"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... still could see that slender strand of imperm wire, how its silvery length had turned to red under the blue flame. Deep red at first and then brighter until it flamed in almost white-hot incandescence. And all the while the humming of the transformer as the force field built up. The humming of the transformer and the muted roaring of the burner and the glowing heat in the length ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... gay plumage and varied melodies, inspired delight; every traveller expressed his pleasure in listening to the mocking-bird, which carolled a thousand several tunes, imitating and excelling the notes of all its rivals. The humming-bird, so brilliant in its plumage, and so delicate in its form, quick in motion, yet not fearing the presence of man, hunting about the flowers like the bee gathering honey, rebounding from the blossoms into which ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... as boys sailing kites. One of the models fluttered and settled down before it reached the other side, and David's machine, which had commanded most attention because it was different, started out bravely enough, its little propeller making a busy humming as it skimmed along. But it had gone hardly ten yards before it collapsed and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... pleased. Chloe was half a century old, with a warm, affectionate, red heart under her black seeming; and it pulsated around me now, as I lay there, under her care, in absolute quiet, hushed to content by her humming ways ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... simply told in the golden words of a poet. They are calculated to teach us humanity toward the winged creatures of the air, so often the victims of our cruel sports. We have The Swallow, The Eagle, The Robin, The Cock, The Swan, The Falcon, The Wood Dove, The Humming Bird, The Scarlet Tannager, The Peacock, and The Owl, each bird occupying his own illuminated page; each with his own simple and touching legend. Mr. Leland's little poems will speak to many a heart, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... said, taking the old man by the sleeve, and leading him down the road with him. "There is something that I have to say to you, and it is easier for me to say it now, when the good beer is humming in my ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scolding. "What are they about?" He waited patiently. At last all was still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. "How is it they all make such a noise?" flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs when he heard ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... which the ungallant M. de Maupeou had had the politeness to send me in the morning. One of the company proceeded to cut it, when scarcely had he pierced the crust, than its perfidious contents proved to be an immense swarm of cockchafers, which spread humming and buzzing all over the chamber. Zamor, who had never before seen these insects, began to pursue them all over the room, buzzing and humming as loudly as they did. The chase lasted a long time; but at last the poor cockchafers weary of carrying on the war, and mistaking the peruke ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... was alone in the yellow sunlight which poured over the slope from the west: and I went musing on till getting to the corner of the stables I saw Darry just round the corner grooming a black horse. He was working energetically, and humming to himself as he worked a refrain which I learned afterwards to know well. All I could make out was, "I'm going home"—several times repeated. I came near before he saw me, and he started; then bid me good evening and "hoped I found ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... women, some children, and a good bourgeois of about forty years old, who, seeing that the collection was about to begin again, quitted his place with an air of profound contempt for all these new songs, and humming an old pastoral which he placed infinitely above them. It seemed to him that several men as he passed them made him signs; but as he did not belong to any secret society or any masonic lodge, he went on, singing ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... porker in the backward regions of the place, the stamp of a horse's foot, and the rattle of a chain in a manger-ring—sounds quite unmusical in themselves—blended with the birds' singing, and the thick humming of the bees, into an actual music in which no note was discordant. The day was without a cloud, and the soft light was diffused everywhere on a ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... "Ogostine," but festal lilts of Italy, liquid and strangely sweet to her; and at such times, when the actual voice was not in her ears, still she blushed with delight to hear in her heart the thrilling echoes of his barcaroles, and found them humming cheerily ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... family luxuries and you are lost as far as satisfying them economically is concerned," remarked a clever housewife. "Even a rat will not taste bread when bacon is nigh," observed a sage physiologist. The demand for flavor grows and grows with pampering, till nothing but humming-birds' tongues and miniature geese floating in a sea of aspic jelly will satisfy the palate of him who eats solely for flavor—who never knows the sauce of hunger, or the deliciousness of a plain crust of bread. We must be on ...
— Everyday Foods in War Time • Mary Swartz Rose
... and scarlet vine, Over the doorway twist and twine And every day, when the house is still, The humming-bird comes to the window-sill. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... sitting pressed to one another, seemed like one person. A poet would have admired their two heads, inspired by the same sentiment, colored in the same tones, silent and saddened in presence of that humming happiness sparkling in diamonds, gay with flowers,—a gayety in which there was something fleeting. The joy of those noisy and splendid groups was visible; that of Ginevra and Luigi was buried in their bosom. On one side the tumult of common pleasure, on the other, the delicate ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... detract little from the beauty and interest of the woodlands. The warblers, the humming bird, the tanager, the bob-o-link, the ovenbird, the vireos, the chat, the red start, the oriole, the dickcissel, the black-billed cuckoo, all greeted their friends as numerously as ever. So with the flowers: the columbine, the shooting star, the painted cup, the puccoon, the beautiful ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... full of the idea. He talked about it to his clerks at the store. He looked into restaurant windows, humming a tune in the excess of his delight. He looked into bakers' windows and confectionery shops, and a whiff of frying bacon from a little blind court he passed almost set him dancing. Indeed, Mr. Grapewine was ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... cod and haddock in the other seasons. He never felt so happy as when he was on the sea; and if he couldn't go to sea, he sat alone at home in the croft mending his gear. He never went down to the harbour for work like the other fishermen and never worked on the land. Humming away and talking to himself he fiddled about in his shed, around his boat-house or his croft, his hands all grubby with tar and grease. If addressed, he was abrupt and curt in his answers, sometimes even abusive. Hardly ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... people are. I don't feel the joy of the little animals playing, the freedom of the flight of birds, the ghostly plucking of the growing grass, the sweet stab of the mating lust of the wild-horned apigator, the humming of bees working to build a hive, and the sleepy stupid arrogance of the giant cabbage-eating deuxnez. I can feel nothing without the Skin I have worn so long. I ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... Kate humming, "Somewhere the sun is shining," solely, I believe, because she knew it aggravated me. At any other time I should probably have thrown a pillow at her, but just now I was too eager to see if Jim ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Correy!" I snapped as I hurried to the instrument. "Dival, take those reports." I gestured towards the two attention signals that were glowing and softly humming and thrust my head into the shelter of the television instrument's ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... growing dusk as the man went away. The crickets sang with a loud, accusing, clamour. Slowly we turned and went into the dark house, David whistling under his breath. Elizabeth was resting in her chair. She was humming an old hymn ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... with a white moss which hangs from their branches to the ground. At night-time, when the moonlight falls, pearly grey, on the indeterminate crest of the forests, the trees look like an army of phantoms in long, trailing veils. In the daytime a crowd of large, beautiful butterflies, brilliant humming birds, and blue-winged jays and parroquets come and cling to the moss, which then resembles a white tapestry embroidered ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the idea that Mote and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go to a musical show, and while the performance is going on he can tell everybody in his section just which composer each song number was stolen from, humming the original air aloud to show the points of resemblance. He can do this, I say, and, what is more, he does do it. At the table d'hote place, when the Neapolitan troubadours come out in their little green ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Wordsworth was as worthy of tradition as it was explanatory, from her point of view, of the method in which Wordsworth composed, and was helped in his labours by his enthusiastic sister. 'Well, you know,' she said, 'Mr. Wordsworth went humming and booing about, and she, Miss Dorothy, kept close behint him, and she picked up the bits as he let 'em fall, and tak' 'em down, and put 'em together on paper for him. And you may be very well sure as how she didn't understand ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... waist; he carry'd his hat under his left arm, walk'd with both hands in the waistband of his breeches, and his cane, that hung negligently down in a string from his right arm, trail'd most harmoniously against the pebbles, while the master of it was tripping it nicely upon his toes or humming to himself." About this period in cold weather men wore muffs as well as wigs. A ballad, describing the frost fair on the Thames in the winter of 1683-84, mentions amongst ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... father, but his heart ached when he thought of the woman who should be by his side. Oh that they two could undertake this magical journey together, silent and alone in a silent and lonely world. He made no inquiries for Anne, and Daisy said nothing. Only when the car was humming along the homeward road to land them at the church did she open her mouth. The awe had worn off, and she babbled as of old in the very face ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... of the trail and passed her as though she had been a cactus or a rock that he must walk around! Mary V went hot all over, with rage before her wits came back. Johnny had not gone ten feet ahead of her when she was humming softly to herself a little, old-fashioned tune. And the tune ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... of earth; Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale, In harmless sport and mirth, (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!) Thou human humming-bee extracting honey From ev'ry blossom in the world that blows, Singing in Youth's Elysium ever sunny, (Another tumble!—that's his precious nose!) Thy father's pride and hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!) With pure heart newly stamp'd from Nature's ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... bees went for honey, And the humming-birds too; And there the pretty butterflies ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... I was playing when you came in? (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... stretches on and on under the forests of the Vosges, there is a stone-breaker whom I have seen at his work for thirty years. The first time I came upon him, I was a young student, setting out with swelling heart for the great city. The sight of this man did me good, for he was humming a song as he broke his stones. We exchanged a few words, and he said at the end: "Well, good-by, my boy, good courage and good luck!" Since then I have passed and repassed along that same route, under circumstances the most diverse, painful and joyful. The ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... a very poetical nature; but I think the scene by which we were surrounded aroused what little I had. The birds were finding their way to the hedgerows to seek rest for the night, ever and anon giving a faint chirp of content. The beetles went humming heedlessly by, the bees laden with honey returned to their hives, and all nature seemed to be at peace. The honeysuckle and the hedge flowers that grew in wild confusion perfumed the lane in which we walked; the nuts hung ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... I watch thy coming, As evening shadows stretch o'er moor and dell; When the wild bee hath ceased her busy humming, And silence hangs on all ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the crowds filled the space from wall to wall, so that when a string of coolies came along, bearing burdens in the usual manner from a stick over the shoulder and humming the cheerful though monotonous "get-out-of-the-way" tune, we had to step aside, close against or into some store to let them pass; and when an occasional chair came along it swept the entire traffic aside as a taxi might in a crowded alley of ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... bound, is brewing tea! She's humming at her work the way she will, And, happen so, she maybe thinks of me And wishes she'd another ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that the fertility of a cheerful mind crowds everything, so that the tree is entangled in its own branches; or it may be that the cheerful mind cares less whether it is understood or not; as a man is less articulate when he is humming than when ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... of the Dominie, the boys perceiving that he was no longer wrapped up in his algebra, had partly settled to their desks, and in their apparent attention to their lessons reminded me of the humming of bees before a hive ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the task a mind polished and matured by judgment and experience. But, generally speaking, we rather expect reason than rhyme from an elderly gentleman; and when the reverse is the case, the pursuit fits them as ridiculously as would a humming-top or a hoop. Yet there are many who, having passed a life in the sole occupation of making money—the most unpoetical of all avocations—that in their retirement entertain themselves with such fantastic pranks and antics, as only serve to amuse the lookers-on. A ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... sofa again; she felt bruised and scant of breath; her head was humming with new knowledge. "I'm much obliged to you," she repeated. And then she added abruptly, in quite a different tone: "How ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... transported him; and he did these things instinctively, mechanically, without interruption to his rapture. Speed and the wind of speed, the air rushing by like a water-race as he ripped through it, the streaming past him of trees and hedges, the humming and throbbing of his engines, were ecstasy to Jimmy. He had learned to drive the thing, and his sense of power over it gave him the physical exaltation that he craved for. I believe that when he sat in his motor-car, driving it, he was filled, intoxicated, with the ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... an hour later Hans Mueller was heard coming back. The German boy was humming to himself and at the same time throwing up the new ball he had ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... Humming a bar of a Genoese barcarole, Muriel ran up stairs to join her governess; but Salome turned and followed the master of the house to the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... surface of splendid flowers. The scarlet cups of the trumpet-vine (bignonia), the white starlike blossoms of the cypress-creeper, and the pink flowers of the wild althea or cotton-rose (hibiscus grandiflora), all blended their colours, inviting the large painted butterflies and ruby-throated humming birds that played among their silken corollas. As if in contrast with these bright spots in the landscape, there were others that looked dark and gloomy. You could see through long vistas in the forest, where the trees grew out of green slimy water. Here there was no underwood, either ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the coming of his friend in the latter's study, and when Borgert entered, serene of brow and humming an operatic tune, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... told. Lives crammed with a succession of such grand and palpitating adventures lie beyond the reach of clumsy words. The sweetness sometimes was intolerable, and then they shared it with the entire lawn and so obtained relief—yet merely in order to begin again. The humming of the rising Spring continued with the thunderous droning of the turning Earth. Never uncared for, part of everything, full of the big, rich life that brims the world in May—ah, almost fuller than they could hold sometimes—they passed with existence ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... through the Western reserves like red fire through prairie-grass, blowing almost into flame the war-spirit of the young braves of the Bloods, Piegans and Sarcees and even of the more stable Blackfeet. Three days after that check, the news of it was humming through every tepee in the West, and for a week or more it took all the cool courage and steady nerve characteristic of the Mounted Police to enable them to ride without flurry or hurry their daily patrols through ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... varied is the flight of birds! The falcon soars above the clouds, and remains in the air for many hours without any sign of exertion. The swallow, the lark, and other species, sail long distances with little effort. Others, like the sparrow and the humming-bird, have a fluttering flight. Some, as the owl, fly without any noise; and some, like the partridge, with ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Arlee hesitated, while her imagination fluttered about the thought like humming-birds about sweets. Already she was thinking of the story she could have to tell to her fellow travelers here and to the people at home. It was a chance, she repeated to herself, in a thousand, and the familiar details of phones and motors ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... of the 2nd was a beautiful summer's day; nature was in perfect repose; the birds sang gayly, the humming of bees and fragrance of flowers filled the air. We were busily engaged making our morning ablutions in some shell holes when, like a bolt from the blue, hell broke loose in the form of the most violent bombardment I had experienced up to that time, lasting ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... hurrying visitors pass, he walked into the next room designated for interviews. On opening the door he was struck by the deafening shouts of a hundred throats turned into a continuous humming noise. Only as he neared the people, who, like flies swarming on sugar pressed their faces against a net which divided the room in two, did Nekhludoff understand the cause of the noise. This room with windows in the rear wall ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... breakfast to transport her to where saddle-horses were waiting in the Park. Sometimes it would turn up about lunch-time and stand impatiently chugging while she changed into sport's clothes, after which it would dash away with her, humming contentedly, into the depths of the country. It was the magic-carpet which obeyed all her desires. After war-days, with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the freedom and serenity which ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... began to fall, and has continued to pour down steadily ever since. The night is gloomy. Adjutant Wilson, in the next tent, is endeavoring to lift himself from the slough of despond by humming a ditty of true love; but the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... "convoy the two little cruisers to Annapolis." His offer was accepted with so many gushing responses that the poor man looked about as bewildered as a great St. Bernard which has inadvertently upset a cage of humming birds, and finds them fluttering all about him. Lily and Helen were of a different type from the girls he knew best, but he accepted the situation gracefully and enjoyed himself hugely with the ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... gay that morning. On the previous day she had gone with Pierre and Antoine on a cycling excursion over frightful roads in the direction of Montmorency, whence they had returned in a state of mingled anger and delight. When Guillaume stopped her in the little garden, he found her humming a song while returning bare-armed from the scullery, where some ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... none of them thought harm from him. And in the night, when they were at their dance about the mountain, the Coyote stole the fire, and ran with it down the slope of the burning mountain. When the Fire Spirits saw what he had done they streamed out after him, red and angry, with a humming sound like a swarm of bees. But the Coyote was still ahead; the sparks of the brand streamed out along his flanks, as he carried it in his mouth; and he stretched his body ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... of unreality hung about the events of the last few days. I felt myself slowly waking as though from a nightmare. The dazzling sunshine was everywhere around us; the whir of reaping machines, the slighter humming of bees, and the song of birds, were in our ears; the perfume of all manner of flowers, and of the new-mown hay, made the air wonderfully sweet. My guest, in a cool grey flannel suit and a Panama hat, was by my side, looking like a man who has taken a new lease of life. He had ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... taken care during this experiment to place the bobbin quite near the horse's ear, so that he could hear the humming of the interrupter, undertook a second experiment in the following way: Having detached the conductors from the armature, he placed himself in front of the horse (as shown in Fig. 2), and began to imitate the humming sound of the interrupter with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... the humming October goes merrily round, And each with good humour is happily crown'd, The song and the dance, and the mirth-giving jest, Alike without harm by each one is expressed; For never as yet it was counted a crime, To be merry and cherry at that happy ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... terrified by the harrowing emotions the song always roused in her, but more by the dreadful sensation of walking that crowded Avenue with a man humming German at ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... made his purchase, and hurried back to the rectory. The shop-keeper stood in the doorway looking in surprise at this grown man who came to buy a top. And at home in the rectory the old housekeeper listened in equal surprise to the humming noise over her head. She thought at first it might be a bee that had got in somehow. Then she realised that it was not quite the same noise, and having already concluded that it was of no use to be surprised ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... humming air, and still the pursuing speck chased us. And minute by minute it became more distinct against the background of the great cloud dome. Presently Edmund called our attention to ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... more wax, more vigorous polishing, more singing, with longer pauses for breath. "'Knowest thou the land where the lemon trees bloom?'" he bellowed—sprinkle of wax, right foot, left foot, any foot at all. Now and then he took the score from his pocket and pored over it, humming the air, raising his eyebrows over the high notes, dropping his chin to the low ones. It was a wonderful morning. Between greetings to neighbors he sang—a bit of ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I should longer have indulged my self, had not the dear Creatures called to me to ask what I wanted, when I could not answer, only To look at you. I went to one of the Windows which opened to the Area below, where all the several Voices lost their Distinction, and rose up in a confused Humming; which created in me a Reflection that could not come into the Mind of any but of one a little too studious; for I said to my self, with a kind of Pun in Thought, What Nonsense is all the Hurry of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with the chanting of amorous phrases of invitation addressed to the woman. At daylight the man stands up alone and swings the churinga, causing it first to strike the ground as he whirls it round and round and makes it hum. His friends remain silent, and the sound of the humming is carried to the ears of the far-distant woman, and has the power of compelling affection and of causing her sooner or later to comply with the summons. Not long ago, at Alice Springs, a man called some of his friends together and performed the ceremony, and in a very ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... to the gate under the arch of boughs dimly lit by the moon. She stretched her arms passionately toward him. Then she went in to go to bed. But at the sound of Ruth humming gayly in the next room, she realized that she could not sleep with her heart full of evil thoughts. She must have it out with her cousin. She knocked ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... this time appeared the fourth and concluding volume of his engravings, and the fifth of his descriptions. The whole comprised four hundred and thirty-five plates, containing one thousand and sixty-five figures, from the Bird of Washington to the Humming Bird, of the size of life, and a great variety of land and marine views, and coral and other productions, of different climates and seasons, all carefully drawn and colored after nature. Well might the great naturalist felicitate himself upon the completion of his gigantic ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... we went to Venice; and now comes the singular part of my story. In Venice there is a little court of which I forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice. Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... harp still kept up its rhythmic humming; and presently, muffled by distance and winding passages, as it seemed out from the very stones of the rugged tower, in a voice, harsh, strong, yet cultivated, came the second verse of that love-song, sung with a full heart, throbbing ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... are still going on. The boys are all well and lively, except that I have just passed Randall standing gloomy at the door of his tent, feeling very much insulted because someone at breakfast called him a grabber. Apart from him the street is humming with talk, as the boys make up their ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... because he would thrash her if she didn't. I guess she never had a "hockey stick" play round her ankles in recess, because she got above a fellow in the class. I guess she never had him twitch off her best cap, and toss it in a mud-puddle. I guess she never had to give her humming-top to quiet the baby, and had the paint all sucked off. I guess she never saved up all her coppers a whole winter to buy a trumpet, and then was told she must not blow it, because it would ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... were to send me one. I have been true to Ben all along. I have never given him up. He may get out of place in life, but he is sure to get back again. A true heart always does. I am sure that it is a spinet that he will send. I dreamed," she added, "that I heard a humming sound in the air something like a harp. I dreamed it in the morning, ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... day late in June when the rich, thick, amber light of afternoon seemed to float in the air. Warm summer lay on the land. The bees were humming in the rose vines over the porch. Mrs. Iden, who evidently heard Lane's step, appeared in the path, and nodding her gladness at sight of him, she pointed to ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... slowly, the wings are fluttered fast, giving vertical blows; if it wants to pause absolutely in still air, (this large birds cannot do, not being able to move their wings fast enough,) the velocity becomes vibration, as in the humming-bird: but if there is wind, any of the larger birds can lay themselves on it like a kite, their own weight answering the purpose of the string,[14] while they keep the wings and tail in an inclined plane, giving them as much gliding ascent as counteracts the fall. They nearly all, however, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... 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 ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... and stepped inside. A pile of sheet music lay upon the table, and she stood a few minutes beside it, turning over the leaves and humming softly to herself. There was a rap at the door, and Uncle ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... inch of ground was carpeted with thick moss, more splendid than the weavings of any loom of man, into which the feet sank noiselessly. Everywhere the peaceful stillness was tempered only by a slight humming of the trees, and the songs of myriad birds, not a human being within screaming distance, unless some gang of bandits stalked us in the depth of the forest. More likely they were by now sodden with the aftermath of Sunday festivities, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... noon, the base of the musical fountain, he found it composed of a white friable sandstone, and presenting on two of its sides sandy declivities. He watched beside it for an hour and a quarter, and then heard, for the first time, a low undulating sound, somewhat resembling that of a humming top, which rose and fell, and ceased and began, and then ceased again; and in an hour and three quarters after, when in the act of climbing along the declivity, he heard the sound yet louder and more prolonged. It seemed as if issuing from under his ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... through all!" he cried, speaking loudly because of a humming in his ears. "They are lying in the streets! They are dying, are dead, are hunted, are pursued, are perishing! But I have come through all ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... find the aqueduct trailing, thousand-footed, through the brush. It is not a wilderness; it is rather a preserve. And, fitly enough, the centre of the maze is not a hermit's cavern. In the midst, a little mirthful town lies sunlit, humming with the business of pleasure; and the palace, breathing distinction and peopled by historic names, stands smokeless ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an embarrassing nature to speak of. To begin with she was more affectionate than usual, seeming to wish with the honey of her kisses to sweeten the bitter cross which the mistress was doomed to bear. Then she hesitated. She fidgeted about the room humming. At last she said that the doctor had come at the request of Serge, who was most anxious about his wife's health. And that excellent Doctor Rigaud, who had known her from a child, had found her suffering from great weakness. He ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... 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, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... groan—whether of remorse for having taken the bank-notes, or of disgust at the task before him, I am unable to say. After writing a few lines (too far away from my peep-hole to give me a chance of reading over his shoulder), he leaned back in his chair, and amused himself by humming the tunes of popular songs. I recognized "My Mary Anne," "Bobbin' Around," and "Old Dog Tray," among other melodies. Whether these do or do not represent secret signals by which he communicates with his accomplices remains to be seen. After he had amused himself for some time by humming, he got ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... complexion; and the limbs that rested in a careless attitude on the stone bench were long and languid, though with years and favourable circumstances there might be a development of beauty and dignity. Her lips were crooning at intervals a mournful old Scottish tune, sometimes only humming, sometimes uttering its melancholy burthen, and she now and then touched a small harp that stood by her side on ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Peschiera, three of these men sprang into the boat, and got ready their oars. The fourth carefully re-adjusted a plank thrown from the boat to the wharf, and offered his arm obsequiously to Peschiera. The count was the first to enter, and, humming a gay opera air, took his place by the helm. The two females were next lifted in, and Violante felt her hand pressed almost convulsively by the man who stood by the plank. The rest followed, and in another minute the boat bounded swiftly over the waves towards a vessel ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... though she did it by fits and starts, going at it sometimes as if every limb was iron and was moved by a steam-engine, and then for days doing nothing, playing with a neighbor's baby, sitting by the window, humming some old tune to herself, in a way that even Andy thought idle and childish. For the rest, he had thought little about her, except that she was a strangely clean and silent woman, and kind, even to tenderness,—to him; but to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... up for this, I have here almost an avenue of fine lemon-trees, in cases; humming-birds, which are a marvel and enchantment to me; and fire-flies, which are exquisite in the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... tone elevated, diffusive, and interjectional. Some of our best novelists patronize this tone. The words must be all in a whirl, like a humming-top, and make a noise very similar, which answers remarkably well instead of meaning. This is the best of all possible styles where the writer is in too great a hurry ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... insupportable thirst. A few yards from the well I constructed a large wooden trough, which I kept filled with water; and each day it was visited by the most extraordinary flocks of birds of every size and variety of plumage—from emus down to what looked like humming-birds. Huge snakes, ten and fifteen feet long, bustled the kangaroos away from the life-giving trough; and occasionally the crowd would be so excessive that some of the poor creatures would have to wait hours before their thirst was satisfied,—and ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... 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
... Tresserves, at the foot of those chestnut-trees that have 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 or sand; when ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the glare as if they were afloat; the hippos took to the water, and a deep and drowsy silence fell upon the great river. But man, ever restless, was astir, and through the stillness there was borne to the three a soft continuous humming, that merged quietly into the short, clamorous throbs of an engine at work ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the northern end of Luzon the Retriever kicked round in a belt of light and baffling airs for a week. Then the monsoon freshened somewhat and the Retriever once more rolled lazily away on her course, with young Matt Peasley humming chanteys on her quarter-deck and pondering the mystery that confronts all mankind in their first adventure in fatherhood. Would it be a boy or a girl? He was expressing to himself for perhaps the thousandth time the hope that it would be a boy, when from the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Jerry; "while I was out on the bay this early morning, my lad, what all the town is humming about, goes to my home and takes everything—everything of any vally and ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... been issued the little ration of smoking tobacco allowed after each evening meal did any sign of a relaxation of taut nerves appear. It was Brady who showed the first signs of returning good spirits. He commenced humming "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" and presently to voice the words, but he was well into his third song before anyone joined him, and even then there seemed a dismal note in even the ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... And, humming his rustic roundelay, the yeoman went on his road, the sound of his rough voice gradually dying away as the distance betwixt ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... came to a stop, and Mr. Magee looked down into a great array of faces, and heard for the first time the low unceasing rumble of an angry mob. Afterward he marveled at that constant guttural roar, how it went on and on, humming like a tune, never stopping, disconnected quite from the occasional shrill or heavy voices that rang out in distinguishable words. The mayor looked coolly down into those upturned faces, he listened a moment to the rumble of a thousand throats, ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... assumed air of careless indifference, in the hope of thereby concealing the momentary weakness into which his better feelings had so nearly betrayed him, Sergius strolled off, humming a Gallic wine song. AEnone also rose; and, struggling to stifle her emotion, confronted ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the room. I swung on the Botz signaling apparatus. It was connected. Within a moment I had it humming. The fluorescent tubes lighted with their lurid glare; they painted purple the body of the giant duty-man who lay sprawled at my feet. I drew on all the ship's power. The tube-lights in the room quivered and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... dreary household. During the day the servants had straggled in from Bellegarde, and Virginia had had prepared those dishes which her father loved. Mrs. Colfax chose to keep her room, for which the two were silently thankful. Jackson announced supper. The Colonel was humming a tune as he went down the stairs, but Virginia was not deceived. He would not see the yearning in her eyes as he took his chair; he would not glance at Captain Lige's empty seat. It was because he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mournful enough lounging place in which to spend convivial evenings. However, it seemed that when the sergeant-major had decreed amusement the non-commissioned officers' mess overlooked all trifles in brave determination to obey. They marched in, humming tunes (each a different one, and nearly all high tenor) and took seats in a room at the rear of the building with their backs against a mud-brick wall that was shiny from much ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on noon) staring hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the ineffable green country all round—gorgeous little birds (I think they are humming-birds, but they say not) skirmishing in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up I met a native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his shoulder; his brown breast glittering with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shout at the same time, and I would if I could trust this pullet in the skillet to either you or Dabney whilst I did it. The Lord wouldn't listen to no shoutin' from a cook whose chicken was frying black while she did her praisin'," and as she spoke Mammy began a low humming, swaying from table to stove with a rhythm in the swing of her fat body that had a certain dignified beauty to it. It was crude emotion, and I knew it, but I felt it work in my own body as I let the significance of what she had told ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... direful tidings, the valiant Peter started from his seat—dashed the pipe he was smoking against the back of the chimney—thrust a prodigious quid of tobacco into his left cheek—pulled up his galligaskins, and strode up and down the room, humming, as was customary with him when in a passion, a hideous north-west ditty. But, as I have before shown, he was not a man to vent his spleen in idle vaporing. His first measure, after the paroxysm of wrath had subsided, was to stump upstairs to ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Cellar, Cool and Neat, With Humming Ale, and Virgin Wine Repleat. Wine whets the Wit, improves its Native Force, And gives a pleasant Flavour to Discourse, By making all our Spirits Deboniar, Throws of the Lees, the Sedement of Care. But as the greatest Blessing Heaven lends May be debauch'd, ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... high as he watched the warlike preparations, and, glancing across to where near Haughmond Abbey floated the rebel standard, he found himself humming one of the rough old war tunes he ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... perfect, tempting were her lips— The bee or humming-bird that sips From scarlet blossoms in the South Beguiled might be by such ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... the kitchen while she washed the plates; then he had heard her humming softly in the sitting-room; now she had gone up-stairs and was silent. The thoughts and sensations that had been suddenly and strangely inhibited a few hours ago came into play again, warmed his blood once more, repossessed ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... could hear the bees humming. Chickens were merrily moving about. Cowbells far up the road were sounding irregularly. A jay came by and yelled an insolent reveille, and Howard sat up. He could hear nothing in the house but the rattle of pans on ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... but, in a court opening inwards from this, there was a surrounding seclusion of quiet dwelling-houses, with beautiful green shrubbery and grass-plots in the court, and a great many sunflowers in full bloom. The windows were open; it was a lovely summer afternoon, and I have a sense that bees were humming in the court, though this may have been suggested by my fancy, because the sound would have been so well suited to the scene. A boy was reading at one of the windows. There was not a quieter spot in England than ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Wind, scratched his chest and rubbed his fingers together, when out from between them flew Datilye, the Humming-bird. Datilye was told to make a circuit of the earth and report what he saw. He started off toward the east, circled south, west, north, and back from the east. All was well; the earth was most beautiful, very smooth, and covered with water on the ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... preserved, eventually, only six of his captures: a moth, silver and green; a butterfly of steely, iridescent blue; a solemn, black-coated cricket; a bee bound round with the five golden rings of Italy; a tiny, rainbow-hued humming-bird, found dead in a fast-shut moon-flower; and, finally, a slender, bright-winged dragon-fly. These, humanely chloroformed and pasted upon cards, Ivan studied, wondering at his own interest; nor ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... humming now: a low murmur of questions, rapid orders, the rustle of paper, the quick alarum of telephones. Boys keep bringing telegrams in orange envelopes. Each sub-editor is bent over his little lot of news. One sorts out the speeches from bundles of flimsy. The middle of Lloyd George's speech ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... rear cabin, or motor compartment, and a scene of confusion met their gaze. Two of the foreign men who had seized the ship lay stretched out on the floor near the humming machinery, which had been left to run itself. A look in the other direction, toward the main cabin, showed a group of the foreign spies bending over the inert body of La Foy, the Frenchman, stretched out on ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... 33. Humming a tune to ourselves, drumming with our fingers on the table, making a noise with our feet, and such like, are all breaches of good manners, and indications of our contempt for the persons present; therefore they should hot ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... battles of the heart. I must impress this pompous old fool that I know all the intrigues of his proposed elevation. He will unbosom, and both trust and fear me. These pampered civilians are as haughty in their way as the military and be damned to them," mused Hawke, cheerfully humming his battle song, those words of a ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... much troubled with a small black ant; infesting our provisions during the day and running over our persons, and biting us severely at night. A large yellow hornet with two black bands over the abdomen, was seen, humming about the water-holes. A crow was shot and roasted, and found to be exceedingly tender, which we considered to be a great discovery; and lost no opportunity of shooting as many as we could, in order to lessen the consumption of our dried meat. We again ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... tell you. It seems to me EXTREMELY clever, like everything I have read of his; but I am not shaken—perhaps you will say that neither gods nor men could shake me. I demur to the Duke reiterating his objection that the brilliant plumage of the male humming-bird could not have been acquired through selection, at the same time entirely ignoring my discussion (page 93, 3rd edition) on beautiful plumage being acquired through SEXUAL selection. The duke may ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... its lord and master, from the servants left in charge of that most noble and encumbered property. Accordingly he quitted his apartment, threw a ghastly smile into his countenance, and then came quickly upon his clerks, humming a few cheerful notes, with about as much spirit and energy as a man might have if forced to sing a comic song just before his execution. Thoroughly persuaded that the officials had not obtained an inkling of what had transpired ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Museum, was its business manager. These men, with Field, were given carte blanche to surround themselves with a staff and news-gathering equipment to make the Tribune "hum." And they did make it hum, so that the humming was heard far beyond the borders ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... with an empty hat-rack, and so into the surgery. From the back of the house came the sound of a piano—scales, played very slowly. The surgery was empty. I noticed a card with letters of the alphabet printed on it in different sizes; and then the piano ceased, and there was the humming of an air in the passage, and a tall man in a frock-coat, slippered and spectacled, came ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... with contempt and some derisive laughter. When Ralph pressed it, there was humming and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... pavilion, to cover them with His feathers, to hide them in His secret place, to hold them in the hollow of His hand or stretch around them the everlasting arms! These men were true children of Nature. As the humming-bird among its own palm-trees, as the ephemera in the sunshine of a summer evening, so they lived their joyous lives. And even the full share of the sadder experience of life which came to all of them but drove them the further ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... and the fifth at 50 meters. In the first, gun jammed at 50 meters. In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aerodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: pan, a bullet near ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... indifference of the nurses to the necessary cleanliness required. The whole becomes alive with cockroaches and other vermin, creeping over the patients; and the mosquitoes prey upon the unfortunate sufferer, or drive him mad with their unceasing humming preparatory to their attacks. Add these new trials to the groans of the dying, which, during my residence on board, never ceased, and at night were more awful and painfully distinct. The nurses were all men, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... grew stronger each moment; it was like the rumbling beneath the earth, that precedes the earthquake. No one spoke as yet louder than the other—the master-voice had not yet risen. That dulled noise seemed like a far-off humming, and had it not been so intense, and so very human, it might have been compared to the wrath of a myriad of bees confined in the darkness of their hives, with the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... shook the summer air—the sound of a cannon fired very far away, perhaps on the citadel of Strasbourg. It was so distant, so indistinct, that here in this peaceful country it lingered only as a vibration; the humming of the clover bees ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... Curling and humming its cadences, It slips past me under the rim of the gorge, As I peer down through the scarlet sumacs. Sparkling in the sunlight, Shimmering in the moonlight, On and on it goes, A silvery ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... climbed again, and went up between limestone rocks, higher and higher, till the noise of waters became indistinct, a faint humming of swarming hives in summer. He walked some distance on level ground, till there was a break in the banks and a stile on which he could lean and look out. He found himself, as he had hoped, afar and forlorn; he had strayed into ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... cheerful aspect of this homely but comfortable interior. The room served as both kitchen and dining-room. On the right of the flaring chimney, one of the cast-iron arrangements called a cooking-stove was gently humming; the saucepans, resting on the bars, exhaled various appetizing odors. In the centre, the long, massive table of solid beech was already spread with its coarse linen cloth, and the service was laid. White muslin curtains fell in front of the large windows, on the sills of which potted ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... telling her the substance of his conversation with the rector, and now curled up on the low wooden seat, his small legs crossed underneath him, he was gazing dreamily out into the sweet-scented garden. The bees were droning, and the gnats humming amongst the tall hollyhocks and crimson and white roses close by; the birds were already twittering their last 'good-nights' to one another, and a soft, peaceful spell seemed to be falling ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... Carmel rose from her seat, and went on to the terrace at the foot of the steps. She looked for a moment or two at the crimson slope of flowers and the shining lake, as if to put herself into the right mental atmosphere, then, humming a lively but haunting tune, she ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... him warmly and let him go, smiling at the tuneless humming that accompanied his departure. Who at a casual glance would have taken Nick Ratcliffe for one of the keenest politicians of his party, a man whom friend and foe alike regarded as too brilliant to be ignored? He had even been ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... little the music is understood by the children. They finish, as in Miss George's school at Washington, by singing over their daily work with the didactic material. The "Children's House," then, resembles a hive of bees humming as they work. ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... the hill on the opposite side, and then commenced crossing, arm in arm, the stubble-field that lay stretched out before them. All around them nothing whatever was stirring—not a sound, not even the chirping of a bird, or the humming of a beetle, interrupted the profound silence; neither a house, nor any trace of human life, was to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... one gets a new idea of what scenery can be; while beneath superb tree-ferns and untattered bananas, and palms, and bright-flowered lianas, and graceful trailers, and vermilion-colored orchids, and under sun-birds and humming birds and the most splendid butterflies I ever saw, a torrent, as clear as crystal, dashes over the rocks, and adds the music of tumbling water to the enchantment of a scene whose loveliness no words can give any idea of. The pass ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... alert for any signs of awareness of their presence! Wait—" The Ihelian made a third adjustment on the mentacom, and it emitted a slight humming sound, and the orange glow vanished. "This will screen us for a short period, at least," he said. "And if we've not been already detected, perhaps we'll be able to follow. If you'll continue to help ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... the Humming-Bird, comes darting to our oriel, my Orient. As I sat sewing, his sudden, unexpected whirr made me look up. How did he know that the very first Japan-pear-bud opened this morning? Flower and bird came together by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... Minneapolis, with its elegant homes; its commodious churches; its great University—with its four thousand students—; its well-equipped schools—with their forty-two thousand pupils—; its great business blocks; its massive mills; its humming factories; its broad avenues; its pleasant parks; its population of a quarter of a million of souls; all this had not then even been as much as ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... carriage, and carrying a wand, was a young lady not larger than a child's little finger, but so beautiful that no humming-bird could equal her in beauty. She had the bluest of blue eyes, and yellow crinkled hair ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various
... afternoon, soft and balmy; a little haze on the sky, the least veil upon the Mong's further shore; the summer roses hanging their heads, heavy with sleep and sweetness. The honeysuckles on the porch grew sweeter and sweeter as the sun went down, and the humming-birds dipped into those long flagons, or poised them selves in mid-air ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... and a complexion which would have been fair, but for the traces it bore of a hotter climate than that of either France or America. He seemed to be all alone, and to be feeling very lonely that night; and he was leaning over the rail, peering out into the mist, humming to himself a sweet, wild air in a ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... and there a cottage, a nest of bloom. There were the stolid farmers working in their old-fashioned methods, there was a sound of strokes in the dusky woods where some men were chopping that brought faint, reverberating echoes, there was the humming of bees, the laughter of children. Little naked Indian babies ran about, the sun making the copper of their skins burnished, squaws sat with bead work, young fellows were playing games with smooth stones or throwing at a mark. French women had ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... insects, a tropical chorus of many octaves, from the deep drone of the bee to the high, keen pipe of the mosquito. Beyond the veranda was a small cleared garden, bounded with cactus hedges and adorned with clumps of flowering shrubs, round which the great blue butterflies and the tiny humming-birds fluttered and darted in crescents of sparkling light. Within we were seated round the cane table, on which lay a sealed envelope. Inscribed upon it, in the jagged handwriting of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is coming! Birds are singing, bees are humming; Silent lakes amid the mountains Look but cannot speak their mirth; Streams go bounding in their gladness, With a bacchanalian madness; Trees bow down their heads in wonder, Clouds of purple part asunder, As the Maiden of the Morning Leads the blushing Bride ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... bark and look up to see it smiling back red and yellow smiles; who could not walk down the slope and see apples lying in ridges, or pairs, or dotting the grass everywhere. Robert was half-asleep, dreaming of apples. He felt thirsty, and heard a humming like the buzz of bees around the cider-press. He and aunt Corinne used to sit down by the first tub of sweet cider, each with two straws apiece, and watch their faces in the rosy juice while they ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... strolling around the diners without the slightest droop, and pouring out wine in an off-hand and quite obviously hostile manner. I have seen him, towards the end of the meal, yawning. I remember another whom, positively, I heard humming—a faint sound indeed, but menacing ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... enchanted Eden seemed the land, For birds on dazzling many-colored wings Made the trees blossom—parrots red, green, blue, Humming-birds like live jewels in the air, Strange ducks with spoon-shaped bills,—and overhead Like some fantastic frieze of living gold, The little yellow monkeys leaped and swung Chattering of Setebos in their ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... and dazzling smile, she ran out to put the chocolate on the grill, and arrange the sandwiches and fruit and cake on the table around the bowl of drooping roses, and then, humming blithely, hurried into her own room to change from her heavy dress to a ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... suddenly, standing at his window watching London caught by the evening light, saw for an instant his work in front of him again. London with her towers, her roofs and chimneys—smoke and mist and haze weaving a web—and then beneath it, humming, buzzing, turning, all the lives, all the comedies, all the tragedies—Kings and princes, guttersnipes and duchesses, politicians ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... this, I went forward with as much lightheartedness as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully putting aside thoughts of warmth and supper, while the dusk increased and the great forest vegetation seemed to grow ranker and ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... was done, there was I, knowing little enough of what had come and gone, dazed, with my sword bloody and bent, my head humming, and my foot on the breast of an English knight, one Robert Heron. Him I took to prisoner, rescue or no rescue, and so sat we down, very weary, in the midst of blood and broken arms, for many had been slain ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... barmaid, with a titter. "No—I ain't one of your fashionable sort. Gracious no! I shouldn't feel as if I'd anything on me, not more than if I'd forgot—Well, there! I'm talking." She put down the glass abruptly. "I dessay I'm old fashioned," she said, and walked humming ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... or five of these men had stumbled at the same moment, the others would have been crushed to death, but not a man stumbled. They came ashore with a slow, regular, almost dancing gait, humming a low monotonous chant, as if to enable them to step in time, and making serio-comic motions with arms and hands, until they deposited safely in a cart a weight that ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... monarch, laying aside all signs of royalty, entered that excellent asylum with but his minister and his priest, desirous of beholding that Rishi who was an indestructible mass of ascetic merit. And the king saw that the asylum was like unto the region of Brahman. Here were bees sweetly humming and there were winged warblers of various species pouring forth their melodies. At particular places that tiger among men heard the chanting of Rik hymns by first-rate Brahmanas according to the just rules of intonation. Other places ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... rather small, but very bright and piercing. His natural expression was grave, almost severe, but his smile was extremely winning, and he was jovial in humor. He was very fond of the country, walking in the fields, where under a tree he would lie for a half day together, humming the melodies which occurred to him, and making notes in the bits of blank paper which he always carried. These pocket note books have been preserved, and we find in them themes in crude form which he used for some important movement or other, often several years later. Among ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... the cows had all been turned into the home paddock for the night, but now a strange humming noise made itself heard ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... from the snowy surroundings; in the glare of light the purity of the blossoms grew dazzling, and the sun flushed hangings, nosegays, and wreaths of flowers, with a very semblance of life. Over the roses a bee flew humming. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... of bed at last, and staggered to the foot of the companion-ladder with it. Then there was a halt, two legs sticking obstinately across the narrow way and refusing to be moved, while a furious humming proceeded from the ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... her listless and dejected, powerless and repining; but gaiety expanded her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet and plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like a humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet cake her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room; elsewhere she ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... that such fun might come out of this Wayne business. Why can't you let it alone? It doesn't really so much matter to you—what's a road or so? For me it's the one joke that may save me from pessimism. Take fewer men and give me an hour's fun. Really and truly, James, if you collected coins or humming-birds, and I could buy one with the price of your road, I would buy it. I collect incidents—those rare, those precious things. Let me have one. Pay a few pounds for it. Give these Notting Hillers a chance. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... variation; represents Prince ARTHUR as saying of Irish Members, "You have not got the pose that marks the cast of VERE DE VERE." Proceedings occasionally lively; grow a little monotonous after first five hours. Met STUART hurrying off, humming to himself the ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... fairies rushed into the hall, with a little sound like the noise of a humming-bird's wings when it passes close to you. From the lower end of the hall, where they came in, they went straight through the crowd to where the King and Queen sat. They dropped on their knees before them for an instant, and then rose and spoke to them. In a moment ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... known that he would go; but still I must say that it is a disappointment—a great disappointment. These trials are sent for our good, and——I do wish you would not keep up that perpetual humming, Eleanor. On an occasion like this it is especially trying. And how pale you look!" she added, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice |
