"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and with a responsive kiss she sent her away. Leaning her head upon the table, she forgot all but her own wretchedness, and so did not see the gayly-dressed, haughty-looking lady who swept past the door, accompanied by Guy and Dr. Holbrook. Neither did she hear, or notice, if she did, the hum of their voices as they talked together for a moment, Agnes asking the doctor very prettily to come up to Aikenside while she was there, and bring his ladylove. Engaged young men like Guy were so stupid, she said, as with a merry laugh she sprang into the carriage; and, ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... emblems of various shapes and colors. He would have liked to possess them all, and to have walked gravely at the head of a procession with his crush-hat under his arm and his breast covered with decorations, radiant as a star, amid a buzz of admiring whispers and a hum ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... earth, and that it's up to him to get rid of me." He added, sententiously: "She'll find, I guess, that this is about the most difficult billet a fair lady ever intrusted to a gallant knight." Whereupon, inspired by his metaphor, he proceeded to hum under his breath, by way of outlet to his amused sensibilities, the dulcet refrain ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... tall black poplars which stretched protecting arms over the water, forming a wide and lofty avenue extending to the faded red-brick mill itself, and whispering continuously on the stillest summer day. The mill-wheel could be seen revolving and glittering in the sunlight, and the hum of distant machinery inside the mill could be heard. The brook, which fed the pond, was fringed by ancient pollard willows; it wound through luxuriant meadows with ploughed land or cornfields still ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the Practical Men could meet, fraternise, and still not yearn to murder one another. It would be of immense benefit to you and me and the rest of us who make up the "hum-drum" world. For the Practical Man who is not something of a mystic is at best a commonplace nuisance, and at his worst a clog on the wheels of progress. And the mystic who is only mystical is even less good to anyone, since his Ideals and his ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... welling over with egotistic woes, far too many for the brief moment in which he would be closeted with the great one, who held the invisible keys of relief, who penetrated this mystery of human maladjustment. It was a busy, toiling, active, subdued place, where the tinkle of the telephone bell, the hum of electric annunciators, as one member of the staff signalled to another, vibrated in the tense atmosphere. Into this hive poured the suffering, mounting from the street, load after load, in the swiftly flying cages; their visit made, their joss-sticks burned, they dropped ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... dropped to the gravel and lay there. He uttered no sound. The wind had died down and save for the droning hum of a billion mosquitoes the silence was absolute. A thin column of smoke streamed from the bowl of the neglected pipe. In profound fascination Wentworth watched it flow smoothly upward. An imperceptible air current set the column swaying and wavering, and a light puff of breeze dispersed it in ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... "Hum-m-m-m!" said Mickey. "My cry is whatever has the biggest headlines on the front page, mixed in with a lot of joyous fooling, and I'd have to see your boy 'fore I'd say if I could teach him. Is he a clean kid with a joyous face, and his anatomy decorated with a fine large ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... for such a state of mind is immediate retreat to the reassuring hum of cities: the more difficult but real remedy is the reassurance of one's own identity. Many people take the first course without admitting it; alleging the lack of intercourse or convenience in country life, whereas the real truth is that contact with the steadfast ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... "Hum,—that's a different matter," said Fairy more thoughtfully. "He hasn't wanted to yet. You see, he's a man and can go by himself without having it look as though nobody wanted to be seen with him. And he's a stranger over there, and doesn't need to get chummy with the girls. The boys here all ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... afield, away from men and things. So, for a moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. You wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not in an up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the miners in our town here must never even hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being told that such a number of thoughts and fancies, and all that ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... bush, and towns and villages have arisen as if by magic. You may hear the lowing of herds where, a few years before, you would have trembled at the wild whoop of the savage, and the stillness of that once solitary shore is broken by the sound of wheels and the busy hum of commerce. ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... said, 'Hum, ha!' first, a good many times; and we laughed at each other, under our breath, and were very happy. And then he said, 'Miles Merryweather, my dear! Excellent person! Heard he had taken the old house, but had no idea he was coming ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... dwelling. It stood in the broad sunshine as silent as death, as if all were sleeping. In the garden, too, all was motionless but the thin jet of water, which danced up from the marble tank with a soft and fitful, but monotonous tinkle, while butterflies, dragonflies, bees, and beetles, whose hum she could not hear, seemed to circle round the flowers without a sound. The birds must be asleep, for not one was to be seen or broke the oppressive stillness by a chirp or a twitter. The chariot at the door might have been spellbound; the driver had dismounted, and he, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... glass, you sock-eyed salmon, you," Gibney ordered Scraggs, and tore the telescope from the owner's hands. "There ain't enough real seamanship in the crew o' this craft to tax the mental make-up of a Chinaman. Hum—m—m! American bark Chesapeake. Starboard anchor out; yards braced a-box; royals an' to'-gallan'-s'ls clewed up; courses hangin' in the buntlines an' clew garnets, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Authors, "what delight of life, what an exquisite Hellenic grace of art, what a manly nature to endure, what tenderness and constancy of friendship, what a sense of all that is fair in the glittering stream, the music of the water-fall, the hum of bees, the silvery gray of the olive woods on the hillside! How human are all your verses, Horace! What a pleasure is yours in the straining poplars, swaying in the wind! What gladness you gain from the white crest of Soracte, beheld through ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... the wind's free song, The hum of bees, the notes of birds, And make an anthem sweet ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... struggling up through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Bootes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, are abroad: ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... have been sweating. His hands, perhaps, should have quivered with tension. But he was too much worried about too many things. Nobody can strike an attitude or go into a blue funk while they are worrying about things to be done. Joe heard the small gyro motors as their speed went up. A hum and a whine and then a shrill whistle which went up in pitch until it wasn't anything at all. He frowned anxiously and said to Haney, "I'm ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... governments: the inhabitants are decayed, but the governors and magistrates still flourish. They put me in mind of Old Sarum, where the representatives, more in number than the constituents, only serve to inform us that this was once a place of trade, and sounding with "the busy hum of men," though now you can only trace the streets by the color of the corn, and its sole manufacture is in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have been more sudden and complete if, from a gaily lighted modern street, full of hum and bustle, they had fallen down an oubliette into a dark, deserted fairyland. Just outside was the imported life of Paris, but this old town was Turkish, Arab, Moorish, Jewish and Spanish; and in Algeria ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... push through with Lady Maxwell on his arm. But there was an angry hum of voices in front of him, an angry ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lengthen.... She lay under the glory of this Danaean shower and half-closed her eyes to stare up at the wonder of it. Presently she heard the sound of twigs and leaves being crushed under advancing feet, but she did not look up, only started to hum a little tune, though she could not hear it for the rising beat of her ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... Shanw, ready for the frequent fray. "They won't have your hum-drum old church fregot[3], perhaps, but you come and see, and hear Hughes Bangor, Price Merthyr, Jones Welshpool. Nothing to give them, indeed! Why, Price Merthyr would send your old red velvet cushion at church flying into ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... from Heaven your seignories and fiefs,—hear the words of Edward, the King of England under grace of the Most High. The rebels are in our river; open yonder lattice, and you will see the piled shields glittering from their barks, and hear the hum of their hosts. Not a bow has yet been drawn, not a sword left its sheath; yet on the opposite side of the river are our fleets of forty sail—along the strand, between our palace and the gates of London, are arrayed our armies. ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... They said never a word, save an occasional exclamation, when they drove away a lean cat that crept too near to the food, and the men also held their peace. There was no sound to be heard, save the hum of the insects out of doors, the deep note of the bull-frogs in the rice swamps, and the unnecessarily loud noise of mastication made by the men ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... cleverly climbing the trees, the men of Keeling build exquisitely modeled canoes. By far the best workmanship in boat-building I saw on the voyage was here. Many finished mechanics dwelt under the palms at Keeling, and the hum of the band-saw and the ring of the anvil were heard from morning till night. The first Scotch settlers left there the strength of Northern blood and the inheritance of steady habits. No benevolent society has ever done so much for any islanders ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Kirk Street the men of the fustian-jacket and seal-skin cap clustered tumultuous round the lintels of the gin-shop doors. Here ballad-bellowing, and organ grinding, and voices of costermongers, singing of poor men's luxuries, never ceased all through the hum of day, and penetrated far into the frowzy repose of latest night. Here, on Saturday evenings especially, the butcher smacked with appreciating hand the fat carcasses that hung around him; and flourishing his steel, roared aloud to every woman ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... served, the day's news discussed with the men folk, jocularly eager to get the drippings of excitement from the afternoon infair, and the Road toddlers put to bed, when the soft-toned Meeting-house bell droned out its call for the weekly prayer meeting. Very soon the Road was in a gentle hum of conversation as the congregation issued from their house doors and wended their way slowly toward the little church, which, back from the Road in an old cedar glade, brooded over its peaceful yard of graves. The men had all donned ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... eighteen cars, and all, except the one reserved for the authorities, were literally packed with prisoners. Passing by the windows, Nekhludoff listened to the sounds within. Everywhere he heard the rattling of chains, bustle, and the hum of conversation, interspersed with stupid profanity; but nowhere did he hear, as he expected, any reference to the dead comrades. Their conversation related more to sacks, drinking-water, and the choice of seats. Looking into ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... — Paid all that life had earned In one consummate bill, And now, what life or death can do Is immaterial. Insulting is the sun To him whose mortal light, Beguiled of immortality, Bequeaths him to the night. In deference to him Extinct be every hum, Whose garden wrestles with ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... walked away, and Cowperwood heard his steps dying down the cement-paved hall. He stood and listened, his ears being greeted occasionally by a distant cough, a faint scraping of some one's feet, the hum or whir of a machine, or the iron scratch of a key in a lock. None of the noises was loud. Rather they were all faint and far away. He went over and looked at the bed, which was not very clean and without linen, and anything but wide or soft, and felt it curiously. So here was where ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Lytton, 'that I have never attached the smallest weight to any of the insinuations which it seems people have thought worth while to launch at some member or members of your government with respect to my mission.' Though Mr. Gladstone was never by any means unconscious of the hum and buzz of paltriness and malice that often surrounds conspicuous public men, nobody was ever more regally indifferent. Graham predicted that though Gladstone would always be the first man in the House of Commons, he would not again be what ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... this time night had completely closed in, and still the silken ball pursued its course. So long as lights were burning in the towns and villages which it passed in rapid succession, the solitary voyagers looked down on the scene with delight; sometimes they could even catch the hum of the yet busy multitude, or the bark of a watch-dog; but midnight came, and the world was ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... he were participating in an elaborate hoax. Several of these distinguished gentlemen had never seen a wireless apparatus before, and showed some excitement as Hood made ready to send the most famous message ever transmitted through the ether. At last he threw over his rheostat and the hum of the rotary spark rose into its staccato song. Hood sent out a few V's and ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... had fled, and with it the hideous phantoms of the night. It seemed to him that he had escaped from the grave, and that he was only now shaking off the horror of it. Look at the beautiful, clear colors without; listen to the hum of the city awakening to all its cheerful activities; the new day has brought with it new desires, new hopes. He threw open the windows. The morning air was cold and sweet—the sparrows were beginning to chirp in the garden-plots below. Surely that ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... upon the bunk and put his eyes to the porthole, catching a view of blue water below and blue sky above, and the sea as it raced past showed that the vessel was moving swiftly. He heard, too, the hum of the strong wind in the rigging and the groaning timbers. It was enough to tell him that they were fast leaving New York behind, and that now the chances of his rescue upon a lone ocean were, in truth, very small. But once ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fell upon his ear. Sometimes the whole forest appeared to be alive with voices—the voices of beasts and birds, reptiles, and insects—for the tree-frogs and ciendas were as noisy as the larger creatures. At other times a perfect stillness reigned, so that he could distinctly hear the tiny hum of the mosquito; and then, all at once, would fall upon his ear the melancholy wailing of the night-hawk—the "alma perdida," or "lost soul"—for such is the poetical and fanciful name given by the Spanish Americans to this ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... some tree of friendly umbrage: no society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were within call; no spectacle did she ask but that of the deep blue sky, and such cloudlets as sailed afar and aloft across its span; no sound but that of the bee's hum, the leaf's whisper." ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... fine thing to say; but before an hour had gone by the Fiddler's head began to hum and buzz like a beehive. "I don't believe," said he, "there would be a grain of harm in my peeping inside that door; all the same, I will not do it. I will just go down and peep through the key-hole." So off he went to do as he said; ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... of Streatham must have been very strong, to induce Johnson to pass so much of his time away from "the busy hum of men" in Fleet Street, and "the full tide of human existence" at Charing Cross. He often found fault with Mrs. Thrale for living so much in the country, "feeding the chickens till she starved her understanding." Walking ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... "Hum!" (to myself mentally) "if the august Muley cannot brook an English saddle, what must he think of an English wife? Or do these Moslems, like some Christians I know, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Mayhap it is even so. The pigeon-prompted camel-driver, who built ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... then, And the busy hum of men; Where throngs of Knights and Barons bold, In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold: With store of Ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence, and judge the Prize Of Wit or Arms; while both contend To win her ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... homecoming of these sailor lads, who frequently brought friends with them, was a great joy to the Burnsides, and also to those of the villagers with whom they associated. Both lads were very sailorly, and it was well known that they never failed to make things hum with mirth and mischief, as soon as they had taken their bearings and found the coast clear of "squires" and "parsons." It was a pretty sight to see their two sisters rush out of the house as soon as their brothers were seen in the distance crossing ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... it, the Greek captains awaited the coming of Pausanias. A low and muttered conversation was carried on amongst them, in small knots and groups, amidst which the voice of Uliades was heard the loudest. Suddenly the hum was hushed, for footsteps were heard without. The thick curtains that at one extreme screened the door-way were drawn aside, and, attended by three of the Spartan knights, amongst whom was Lysander, and by two soothsayers, who were seldom absent, in war or ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... sound of vexation in her voice, which reminded him oddly of the sound in her singing voice when Miss Filberte was making a fiasco of the accompaniment. Lord Holme was visible and audible in the hall. His immense form towered above his guests, and his tremendous bass voice dominated the hum of conversation round him. Lady Holme could see from where she stood that he was in a jovial and audacious mood. The dinner to Sir Jacob Rowley had evidently been well cooked and gay. Fritz had the satisfied and rather larky air of a man who ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... conversation better, Than if they never knew a letter. Such is the fate of Gosford's knight, Who keeps his wisdom out of sight; Whose uncommunicative heart Will scarce one precious word impart: Still rapt in speculations deep, His outward senses fast asleep; Who, while I talk, a song will hum, Or with his fingers beat the drum; Beyond the skies transports his mind, And leaves a lifeless corpse behind. But, as for me, who ne'er could clamber high, To understand Malebranche or Cambray; Who send my mind (as I believe) less Than others do, on errands sleeveless; Can listen ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... silence except for the movements of the men, and the low hum of their voices. She wondered what had become of Owen, but she did not dare unbolt the door for fear that Dale might be waiting on the other side of it. So, in the grip of a nameless terror she leaned against the ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Soon the hum of voices, the neighing of steeds, and the clang of steel fell on my ear, and peering between the branches I could see a group of shadows moving toward us. Then the shadows, taking form and substance, became six horsemen. ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... the doors through which so many lucky individuals passed had proved very interesting earlier in the evening, and after the door had closed upon the latest comer to creep closely to doors and windows, and listen to the hum and flutter of the crowd, and then to hear the band's inspiring strains was a source of joy. But when the music ceased and a great calm settled on the audience, they knew very well it was because ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... don't sing at our work. Over the whirr and roar and hum all day long, and with iteration that is childish and irritating to the intelligent greenhand, float unthinkable adjectives and adverbs, addressed to jumbucks, jackaroos, and mates indiscriminately. And worse words for the boss over the ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... glad to have rendered you a service, however trifling. You are a clear, prudent creature, but want spirit to live as you please. I leave this hum-drum place to-morrow. Perhaps some of these days we may meet again; if not, you may live to learn that you slighted the friendship of one of the greatest geniuses that has arisen in ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... is projeckin' dis away. Ole miss, she settle down en tuck hole strong. She des kin'er fall inter he ways en mek tings hum wid de yard en house folks. She des a nachel-bawn housekeeper, en we uns all had ter stan 'roun' en do ez she sed sud'n, we sutn'y did; en ole mars'r, he tink hit be des ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... The watch was on the table where she had left it. The cabin seemed more lonely than ever as they hurried away. The rush of the river hundreds of feet below, the drowsy hum of the August insects, and the sound of their horses' feet upon the stones alone broke the ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... in the name of his men. The English remnant stand behind at attention; beside them are stores and vehicles for the retreat. The drums roll; the Brazilians are moving; the English are still like statues. So they abide till the last hum and flash of the enemy have faded from the tropic horizon. Then they alter their postures all at once, like dead men coming to life; they turn their fifty faces upon the general—faces not to ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... come the guests, children from the table to relieve themselves; I fancy they also want to hum over what they will be singing presently. Hi! child! what do you reckon to sing? Stand there and give me ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... out. Across the street, backed by the immense and level blaze of an Egyptian sunset, blocks of Carrara marble blushed to pink with mauve shadows, and turned the common stone mason's yard into a garden of gigantic jewels. The hum of a great city, the grind of the trolley-cars, the cries of the itinerant sellers of nuts and fruit, of chewing gum and lottery-tickets, of shoe laces and suspenders, of newspapers, and prawns, and oysters, and eggs, and bread, the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... work, after all the excitement of their doings in New York, and the added excitement of the wedding, for Sam and Tom to settle down to the hum-drum routine of life at college, but the lads did their best. Nellie Laning and her sister Grace came back to Hope Seminary and the young folks managed to see each other at least once a week. Nellie was ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... to have no windows, and the roar of the New York street outside was gone, or faint as the hum of a hive. The walls were hung with fabrics of wool or silk, in dull greens and reds, and the floor was spread with rugs. With mouth redly ravening at him, and eyes emitting opalescent gleams, lay a great tiger-skin rug, upon which, on a kind of dais, sat a woman—a woman ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... deck, he crept into the skipper's comfortable bunk to rest himself, feeling certain that he would not sleep. For it was very hot down there, in spite of the open cabin window; the mosquitoes were uttering their tiresome fine-drawn hum, and he was excited by the events ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... moment directly above their red ship. Danny saw three round holes open in the white shell—the three outlets that the Infant had predicted. It had descended noiselessly, but now there came from within a high-pitched whining hum. The dreaded heat and ray! They were about to see their own ship destroyed! And, as for themselves—! Danny was still waiting for the first, devastating blast of intolerable heat, when the ship ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... AFRAID, that's clear; that sort never funks! H'm! champagne! That was an interesting item of news, at all events!—Twelve bottles! Dear me, that's a very respectable little stock indeed! I bet anything Lebedeff lent somebody money on deposit of this dozen of champagne. Hum! he's a nice fellow, is this prince! I like this sort of man. Well, I needn't be wasting time here, and if it's a case of champagne, why—there's no ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... stillness of a summer night in the country, nor of a church, nor of a sickroom: it is the silence of death! As you gaze on the scene before you, you are oppressed—almost overwhelmed by its dreary sadness. No insect hum is heard; not even a bird is seen in the still air; the earth, and the atmosphere above it, is one vast region of death. The only link which connects the traveller with humanity, is a long row of the skeletons of mules and horses, which have here left their bones for a guide across the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... immediately. Heavy and Nettie, and all who did not belong in the quartette room, departed. Then Mercy went tap, tap, tapping down the corridor with her canes—"just like a silly woodpecker!" as she often said herself; and Ann strode away, trying to hum the marching song, but ignominiously falling into the doleful strains of the "Cowboy's Lament" before she reached ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... a golden light on its long levels and a purple glamour on its hills. And after he had left her, she went with a light heart down the unpaved street that she had lately traversed in unseeing bitterness. The very hum of the mine cars was full of good cheer; children splashed joyously in the ditch; magpies gossiped; the blacksmith-shop rang with a ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... the Hotel de Mussidan is as elegant as it is commodious. The exterior was extremely plain, and not disfigured by florid ornamentation. White marble steps, with a light and elegant railing at the sides, lead to the wide doors which open into the hall. The busy hum of the servants at work at an early hour in the yard tells that an ample establishment is kept up. There can be seen luxurious carriages, for occasions of ceremony, and the park phaeton, and the simple brougham ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... with complaints or questionings; fugitives from the main-land to be interrogated; visitors riding up on horseback, their hands full of jasmine and wild roses; and the sweet sunny air all perfumed with magnolias and the Southern pine. From the neighboring camp there was a perpetual low hum. Louder voices and laughter re-echoed, amid the sharp sounds of the axe, from the pine woods; and sometimes, when the relieved pickets were discharging their pieces, there came the hollow sound of dropping rifle-shots, as in skirmishing,—perhaps the most unmistakable and fascinating association ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... damages, you lubber," said David, dryly, "and don't come under our guns again, or we shall blow you out of the water. Hum! Eve, wasn't your tongue a little too long ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... perishing body should be raised in glory), and the shadows of the trees were lengthening on the grass. Every sound was in sweet accordance with the scene; the soft twittering of the birds as they sought their resting-places for the night, the quiet hum of the insects, and the sweet murmuring of the brook which flowed ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... answered, for the attention of my interlocutor was riveted now, as was my own, on the companion-way, from which a wild and frightened-looking crowd was densely emerging, with a confused hum of voices that announced their recognition of their impending danger. The change of age, of pain, of woe, seemed sealed upon each aspect, as one by one, and phantom-like, in rapid succession, those who had so lately gone down to feast returned to the upper ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... it up," replied Fred. "I never was more rejoiced in my whole life," and he began to hum Domum. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... readjusting mechanism was still at work. Beyond question it was all very different, strikingly different, from his forecastings. A young woman was at the piano, with a young man whose clothes fitted him and who was in nowise conscious of them, turning the music for her. There was a pleasant hum of conversation; the lights were not glaring; the furnishings were not in bad taste—on the contrary, they were in exceedingly good taste. Griswold smiled when he remembered that he had been looking forward to something suggesting a cross between ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... of the ridge. His breakfast finished, and Speed gone, he lay down on a great flat, sun-dappled rock, and looked into the unflecked blue sky. The season was spring, and the earth seemed fairly palpitating with young life. The low, tireless hum of insects went on all about him. The air was vocal with the notes of nesting birds. Away across the valley he could see a mountain slope, with snow gulches glowing pink in the dawn. Little checkerboard squares along the river showed irrigated patches. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... "Hum!" responded the prisoner, suddenly growing serious. "I do blame them, however, and if I had one of them in a corner—But, never mind, I shall get over it. If I know myself aright, I have no more spite in my ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... song somewhere. As the wine waggon creaks down the hill, the waggoner will chant to the corn that grows upon either side of him. As the miller's mules cross the bridge, the lad as he cracks his whip will hum to the blowing alders. In the red clover, the labourers will whet their scythes to a trick of melody. In the quiet evenings a Kyrie Eleison will rise from the thick leaves that hide a village chapel. On the hills the goatherd, high ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... intense that nothing was heard save the hum of two great "bumblebees" that darted in and out among the trees and flew at erratic angles above our heads, the negroes came forward and stretched their necks over each other's shoulders, peering curiously at the little mounds of powder that lay before them, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... out collecting the eggs at five o'clock this morning," returned Mary, "and I think I never heard them so busy. The earth was all a-hum with them. They seemed as though they must be listened ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... quickly seized a hymn-book, the audience drew a long sigh. At once people moved about again and looked at each other and smiled. The whole congregation were at one with the preacher. There was a low hum of whispering voices. But all was attention again when the hymn was read. Then the glorious song. One of the finest organists in the country, a blind gentleman by the name of Wood, was the power behind the throne. The organ did praise God. Every ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Wilson, who went by mail steamer to Australia in order to organise and finally engage the Australian members of our staff. Our leader was without doubt delighted to make the longer voyage with us in the "Terra Nova" and to get away from the hum of commerce and the small talk of the many people who were pleased to meet him—until the hat was handed ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... free-and-easyness with my lady to do the deed. It can cost me nothing except her good opinion, which I can afford. But I'll lay you anything to nothing, if she knew the weight of my four quarters, she would have me herself after all! I don't quite think myself a lady-killer: by George, my—hum!—entourage is against that, but where money is money can! Only I don't want her, and my money is for her betters! What damned jolly fun it will be to send her out of the house in a rage!—and a good deed done too!—By George, I'll do it! See if ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... experience in buffalo-hunting we arrived in the neighbourhood of the great elephant corral, or great elephant trap, as it might very properly be called. We had been travelling through dense forests scarcely penetrated by the sun's beams, where but seldom we had heard the song of birds, the hum of insects, or even the roar of wild beasts. I was astonished at this till Mr Fordyce pointed out to me that under the dense shade of the tall trees there could be no pasture for the graminivorous animals, and consequently no prey to tempt the carnivorous ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... see. When the veil dropped from before her features and she stepped into the full sight of the expectant crowd, it was not the beauty of her face, notable and conspicuous as that was, which roused the hum of surprise that swept from one end of the room to the other, but the calmness, almost the elevation of her manner, a calmness and elevation so unlooked for in the light of the strange contradictions offered by the evidence to which we had been listening for ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... few moments and then remarked: "And yet it is a pleasant work he is engaged in, and his days are passed in the fairest fields; he evidently enjoys his trade even if he does seem to bustle about it. I can excuse the buzz and the hum in him, when I can't always in the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... I turned from the Speaker's stand, when the profound hush of as fine an audience as earnest woman ever addressed, was broken by the muffled thunder of stamping feet, and the low, deep hum of pent-up feeling loosed suddenly from restraint. A crowd of ladies from the galleries, who had come only at the urgent personal appeal of Judge Thompson, who had spent the day calling from house to house, and who ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the one word bonjour, and he secretly considered even that word improper. But some jocose person had taught him the following lines, as a French song: 'Sonitchka, Sonitchka! Ke-voole-voo-de-mwa—I adore you—me-je-ne-pyoo-pa....' This supposed song he always used to hum to himself when he felt in good spirits. His father was also a man of incredible good-nature, always wore a long nankin coat, and whatever was said to him he responded with a smile. From the time of Pavel Afanasievitch's betrothal, both the Rogatchovs, father and son, had been ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... at the conclusion that music had attracted them, I sat down and began to hum, this time with an open sound instead of a closed tone, and in a second the little creatures were out again, standing perfectly still, as if the sound gave them delight. Gradually I swelled the tone, and yet they were undisturbed until I became too bold and ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... banks, sheltered by trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day, multitudes of Ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the fireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at noon-day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley's health and inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and more attached to the part of the country were chance ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... hum of conversation and capricious laughter, Vanya's vague music drifted like wind-blown thistle-down, and his absent regard never left Marya, where she rested among the cushions in low-voiced ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... you allowed B * * and such like to hum and haw you, or, rather, Lady J * * out of her compliment, and me out of mine.[69] Sun-burn me, but this was pitiful-hearted. However, I will tell her all about it ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... he's down to the hotel; but Miss Marigold, she's to hum," said the black girl, grinning. "Won't you step in? Miss will be dreffle sorry her pa ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... majestic greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his soul ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... times, more especially when they first realize her loss, is of a peculiarly mournful character; it sounds something like a succession of wails on the minor key, and can no more be mistaken by the experienced bee-keeper, for their ordinary, happy hum, than the piteous moanings of a sick child can be confounded, by an anxious mother, with its joyous crowings, when overflowing with health ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... herself thus deserted by her companions, Shoofly began a low, musical hum of a wail and walled large eyes up at Everett, at whose feet she was seated. In instant sympathetic response he applied the toe of his shoe to the small of the whimpering tot's back and proceeded ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... summer?... Hum!... Boy, do you know that wheat is the most important thing in the ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... between us, Pauline. No one is more eager to aid the discovery of truth than I, but I believe that truth often is concealed from those who go on, day after day, following hum-drum routine, however conscientious. I recognized that Dr. Ashmun was a live man and had fresh ideas, so I chose him as our chief of staff, notwithstanding the doctors were unfriendly to him. As a result, my hospital has individuality, and is already a success. That's ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... exercise of leaping water-falls and forging up boiling rapids had developed these sturdy mountaineer trout into prodigies of strength and endurance. Even now my nerves tingle to the tips of my toes as in fancy I hear my reel hum or see the tip of my five ounce split bamboo bend so as ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... "Hum! I'll have to see about that," said Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I suppose the circus people will want him back, for he must be valuable. Perhaps ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... be heard. What has become of Semiramide, La Cenerentola, and the others? There are no singers to sing them and so they have been dropped from the repertory without being missed. Can any of our young misses hum Di Tanti Palpiti? You know they cannot. I doubt if you can find two girls in New York (and I mean girls with a musical education) who can tell you in what opera the air belongs and yet in the early Twenties this tune was as popular as Un ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... this establishment; but having spent a single day in it, she had protested against its laws and had been allowed to stay at home, where, in the September days, when the windows of the Dutch House were open, she used to hear the hum of childish voices repeating the multiplication table—an incident in which the elation of liberty and the pain of exclusion were indistinguishably mingled. The foundation of her knowledge was really laid in the idleness of her grandmother's house, where, as most of the ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... going warily, knife clutched in his hand, despite his growing confidence that he had the place to himself. There was a door at the rear. Behind that must be the power plant. He set his ear to the door. Only the low hum of a dynamo came to his ears. He had expected that, for wiring glimpsed outside the Brownell house and leading in this direction through the trees had indicated the house current was supplied from the power house here. But was anyone in ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... "Capsized!—hum—that was a hard fate, to be sure, and denotes bad seamanship. Now I've sailed all sorts of craft these forty years, or five-and-thirty at least, and never cap-sized anything in my life. Stand by there for'ard to hold on by ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... and make this old island hum," he said, and a number of his neighbours, nothing loth to be made rich by magic—advocates, bankers and insular councillors—joined hands with ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the railings in the warm twilight haze while the battalion, silently as a shadow, formed up behind us ready to be taken over. The heat, the hum of the great city, as it might have been the hum of a camped army, the creaking of the belts, and the well-known faces bent above them, brought back to me the memory of another evening, years ago, when Verschoyle and I waited for news ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... leading Rickerl's horse from the stables; there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!" And always the burden of the busy voices was the ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... and his companion entered the room, the hum of talk died, and every one turned expectantly in the direction of ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... it basked on the rising ground, an old brown frame with lichens crusting the roof. There were two front doors, a flight of wooden steps leading up to each, and three high windows along the visible side. All these stood open letting out a pleasant hum, through which the cracked voice of an old man occasionally broke. No hump of belfry stood upon its back. The afternoon sun was the bell which called that neighborhood together for Sunday-school. And this unconscious duty performed, the afternoon sun now brightened the graves which ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... out of their apartment, and as they retired to consider their verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removed from the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was an immediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approached the table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmatively and left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant sound of whispering voices died down after a few minutes ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... "Nevermore." Moving toward him with her easy, distinguished step, she thanked him in a few low-spoken words. Mrs. Osgood, rising gracefully from her chair, followed her example, with Dr. Griswold at her heels, and in a few moments more the whole room was in an awed and subdued hum. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... of the bell which duly summoned to their task the pupils of Madame Duvant's fashionable seminary had ceased, and in the school-room, recently so silent, was heard the low hum of voices, interspersed occasionally with a suppressed titter from some girl more mischievous than her companions. Very complacently Madame Duvant looked over the group of young faces, mentally estimating the probable gain she ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart, the whispered jest and stealthy game, and all the noise and drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind upon the duties ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... in the quiet room, on that broad sofa, listening to Aunt Mary's soft music. Mingling with the sound of the piano was the droning hum of a foolish bee, who had got on the wrong side of the window and was now making vain efforts to fly home again through the glass. A delicious scent came from somewhere—perhaps from the syringa bushes growing just outside the open window. Mollie's ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... "Hum!" said the worthy old soldier, grumbling. "I have my feet in the snow, and a gutter runs down on my head, and there's death at my heart; and you sing to me of violets, of the sun, and of grass, and ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... resolution and by the thought that no real harm had as yet been done, I struck a match and looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven. Well, whatever the story was, Swain was hearing it now, and I should hear it before long. And then I caught the hum of an approaching car, and was momentarily blinded by the glare of ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... fussing with certain of the petty details that make or mar the smooth running of an establishment like his, when his ear, trained to detect the first note of discord in the babble which filled his big room by night, caught an ominous note in the hum of the street crowd outside. He lifted his head ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... heard their gay laughter and sullener grew— The sun was too hot—the skies were too blue, The grass, he was certain, was damp where he lay, All things had conspired to annoy him that day, He could bear neither sunshine, the mirth that he heard, The hum of the bees, nor the chirp of a bird. How silly they seemed—it made him so cross— The pleasures of life were nothing but dross, So he hastened away in a fit of despair; All things were against him and "nothing ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... for what people will say!" replied Bonaparte, shrugging his shoulders. "A prudent man will pursue his path directly toward his aim, and the hum of babblers never disturbs him. Hear, then, my last words: in case the Austrian troops do not leave Mentz within one week, and surrender the fortress to the French forces, the French army will remain in Venice, and I would sooner ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... trellis," said Anne softly. She spoke in a rapt way, as if she had said, "There are angels choiring under the trees. We can hum their songs." ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... the earth. The grass stood high above me, and the shadows of the tree-branches danced on my face. I looked up at the sky, with halfclosed eyes to bear the dazzling light. Bees buzzed over me, sometimes a butterfly passed, there was a hum in the air, greenfinches sang in the hedge. Gradually entering into the intense life of the summer days—a life which burned around as if every grass blade and leaf were a torch—I came to feel the longdrawn life of the earth back into the dimmest past, while the sun of the moment was ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... Owl's Nest, she heard a hum of voices, and straightway her heart sank again, and shyness possessed her. There was a crowd there! They would all be juniors and seniors, and she the only freshman among them. How could she go in? Oh! she almost wished she was up in the other ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... over the stubble. Milka was always first, but every now and then she would halt with a shake of her head to await the whipper-in. The chatter of the peasants; the rumbling of horses and waggons; the joyous cries of quails; the hum of insects as they hung suspended in the motionless air; the smell of the soil and grain and steam from our horses; the thousand different lights and shadows which the burning sun cast upon the yellowish-white cornland; the purple forest in the distance; the white gossamer threads ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... rice weed, and small groves of the scarlet stalks of the wild buckwheat. This level sea of weeds stood so high that when she threaded the narrow path they reached above her waist. The bees in the white asters were humming as they hum in apple bloom. The blue jays were calling and flying in low horizontal flights. The valley stretched to the south-east, then curved; a little mountain barred the view, upon whose pine-trees the distant air began to tinge with blue. On ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... from it; but this was presently hushed, and two voices, accompanied by guitars, began to sing a lively seguidilla, of which, at the end of each piquant couplet, the listeners testified their approbation by a hum of mirthful applause. Before the song was over, Luis had sought and found a means of observing what was passing within doors. Grasping the lower branch of a tree which grew within a few feet of the corner of the house, he swung ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... it was a hum and there was the dark shadow of Lurgha's bird between him and the stars. Then came the smiting of the hill with thunder and lightning, and Nodren fled, for the Wrath of Lurgha is a fearsome thing. Now do the people come to the Great Mother's Place with many fine offerings that she ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... lay between the two clumps of woods. It was not worth while for either side to try to get possession of the intervening space. At the first movement by either French or Germans the woods opposite would hum with rifle fire and echo with cannonading. So, like rival parties of Arctic explorers waiting out the Arctic winter, they watched each other. But if one force or the other napped and the other caught him at it, then winter would not stay a brigade commander's ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... to alight, and hurried her towards the open door, from which the hum of talk came forth. They found the room crammed with men and women—the women all on one side of the room and the men as decorously on the other, or standing about the huge cannon stove, that was filled with soft coal, and sending out a flood of heat and gas. They ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, 15 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... fathers fell to the pitch of ordinary discourse; the drowsy town was quiet again; the whine of the planing-mill boring its way through the sizzling air to every wakening ear. Far away, on a quiet street, it sounded faintly, like the hum of a bee across a creek, and was drowned in the noise of men at work on the old Tabor house. It seemed the only busy place in Canaan that day: the shade of the big beech-trees which surrounded it affording some shelter from the destroying sun to the dripping laborers who were sawing, hammering, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... our part, and for sake of silence, she had led them a circuit, and except for the occasional wail of a child and a little low talking that blended like the hum of insects with the night, they made very little noise. The rear was brought up by the strongest women carrying the sick and wounded on litters that had been improvised in a hurry, and like most things of the sort were much ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... spoke there came a loud hum of angry voices from without. They were the voices of the vikings calling aloud for the blood of him who had slain ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... had passed, clouds began to rise from out the sea. There came a fitful breeze, with a little hum to it. To the southeast-ward the horizon assumed ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... I, as opening the door, I proceeded very cautiously to descend the stairs, affecting all the time considerable nonchalance, and endeavoring, as well as my thickened utterance would permit, to hum:— ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... blackness of the room, Mike the Angel could see nothing, and he could hear nothing but the all-pervading hum of the ship's engines. But he ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... disappeared in the gathering gloom of the mill. Soon the jarring of the structure and the hum of the stones grew slower—slower—slower, and finally ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... the wind drives the leaves and straws before it, 'that is the fairies, and the peasants take off their hats and say "God bless them."' When they are gay, they sing. Many of the most beautiful tunes of Ireland 'are only their music, caught up by eavesdroppers.' No prudent peasant would hum The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow near a fairy rath, 'for they are jealous, and do not like to hear their songs on clumsy mortal lips.' Blake once saw a fairy's funeral. But this, as Mr. Yeats points out, must ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... around the little room. It was a cosy place, and the partly-opened window let in the fresh air from the surrounding fields, together with the sound of the twitter of birds and the hum of bees. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... she sat. All her bright bloom faded in an instant and a kind of frenzy seized her. She had a wild desire to get down out of the carriage and run with all her might away from this hateful scene. The sky seemed to have suddenly clouded over and the hum and buzz of voices about seemed a babel that would ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... IS no test-remark—nobody made one. [Great sensation.] There wasn't any pauper stranger, nor any twenty-dollar contribution, nor any accompanying benediction and compliment—these are all inventions. [General buzz and hum of astonishment and delight.] Allow me to tell my story—it will take but a word or two. I passed through your town at a certain time, and received a deep offence which I had not earned. Any other man would have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "Hum!" said Janet, and picked up her brush again. For a time she worked in silence, eyes strained to the fine lines, breath held in to steady her hand, then liberated with a ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... drop in on his way home from hunting—but I guess he'll disappoint me. I hoped it was he." She fell to her task again, only now she began to hum softly, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... yesterday, and took it quiet enough. What ailed them now? I leaned my arms on the rail and stared back. Devil a wink they had in them! Now and then I could see the children chatter, but they spoke so low not even the hum of their speaking came my length. The rest were like graven images: they stared at me, dumb and sorrowful, with their bright eyes; and it came upon me things would look not much different if I were on the platform ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... along unarmed, singing of the soft voice and sweet smiles of his Lalage! The brook is now nearly dammed up; a wall of close-fitting rough-hewn stones gathers its waters into a still, dark pool; its overflow gushes out in a tiny rill that rushed down beside our path, mingling its murmur with the hum of myriads of insects that swarmed ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... 'Thanks to you, we live!' Birds flew from twig to twig,—and the persistent murmur of many bees working amid the wild thyme which spread itself in perfumed purple patches among the moss and grass, sounded like the far-off hum of a human crowd. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... rowing, and with a large leather bag well filled at starting but empty on its return; and instead of its contents we bring back in our memory a whole series of tales, characters, and incidents of water-craft life, some tragic, others comic, many 'hum-drum' enough, but still instructive, suggestive, branching out into hidden lives one would like to draw forth, and telling sorrows that are softened by being told. Of the French crews I began with here, not one of the first few could even ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... a master has pictured what happened in those dismal months; and in that truest of fictions, The History of the Plague Year, Defoe [21] shows death, with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence broken only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by the woeful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the madder yells of ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... is the shieling, and the hum that is in it, Since the ear that was wont to listen is now no more on the watch. Where is Isabel, the courteous, the conversable, a sister in kindness? Where is Anne, the slender-browed, the turret-breasted, whose glossy hair pleased ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... this college were two very wise Chinese philosophers—by name, Hum-Drum and Kopy-Keck. For them the king sent; and straightway they came. In a long speech he communicated to them what they knew very well already—as who did not?—namely, the peculiar condition of his daughter in relation to the globe on which she dwelt; and requested ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... weeks. As matters stand, however, I have spent—let me see-pearls one forty thousand; emeralds, seven fifty; rubies, eight forty; brilliants, nine twenty; onyxes—I have several very nice onyxes-two thirty. Other gems, carbuncles, agates—hum! Yes, it figures out at just over four million seven hundred and forty thousand. I dare say that we may say five millions, for I have not counted the ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is pouring down upon garden and gravelled walks at Moyne; except the hum of the industrious bees, not a sound can be heard; even the streamlet at the end of the long lawn is running sleepily, making sweet music as it goes, indeed, but so drowsily, so heavily, that it hardly reaches the ear; and so, too, with the lap-lapping ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown |
