. For three or four minutes neither of the ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... has been listening. Pick yourself off the mat, Jan, and take yourself out of earshot." The stranger whistled the beginning of a pleasant little tune, with a flavour of Savoy Opera ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... alone for a minute or two, his legs at full length, his feet crossed, and the upper part of his body bent forward. He smiled to himself, a smile of singular fatuity, and began to hum a popular tune. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... were scarcely out of his mouth, when, as with one impulse, all broke into the grand old measure. Nobody pitched the tune, nor started it—it started itself! Mrs. Campbell sang it on her knees, with streaming eyes and hair, the captain and his daughters sang it locked in each other's arms, and the Traveler, seeing Lady ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... them, because they want clothes before they can spare the money; and these are so many in number, that really they add a great stroke to the bulk of our inland trade. How many families have we in England that live upon credit, even to the tune of two or three years' rent of their revenue, before it comes in!—so that they must be said to eat the calf in the cow's belly. This encroachment they make upon the stock in trade; and even this very article may state the case: I doubt not but ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... old tune of "Oh! the roast beef of old England;" and during a long voyage the announcement of dinner is a very great relief every way. As had been the invariable rule throughout the whole of the voyage, Miss Charlotte and Miss Laura ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed out-worn— So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; And hear old ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... outside irritated her, and the loud complacent ticking of the clock seemed to mock her misery; but still she worked on, the busy fingers turning the needles, as the wool unwound itself from the balls which danced upon the floor. There was life in those balls of wool as they spun to the tune of the woman's misery. They advanced and retired, like dancers, touching hands when they met, then whirling away in opposite directions again; they side-stepped and wheeled in a mad riot of joyous color, just as they were about to meet: they stood for a little ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... was early one morning, the 15th of June, I was called from my bed by a sorrowful tune; With sad lamentations a mother appeared, And sad were the tidings I then from her heard. {8c} “Our William,” she said, “has been killed in the pit; Another is injured, but not dead yet. By firing some powder to blow up the stone, Poor William ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... 216. Mary's extreme animosity against Elizabeth may easily be conceived, and it broke out about this tune in an incident which may appear curious. While the former queen was kept in custody by the earl of Shrewsbury, she lived during a long time in great intimacy with the countess; but that lady entertaining a jealousy of an amour between her and the earl, their friendship was converted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... instant her fellow with the flute commenced a tune to keep her company, whilst some one posted at her side kept handing her the hoops till she had twelve in all. With these in her hands she fell to dancing, and the while she danced she flung the hoops ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... you know this tune? (Goes over to the piano.) It is all the rage now. I heard it all over Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but breaks off suddenly.) I will go and fetch the music, while I think of it! (Goes into his room and comes out again ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... just opposite my father's house in the suburbs of Huntsville, belonging to Judge Smith, formerly a Senator in Congress from South Carolina, now of Huntsville. The name of his overseer was Tune. I have often seen him flogging the slaves in the field, and have often heard their cries. Sometimes, too, I have met them with the tears streaming down their faces, and the marks of the whip, ('whelks,') on their bare necks and shoulders. Tune was so severe in his treatment, that his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... first line, and so on till all sections were singing. When any section reached the word "As—" they began again at the beginning. The first line was chanted in a low, slow monotone, the others were sung as rapidly as possible to a rattling little tune on a high pitch. Imagine the noise, confusion and laughter. Many a dull afternoon in school has been broken up by it, and countless children have returned to their little tasks with new enthusiasm. The old things are not always to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... single consonant, or after st or th, generally preserves the open or long sound of the preceding vowel; as in cane, here, pine, cone, tune, thyme, baste, waste, lathe, clothe: except in syllables unaccented; as in the last of genuine;—and in a few monosyllables; as bade, are, were, gone, shone, one, done, give, live, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... to attribute to Moore successes which the latter only owed to himself. Byron had, as the reader knows, the most musical of voices. Once heard, it could not be forgotten.[26] He had never learned music, but his ear was so just, that when he hummed a tune his voice was so touching as to ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... between ten and twelve o'clock of the forenoon of that day, dance for a quarter of an hour at least, on the ground adjoining the mausoleum, and after the dance sing the 100th Psalm of the old version, to the fine old tune to which the same was then sung in St. Ives Church; L1 to a fiddler who shall play to the girls while dancing and singing at the mausoleum, and also before them on their return home therefrom; L2 to two widows of seamen, fishermen or tinners of the borough, being sixty-four years ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... commonsense; and that served us very ill—or very well, according to the point of view. Ours was that of the birds, singing to the sky and careless of the snake in the grass so long as they can pipe their tune. Of a surety that is the only course. If one would make provision against every chance of accident, one must dematerialize. To die is the only way ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... hall-porter had handed me a letter intended for my "double." Of course I imitated his walk, his mannerisms at the piano, and his voice, but I made a poor attempt to sing. This was the joke. "What was the matter?" "Never sang like that before," "Evidently thinks it is funny to be completely out of tune," "Hullo, what is this?" as my "double" walked through the crowded room just as I finished, ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... seeing is not weak. The Woman I behold, whose vision seek All eyes and know not; t'ward whom climb The steps o' the world, and beats all wing of rhyme, And knows not; 'twixt the sun and moon Her inexpressible front enstarred Tempers the wrangling spheres to tune; Their divergent harmonies Concluded in the concord of her eyes, And vestal dances of her glad regard. I see, which fretteth with surmise Much heads grown unsagacious-grey, The slow aim of wise-hearted Time, Which ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... spontaneous impression with good- humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the tune, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another. [Footnote: ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them. The oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... merit. Away out of sight and hearing, we imagined the glorious sea breaking and frothing over the rocks, and the points of land that stretched out ruggedly towards the horizon; but we did not go down to it. We felt out of tune with our surroundings, and only cared for the moment when we should commence the long drive homeward. Had we possessed some special anathema, some charm that would have placed our driver under a mild punishment for twenty-four ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... recognized the tune as that which Thelma had sung at her spinning-wheel, and his bold bright eyes grew pensive and soft, as the picture of the fair face and form rose up again before his mind. Absorbed in a reverie, he almost started when Lorimer ceased playing, and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... He saw a dim twilight above this and ascended out of the blackness into a street of moving ways again. Along this a disorderly swarm of people marched shouting. They were singing snatches of the song of the revolt, most of them out of tune. Here and there torches flared creating brief hysterical shadows. He asked his way and was twice puzzled by that same thick dialect. His third attempt won an answer he could understand. He was two miles from the wind-vane offices in Westminster, but ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... musicians, rendered greedy rather than inspired by the presence of more clients, now began to pluck a lively street tune from their instruments; and the waiter, whose mustaches seemed if possible bigger now that night was truly come, poured the white wine into the glasses with the air of one making ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... and would even point significantly with his thumb over his right shoulder. When a more than ordinarily verdant customer would come with his money, Mr. Books would shrug his shoulders, drum with his fingers on the desk, and hum a tune to the words— ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... The tune to which she sang her lines was rather merry than otherwise, and sometimes she would dance to the measure. The boys were kind to her, and she liked to enter a school-yard during play time, because the young people used to share their sweets ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... that night from a vestry meeting to which he went after dinner. The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed into the study for prayers. Prayers over they rose and went out, and he sat down. His habits were becoming fixed and for some years he had always read ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... absence of frost under such conditions is positive proof of an entirely dry atmosphere, and this is a piano's most dangerous enemy, causing the sounding board to crack, shrinking up the bridges, and consequently putting the piano seriously out of tune, also causing an undue dryness in all the action parts and often a loosening of the glue joints, thus producing clicks and rattles. To obviate this difficulty is by no means an easy task and will require considerable attention. Permit all the fresh air possible ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... muster courage to push open the vestry door, the Widder Poll sat alone by the stove, still unwinding her voluminous wrappings, and the singers had very pointedly withdrawn by themselves. Brad and Jont had begun to tune their fiddles, and the first prelusive snapping of strings at once awakened Heman's nerves to a pleasant tingling; he was excited at the nearness of the coming joy. He drew a full breath when it struck home to him, with the warm ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... thoughe my booty have made me no ritcher then I was, poorer then I am I canott bee. Nowe[136] wherein is the ritche more happy then the poore? I thinke rather lesse blessed and that shall approue by this excellent good ballet, thoughe sett to a scurvy tune. ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... had returned from escorting Ethelyn to her door, was that Miss Grant was far superior to any girl he had ever met since Daisy died, and like the Judge in Whittier's "Maud Muller," he whistled snatches of an old love tune he had not whistled in years, as he went slowly back to his uncle's, and thought strange thoughts for him, the grave old bachelor who had said he should never marry. He was not looking for a wife, as rumor intimated, but he dreamed of Ethelyn Grant that night, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... King," what would be the result? Why, that more than half the passengers would prove so shy they could not even attempt it; another quarter might wander about the notes at their own sweet will, and, perhaps, a small percentage would sing it in tune. But then, just think, the Finns are so imbued with music, and practise so continually—for they seem to sing on every conceivable occasion—that the sopranos naturally took up their part, the basses and the tenors kept to their own ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... when not wanted, always having his own way, always tyrannizing over the dog, and always making the cat's life a slow sorrow and a martyrdom. He knew a number of tunes and could sing them in perfect time and tune; and would do it, too, at any time that silence was wanted; and then encore himself and do it again; but if he was asked to sing he would go ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in that most thoroughgoing and inspired of all Shakespear's loves: his love of music (which Mr Harris has been the first to appreciate at anything like its value), there is a dash of mockery. "Spit in the hole, man; and tune again." "Divine air! Now is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale the souls out of men's bodies?" "An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him." There is just as much Shakespear here as in the inevitable quotation about the ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... worth of gold. O merry maids who shared our cheer, Your eyes are dim, your locks are gray; And as you scrub I sadly fear Your daughters speed the dance to-day. O windmill land and crescent moon! O Columbine and Pierrette! To you my old guitar I tune Ere I forget, ere I forget. ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... if you like that kind of looks, he's the kind of man you'd like," said Randy, "but coming down he seemed rather out of tune ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... of Cumberland County dreaded him. All the scattered valley-folk spoke softly at his name. And the jest and joy of Israel's care-free life was to make them skip and shiver and dance to the tune of their trepidations. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... 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 ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... she came to the end of the stanza. "Us didn't know when he was a-singin' dat tune to us chillun dat when us growed up us would be cake walkin' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, 355 A needless Alexandrine ends the song That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line, 360 Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... Irelander," Laurence was saying defiantly to the world at large, with his fists up and his head thrown back. "Saint Christopher, but I will take the lot of you with one hand tied behind me. Stand up and I will teach you how to sing 'Miserable sinners are we all!' to a new and unkenned tune." ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... which might be quoted against the family of the owl, I think I only know of one little ode which expresses any pity for it. Our nursery maid used to sing it to the tune of the Storm, "Cease rude Boreas, blust'ring railer." I remember the first ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... at the merry-go-round; he admired the cheerful tune that it played. He was not a connoisseur of music; a barrel-organ was as good to him as the organ in the Groote Kerk. The others stopped too; Anna exclaimed on the life-like and clever appearance of the bobbing horses, whereupon ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... the tune of their wild "Ha-ha!" A warrior's shout and a raven's caw— Circling the pot and the blaming fire To the tom-tom's bray and the rude bassoon; Round and round to their heart's desire, And ever the same wild chant and tune— ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... to hum a soft tune. Someone else brought forth a harmonica that had been smuggled aboard, and suddenly Paul Chernov burst into song, his deep baritone, perhaps inspired by the captain's speech earlier in the day, lending the wailing "The Spaceman's Lament," an ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... and I, meeting Creed in the Parke again, did take him by coach and to Islington, thinking to have met my Lady Pen and wife, but they were gone, so we eat and drank and away back, setting him down in Cheapside and I home, and there after a little while making of my tune to "It is ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... stated at the close of this newspaper romance,—and it may nevertheless be true,—that these events were embodied in a song bearing the same title with this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set to a tune of the same name, both being composed by a colored man. The reporter claims to have heard it in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of the white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It would certainly be one of history's strange parallelisms, if this fatal enterprise, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... careless boy, whistling a merry tune, and with his hands thrust into his pockets. Confidence and hope made her ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... gray crepe, gardenias at the belt, little brimmed hats of black velvet with a single gardenia on the side, the flowers being the offering of the dramatic soprano, who loved Tommy. They were young, they were pretty, they sang delightfully in tune, and with quite bewitching effect. Several ladies fell in love with them at first sight, and hoped that they would sing for nothing a few times, "just to get themselves known." They had done nothing else for two years, so that Tommy said they must be acquainted with the entire State of ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the stranger had read the entire hymn, and he then repeated the two first lines for them to sing. Brother Wade usually started the tune. He tried it this time, but went off on a long metre tune. Discovering his mistake at the second word, he balked, and tried it again, but now he stumbled on short metre. A musical brother here came to his aid, and ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... might not have calisthenics, evidently thinking that I would enjoy the drill more than the mathematics. It was interesting to see those Manchu ladies stand and go through a thorough physical drill to the tune of a lively march on a foreign organ. The Japanese are masters in matters of physical drill, and in the schools I have visited I have been pleased at the quiet dignity, and the reserve force and sweetness ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... British marched from their intrenchments, their bands playing a quaint old English tune, called The World Turned Upside Down, and, passing between 30 the French and American troops drawn up in line to receive them, laid down their arms. At the head of the victorious columns rode Washington, Hamilton, Knox, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... no misgivings as to the treatment he would receive from the boys of the neighborhood. The question of his social standing had been settled. He even got ready to whistle a tune, so that if any boy's back was turned, and there was danger of Johnnie's not being seen, he could call attention to himself—he, the intimate friend of a ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... but nineteen, and had seen plenty of wrecks, whereas these banns were to her an event of singular interest, for weeks anticipated with small thrills. Therefore, as the people passed her by, she felt suddenly out of tune with them, especially with Zeb, who, at least, might have understood her better. Some angry tears gathered in her eyes at the callous indifference of her father, who just now was revolving in the porch like a weathercock, and shouting orders east, west, north, ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... it would be dark in a short tune, Ned remained crouched low in the bushes, hoping to escape detection in that way, but footsteps came closer and closer to his hiding place, and he sprang up just in time to see a lithe figure hurtling toward him, the figure of a tall, slender man with an ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... certainly expect to hear him some day astonish the bar, by unwittingly striking up "O Pescator delle onde," or "Sul margine del Rio," in the Rolls Court; and, as in ancient Greece ('tis said) pleadings were chanted, let us yet hope to hear an argument preferred to the tune of "They are a' noddin, noddin, noddin;" an answer stated andante; a reply given in a bravura, and judgment pronounced presto. With all his faults (if they be such, which I do not admit), the present Master of the Rolls is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... Mab and all, nursed up the fire that Henry had raked out; and if Saturnalia could be held over the writing out of a hymn tune, they did it! At any rate, it had the charm of an assertion of independence; and to Averil it was something like a midnight meeting of persecuted Christians—to Leonard it ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... degree; things there are not so artificially disguised as in towns, real sentiments are discovered, and the passions play naturally and without restraint. As for example, it was only in the country I could have found out Lady J——'s particular attachment to the tune of Appie Mac-Nab; in the town, no doubt, she would have pretended a great liking for Voi Amante; in the town, I never would have seen Lady B—— go out armed for fear of the Turkey-cock, which is her daily practice here, and leaves room for numberless reflections: ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... tumultuous applause, plunged himself at once into "The King, God Bless Him," which he sang as loud as he could, to a novel air, compounded to the "Bay of Biscay," and "A Frog He Would." The chorus was the essence of the song, and, as each gentleman sang it to the tune he knew best, the effect was ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... While humming the tune, CHRISTINE clears o$ the table after JEAN, washes the plate at the kitchen table, wipes it, and puts it away ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... sovereignties— These tenderest, and by the nectar-wine, The passion"——"O lov'd Ida the divine! Endymion! dearest! Ah, unhappy me! His soul will 'scape us—O felicity! How he does love me! His poor temples beat To the very tune of love—how sweet, sweet, sweet. Revive, dear youth, or I shall faint and die; Revive, or these soft hours will hurry by In tranced dulness; speak, and let that spell 770 Affright this lethargy! I cannot quell Its heavy pressure, and will ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... about a dozen persons, who called themselves "God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant." To the profane, they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a noted humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings always opened to the tune of "The Deil Fly Away with the Exciseman," and that the sacrament was dispensed in the form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked hits at the evangelist, who had been suspected of smuggling in his youth, and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... India-rubber conscience Hacket, as well as his patron, must have had! Policy with innocency,' 'cunning with conscience,' lead up the dance to the tune of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge |
