"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a glorious afternoon in late July. The hum of insect life seemed to flood the whole moor; the scent of mown hay and wild thyme, and late hawthorn blossom from the trees on the edge of the moor, was heavy in the air, and the sun was very hot, and ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... engine and dusty cars rolled into the station amid the hoarse tolling of the bell. As they ran slowly past him, Edgar saw a police trooper leaning out from a vestibule, and when the train stopped the constable on the platform hurried toward the car. A hum of excited voices broke out and Edgar had some difficulty in pushing through the growing crowd to reach the steps. A constable, who had hard work to keep the others back, let him pass, and he found Flett standing on the platform above, looking ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... end of that time, why we'll all go and see what's in it. No," he said, "you mustn't go to look at it every now and then—that would spoil the charm. Let me see. This is the twenty-eighth—a year and a day—hum." And he made his calculations. Then he said: "By the way, Mary, don't you and the children ever get hungry between meals? If you were to take bread and meat, and make up sandwiches to take on your excursions, they'd never be missed. I'd see to it," he said, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... "A hum of business and everyday work surrounded the place, and it seemed refreshing to note the stir and bustle of affairs. Streams of people were entering the Court as we arrived. They were inhabitants and watchers bringing the new incarnations to the Registeries ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... strange experience—the horrific vision in the midst of things so accustomed. Sunshine fell sweetly upon porch and backyard; yonder was the familiar stable, and from its interior came the busy hum of a carpenter shop, established that morning by Duke's young master, in association with Samuel Williams and Herman. Here, close by, were the quiet refuse-can and the wonted brooms and mops leaning against the latticed wall at the end ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... "Hum" again nodded Eph. "Well, anyway, with farm labor at a premium, I'm not going to stay aboard to black the ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... prosperous and happy under the beneficent workings of the Republican Protective-Tariff system. Business, of all sorts, recovering from the numerous attacks made upon that prime bulwark of our American industries, if only let alone, will fairly hum, and look bright, so far as "the Almighty dollar" is concerned. They know they have their primaries and conventions, in their wards and counties throughout their State, and their State Conventions, and their elections. They know that the voice of the majority of their own people, uttered ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... He used to array himself in his regimentals, and saunter about like an officer of the Coldstream Guards, strolling down to his club in St. James's. Every time he passed me, he would heave a sentimental sigh, and hum to himself "The girl I left behind me." This fine corporal afterward became a representative in the Legislature of the State of New Jersey; for I saw his name returned about a year after my ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky figures. How she did it I could never understand, for the two heavy bolts had both been drawn, but the next moment the door stood wide open; and a hum of voices, cheery with the anticipation of a period of perfect bliss, was borne in upon the cool ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... you sit at the window you can feel the spray on your face, and if you lie a-bed the tang of the air sweeping across the Atlantic will get you out at the double; and the smell of the pines, and the hum of the bees in summer, and the rush of the storm, and the crash of the waves in winter, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... "Hum!" mused Mr. Brown, as he drew back and arose. "Perhaps you'd better coax him out," he said, for he had no desire to be bitten even by a little dog, as sometimes their ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... all right. Bless my soul! who'd want to carry off a baby? There aint no wild beasts roamin' round, and most of us's got babies enough o' our own to hum, without borryin of the neighbors. You'll find him there all safe enough when we get back. Them shad, ye see, was promised at one o'clock up to the hotel. Cap'n Kent, ye know, he ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Building on Saturday afternoons! Finally as if to convince the city of their utter madness, this intrepid trio adventured the founding of a literary magazine to be called The Chap Book! Culture on the Middle Border had at last begun to hum! ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... in character; when, suddenly, the sun's rim appears above the horizon, decking the dew-laden foliage with glittering gems sending gleams of golden light far into the woods, and waking up all nature to life and activity. Birds chirp and flutter about, parrots scream, monkeys chatter, bees hum among the flowers, and gorgeous butterflies flutter lazily along or sit with full expanded wings exposed to the warm and invigorating rays. The first hour of morning in the equatorial regions possesses a charm and a beauty that ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... backless benches, high above the floor, groaned under the weight of irrepressible young America; the multitude of mischievous, shining faces, the bare legs and feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere—one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... it was a mere bullock-cart, with no outriders. He took the same road as before, and noticed the same hills and streams. The two officials were by no means imposing this time, and when he asked how far was his destination they continued to hum and whistle and paid no attention to him. At last they passed through an opening, and he recognized his own village, precisely as he had left it. The two officials desired him to get down and walk up the steps before him, where, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... a letter addressed to Abou Saood, summoning hum to appear instantly at Fatiko: at the same time I promised him a free exit; without which written assurance I might as well have summoned the "man in ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... feeling that he had been through strange places, where he could never wander any more; and he held himself erect and strong, and looked about him. Nothing was to be seen but the shining of the river, and the dark shadows of the trees; nothing was to be heard but the hum of the insects, as they ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... hum of the electronic generator on the power deck droning in his ears the curly-haired cadet ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... that anything so monstrous should exist in this profusion and prodigality of blessings! The herbs, elastic with health, seem to partake of sensitive and animated life, and to feel under my hand the benediction I would bestow on them. What a hum of satisfaction in God's creatures! How is it, Sidney, the smallest ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... but Dora knew, and her tears fell all the faster when she thought that she, too, must leave her, for her aunt had said to Mr. Hastings, that after the funeral Dora must go home, adding, that Mrs. Leah would take care of Ella until his return. So, when the hum of voices and the tread of feet had ceased, when the shutters were closed and the curtains dropped, Eugenia came for her to go, while Mrs. Leah came to take the child, who refused to leave Dora, clinging so obstinately to her neck, and crying so pitifully, that even ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... after hour, for days, and weeks, and months, sooner than the morning should have broke as it did upon a rabble of black faces, some over white clothes, some over the British uniform that they had disgraced; and as I, who was on the west roof, heard the first hum of their coming, and caught the first glimpse of the ragged column, I gave the alarm, setting my teeth hard as I did so; for, after many years of soldiering, I was now for the first time to see a little ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... made the circuit of the walls darkness had fallen, and concealed the martial features of the scene. Lights twinkled everywhere upon the stone terraces; the sound of lutes and other musical instruments came up softly on the still air, with the hum of talk and laughter. The sea lay as smooth as a mirror, and reflected the light of the stars, and the black hulls of the galleys and ships in the harbour lay still ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... get some sort of a lunch to do him until dinner time. As he stepped from the door of the office he caught sight of two men hurrying from the cook camp to the men's camp. He thought he heard the hum of conversation in the latter building. The cookee set hot coffee before him. For the rest, he took what he could find cold on ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... is not quite so bad, for then the hooting of a vagrant owl, or it may be the distant howl of a prowling timber wolf, that gray skulker of the pine lands, is apt to break the monotony; but even in the midst of summer there is lacking the hum of insects and the bustle of woods life—at best one hears the weird call of the whip-poor-will, called by the Indians, the "wish-a-wish," or if near a marsh ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... Faust. What hum of music, what a radiant tone, Thrills through me, from my lips the goblet stealing! Ye murmuring bells, already make ye known The Easter morn's first hour, with solemn pealing? Sing you, ye choirs, e'en now, the glad, consoling song, That once, from ...
— Faust • Goethe
... this: your man did take plain Nature for God, an' he did talk fulishness 'bout finding Him in the scent o' flowers, the hum o' bees an' sichlike. Mayhap Nature's a gude working God for a selfish man but she ed'n wan for a maid, as you knaws by now. Then your faither—his God do sit everlastingly alongside hell-mouth, an' do laugh ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the mills are all thrown open, and now and then the voices of some operatives, singing at their work, steal forth in company with the whir and hum of the spindles, and mingle with the splash of the waterfall; and the united voices of nature, industry, and man, harmonize their swelling tones, or go floating upward on the soft July air. The houses upon the hill-side seem to be endeavouring to extricate themselves from bowers of full-leafed ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... me leave to examine your present dress? Hum! Two flannel waistcoats, a thick cloth coat, a Bath surtout! It is a vast weight to carry this warm weather. I only hope you ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... hoof-strokes of the steed, Whose mane of silver, like a wave of light, Bathed the caressing hand I pined to clasp! It is as if a song-lark, towering high In pride of place, should stoop her sun-bathed wing, Low as the poor hum of the grasshopper. I scorn thee not, old man; no haunting ghost Born of the darkness of thy perjury Crosses the white tent of my dreaming now But for myself, that I should so have loved!— The sweet folds of that blessed charity, Pure as the cold veins of Pentelicus, Were all too narrow now ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... the hum of those invisible wings made itself heard. The men craned their necks and looked about them with eager interest; their curiosity was uncontrollable—would not ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... brink of completion an improvement on the telephone, usually a new transmitter. They were free-souled creatures, excellent company, sensitive, cheerful, and profane; liars, braggarts, and hustlers, with an air of making slow old England hum, which never left them even when, as often happened, they were wrestling with difficulties of their own making, or struggling in no-thoroughfares, from which they had to be retrieved like stray sheep by Englishmen without imagination enough ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... time not of Giotto or of Orcagna, but of Masaccio and Uccello, of Pollaiolo and Donatello. For the mild, meek, angelic monk dreaded the life of his days; dreaded to leave the cloister where the sunshine was tempered and the noise reduced to a mere faint hum, and where the flower-beds were tidy and prim; dreaded to soil or rumple his spotless white robe and his shining black cowl; a spiritual sybarite, shrinking from the sight of the crowd seething in the streets, shrinking from the idea of stripping the rags off the beggar in order to see his tanned ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... said Uncle Moses, "we're jest as safe now as if we were to hum. We can defy a hull army of them bloody-minded miscreants, fight them off all right, and by mornin there'll be lots of wagons passin by, an we can git help. But before we go, let's see what weepins we can skear up in case o' need. It's allus best to ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... massive, hewn- timber, iron-studded door that let in at the foot of what seemed a donjon keep. The floor was cement, and doors let off in various directions. One, opening to a Chinese in the white apron and starched cap of a chef, emitted at the same time the low hum of a dynamo. It was this that deflected Forrest from his straight path. He paused, holding the door ajar, and peered into a cool, electric-lighted cement room where stood a long, glass-fronted, glass-shelved refrigerator flanked by an ice-machine ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... fears to depart from beaten paths, who allows himself to be bound by arbitrary rules, limits his own creative powers in just the degree that he allows himself so to be bound. "My book," says one of the greatest of modern authors, "shall smell of the pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window shall interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also." Far better, gentle sage, to have it smell of the pines and resound with the hum of insects than to have it sound of the rules that a smaller type of man ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... manufacturing or commercial prosperity; or entirely new and more transcendent sources of science may have done the same thing, and our country may be left, like a stranded vessel, to rot upon the beach! Her furnaces extinguished, her manufactories deserted, her cities decayed, the hum of her busy population silenced, she may present a spectacle of desolation like that of so many other famous nations which have risen, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... ourselves with a certain thing, we take a liking for it and often become virtuosos. By always thinking of a disease we are led to imagine that we suffer from it. A melody too often repeated often becomes automatic and we whistle or hum it unconsciously. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Hum'ble Petitioners being desirous to Prevent the Inconveniences that may arise from all Irregular Intrusions into any vacant Lands, and also In a Regular manner to Settle a Township on the Land afores'd, by which the frontier on that Side will be more Clos'd & Strengthened ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... occupation; who passed tranquil lives amid the quietness of the solemn hills, far removed alike from the ambitious strife of cities and the bloody spectacles of war. Lying amid the solitudes of the mountains, where no sounds fall on the ear but the bleating of flocks, the lowing of cattle, the hum of bees, the baying of a watch-dog from the lonely homestead, the murmur of hidden rills, the everlasting rush of the waterfall as it plunges flashing into its dark, foaming pool, pastoral are eminently ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... it needed nothing to enhance its splendor; nothing but her pale face, her dark strange eyes, and her heavy eyebrows. I could see that she was slender too, but strong withal, as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in the midst of the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... to the miller; "pates are the thing now." Then, to Monsieur De la Riviere: "There's nothing like hot pennies and wine to make the world love you. But it's too late, too late for my young Seigneur!" he added in mockery, and again he began to hum in a sort ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... whistle," sobbed Mrs. Carr. "We allus thought Patience Swift must ha' took it. She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller, an' jest arter she went away we missed the whistle. Your father he brought that hum the same v'yage I told ye he brought the blue crape. He knowed I was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of Shakespeare. By the margin of the pond the yellow iris hangs out its golden banners over which the dragon fly skims. The hedgerows are gay with the full-blown dog-roses, the bells of the bilberries droop down along the wood-side, and the red-hipped bumble bees hum over them. Out of the woodland and up Snaperake Lane I rise to the moorland, and then the sea coast comes in sight, and the longing to know ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... "Hum! Well, we might put them in our middy blouses, only we take a chance of losing them in squirming back through that tunnel," ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... harbor. The wharves were crowded with shipping from all parts of the world which were already filled with workmen busily engaged in unloading the cargoes. The hum of the thousands in the city beginning their daily work, rose into the air and spread far over ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... laid himself at her feet. The soft autumn sunshine played here and there upon her form and face through the leaves, while the occasional note of a bird or hum of an insect were the only sounds that broke the stillness of the lonely place. What an exquisite pleasure to lie there and breathe in all this wonderful peace, for it was like a taste of heaven. Far away from all perplexities and cares, she could have lost herself in sweet ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... huge ring like so many terraced flower-beds, dazzling with the gold lace of uniforms and the bright tints of women's dresses softened by white mantillas. Over all was a fluttering of fans, like thousands of hovering butterflies; and a hum floated up loud as the humming of a million bees, to the blue dome of sky, where English and ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... children. Here you will be able to recognise many of your friends." A good propaganda to induce desertions and surrenders! The Italians generally had the mastery over the Austrians in the air. Their machines, and especially their Capronis, could always be distinguished from the Austrians' by the deeper hum of their engines. ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... "Hum, well, there's one that is said to be bigger than three men, and there must be any number of smaller ones—say boy's size, and from that on down to the real little ones, according ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... go now, noways. Sary's wood-pile's nigh gin out, 'n there was a mighty big sundog yesterday; 'nd moreover I smell snow. It'll be suthin' to git hum as 'tis. Mabbe Bartlett'll keep ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... nearer, Doth the red whirlwind come; And louder still, and still more loud, From underneath that rolling cloud, Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, The trampling and the hum. And plainly and more plainly Now through the gloom appears, Far to left and far to right, In broken gleams of dark-blue light, The long array of helmets bright, The long ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... bridesmaid, Libbie," announced Betty, catching up the bride's train and beginning to hum the wedding march under ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... to hear this story, say so," demanded Shadow. "These little boys got to bragging what each could do. Says one, 'I kin climb our apple tree clear to the top.' Says the other, 'Huh! I can climb to the roof of our house.' 'Hum,' says the first boy, 'I can climb to the roof of our house, an' it's higher'n yours.' 'No, 'taint.' 'It is so—it's got a cupola on top.' 'I don't care,' cried the other boy. 'Our's is higher. It's got a ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... Although built on the bee plan, it possessed an observation tower right on top of its "head." (The four afterward established that this was the sort of a machine that Smith's agent had operated.) The occupant approached to within a respectful distance from Billie's borrowed eyes, and proceeded to hum the following ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... great plain, great as any sea, stretching away to a horizon of low chalk hills. Suddenly the car slowed down at a signal from my companion and stopped. We got out. Not a sound was to be heard except the mournful hum of the distant threshing machine, but a peculiar clicking, like the halliard of a flagstaff in a breeze, suddenly caught my ear. The wind was rising, and as I looked around me I saw innumerable little tricolour flags fluttering against small wooden staves. It was the battlefield of ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... the outcome was that I crossed the Seine bridge by myself about ten o'clock; remembering my escape from Ste. Pelagie; remembering I should never see the gargoyles on Notre Dame any more, or the golden dome of the Invalides, or hear the night hum of Paris, whether I succeeded or not. For if I succeeded I should be away toward the coast by morning; and if I did not succeed, I ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... that busy land, grey town, and peaceful village, Where never jar was heard, nor wail, nor cry of strife, From every laden stream and all the fields of tillage, Arose the murmur and the kindly hum of life. ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... that afternoon's lessons were got over in Eden Valley Academy. The hum of disturbance reached even the juniors, skulking peacefully under little Mr. Stephen, the assistant. Only Miss Huntingdon, in the Infant Department, remained quiet and neat as a dove new-preened among her murmuring throng ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... imbued with the general hopefulness of the place. Every one has the look of one making ready. You hear, all day long, when far enough from the waves, a vague, joyous hum of bustle pervading the town. The enterprising click of hammer or trowel falls constantly on the ear. The masons are at work upon the new villas, and our hotel is completing a fine addition for a cafe; the stores along the busy little main street are being put in order, the windows alluringly ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... 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 awkwardly, though with the best intentions ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... beaten was quite intoxicating. There is such a curious sight of a crowd of men carrying huge blocks of stone up out of a boat. One sees exactly how the stones were carried in ancient times; they sway their bodies all together like one great lithe animal with many legs, and hum a low chant to keep time. It is quite unlike any ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... W Beecher G Blundell Hum: Monoux Will ffranklin John Ventris Will Spencer Will Gery St Jo Chernocke Wm Daniels T ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... "Hum, lots of work for me to-day!" said the toy hospital doctor, as he put on his apron and his square, paper cap. "I must mend the broken leg of that Rocking Horse as soon as I ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... cocoanut-tree. Besides 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 ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... isle is full of noises Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds, methought, would open and shew riches Ready to drop on me: that when I wak'd I cried to ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... an exception, dressed to match the rain and the woods, looking neither tired nor annoyed about anything—looking only in earnest. To Ruth, especially, it came like a revelation. She looked around her with surprised eyes. There were intellectual faces on every hand. There was the hum of conversation all about her, for the meeting was not yet opened, and the tone of their words was different from any with which her life had been familiar; they seemed lifted up, enthused; they seemed to have found something ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... the starless darkness and the icy night air, and the fierce silent two hours' race, his senses reeled on sudden entrance into warmth, and light, and the cheery hum of voices. A sudden unforeseen anguish assailed him, as now first he entertained the possibility of being overmatched by her wiles and her daring, if at the approach of pure death she should start up at bay transformed to a terrible beast, and achieve a savage glut at the ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... the air. The words stuck in the silence like insects wriggling upon a pin. Then the voice was gone, and the silence was complete and heavy. The carrier hum ceased. With a spine-tingling brief blaze of high-frequency sound, Hoskins' oxygen-bottle hit the ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... comes back; at least, if that foolish fellow goes on with his imaginary fancy. She'll have to come back some time, and if he chooses to imagine himself constant, there's still the devil to pay.' Presently he began to hum the air out of ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... stifled hum of the two hosts. Only a few shots were heard, now and then, from the skirmishers, and these resembled the last drops of a storm which ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... members of the school were to keep away from the rooms of the football players, who, of course, needed, on this night of all nights, a sound and long sleep. In Lincoln Hall, at meal time, there had been a hum of eager conversation: the Jefferson team had arrived in Hamilton and had gone to comfortable quarters at Grey Stone Inn, three miles from the school. They would remain at the inn until just before the game, when they would come to the field in automobiles. Several of ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... chum together, but still I am a student. And you shall see how lively and cheerful I will be." He forced a smile that hovered on tears. "We shall be two rackety young students, every night raising a thousand devils. Gaudeamus igitur." He began to hum in his cracked hoarse voice the Burschen-lied of his early ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... they sold for a day's wages; though of course their industry was partly due to my "gringo" presence. We addressed them as inferiors, in the "tu" form and with the generic title "hombre," or, more exactly, in the case of most of the American bosses, "hum-bray." The white man who said "please" to them, or even showed thanks in any way, such as giving them a cigarette, lost caste in their eyes as surely as with a butler one might attempt to treat as a man. I tried ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... of the arrival of him whose face we have so long sought The hour is at hand when he joins his military family at an unostentatious and very frugal dinner. In about half an hour there is a sudden cessation in the hum of conversation, the guard is ordered to stand to arms, and in a moment more, amid profound silence, Garibaldi has passed through the antechamber, leaving the place, as it were, pervaded by his presence. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... song died down into a hum. But soon a quavering falsetto was heard formulating a new motive, expressing a new thought. Other voices joined the leader's; a minor refrain swept up and down the line; and abruptly the climax swelled out in a diapason descending far into the bass. So that every ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... 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 ones to invade those silent ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... had lately assumed, floated in the morning wind. The two armies were perfectly silent, save here and there the bray of a single trumpet, or beat of a naker drum in one or the other, and the continuous hum of the hymns and chants from the three Russian chapel- tents. The archers held their arrows on the string, the gunners stood with lighted matches. The copper-clad domes of the minarets began to glow with the rising sunbeams; the muezzins were on the roofs about to call ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... croaking, and insects all in green livery, with gilt buttons, contributed to Nature's Great Boston Jubilee of music with their hum. How ridiculous it seems that insects should have a hum!—and yet the Bee has its Hum in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... she gasped her way painfully back to life. All was very peaceful now; the water fell with its soft tinkling sound, there was a low hum of insects; beside her stony pillow grew some stars of Bethlehem, and in between their delicate white and green she could see the arena and the tiers of seats opposite, and out beyond the green encircling hills. Golden sunshine lighted up the dark pines and ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... only sound that broke the silence was the occasional humming of bees, for the King still allowed the people to keep bees if they liked. "Bees are not noisy," he said. "They do not grunt, or bark, or croak. I can bear to listen to the humming of bees." Even the bees did not hum so much as bees generally do; for the sun soon found that nobody laughed when he was shining his very best, so he went behind a cloud in a temper and stayed there for years and years and years; and the bees could not do without sunshine, even if the King ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... had a delightful ride, and a much more delightful tete-a-tete. This Lee appears to be a hum-drum, disagreeable Creature. Tea is ready, and ...
— Journal of a Young Lady of Virginia, 1782 • Lucinda Lee Orr
... field, and finally I heard, as though the sounds were then made for the first time, all the vague murmurs of the country side—a cow-bell somewhere in the distance, the creak of a wagon, the blurred evening hum of birds, insects, frogs. So much it means for a man to stop and look up from his task. So I stood, and I looked up and down with a glow and a thrill which I cannot now look back upon without some envy and a little amusement at the very grandness and seriousness of it all. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... of "Sulu." We put up in a chief's house, and after getting through the usual boiled yams, I went on a tour of inspection around the town, but I soon found that I was the one to be inspected. There was a hum of voices in every hut, and doorways were darkened with many heads. Groups of young men, women and children assembled to see the sight, but scampered away if I approached too near. No white man but the government agent had been here for several years, ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... voice (distinctly from arena). I'd like ever so much to see Buffalo BILL run his Show in here—he'd just make this old circus hum! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... her, I s'pose," said the old woman, with a sigh. She laid the letter down, but very reluctantly, beside the wash-tub, and plunged both hands among the suds again. "Quebec!" The word recalled a silly old song of the sailors; she had heard her boy hum it again and again— ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... subdued by some invisible influence. Amongst the thirty thousand souls that peopled it the day I was there, not one loud noise was to be heard, not one irregular movement seen—the living tide rolls on quietly, with a deep hum like the sea ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... of the Groenfontein Legislative Council. A hum of assent followed on her utterance, and an English girl got up upon a form. She was the niece of a High Commissioner, daughter of a Secretary of Imperial Government, at Cape Town, who wrote K.C.M.G. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Asmodeus-like, have unroofed the houses to read the history of human life or the passions of the human heart, for life and passion had gone forth that night from many a tranquil abode to revel in publicity. One so standing above the wild hum of tumultuous enjoyment would in silent thought have marveled at the strange drama performing as it were at his feet,—the sad and fearful mixture of the shadows and lights of life and death, the market-place, and close at hand the burial-ground. Talk of contemplation in the wild solitudes of ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... smoky-orange lights beginning to flicker uncertainly as the wind that heralds the sunrise came fitfully up. The soft wet grass under their feet was flecked with little grayish-silver cobwebs, and here and there they heard the morning chirp of ground-nesting birds. As they went farther up the hill a hum of voices came from above; the voices of people, men and women, mingled and consonant like the voices of the birds, but with a certain tone of trouble and expectancy. Every now and then one individual voice or another would dominate the general murmur, and would be followed by a quick flutter ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... strange that we should foregather this mornin', Mr Mabberly," said the skipper, after greeting the young men; "for Shames an' me was jist speakin' aboot ye. We will be thinkin' that it iss foolishness for hum an' me to be stoppin' here wastin' our time when we ought to be at ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... 35,000 musketeers, 700 Cassay cavalry, and other troops, amounting in the whole to 60,000 men. On the 30th of November this great force assembled in the forest of Rangoon, fronting the great Shoedagon pagoda. On the following night the low hum of voices proceeding from the encampment suddenly ceased, and it was succeeded by the distant but gradually increasing sounds of a multitude moving stealthily through the woods. The British commander soon became aware ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... The wild fowl fed, but now no longer dwells. No more the bison feeds Upon the prairie, for the once drear plain Laughs in the sun and waves its golden grain. By a slender chain Ocean is linked to ocean, and the hum Of labor in the wilderness foretells The greatness of a nation yet to come. In Southern seas Another nation grows by slow degrees, In dreamy India, under tropic sun, Two hundred millions own an Empress' sway, And day by day. New territories won Shed lustre ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... Hath need of pause and interval of peace. Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease, Save hum of insects' aimless industry. Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry Of color to conceal her swift decrease. Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece A blossom, and lay bare her poverty. Poor middle-agd summer! Vain this show! Whole fields of ...
— A Calendar of Sonnets • Helen Hunt Jackson
... hum. The sound came nearer with great rapidity. It was a powerful engine. It was several seconds before the girl looked up instead of along the road in search of the seat ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... by the time they had arrived at the enclosure for the relations of immigrants he had become so accustomed to the hum of Marcus' conversation that he refrained from uttering even a perfunctory "Uh-huh." They sat on a hard bench for more than half an hour, while the attendants bawled the common surnames of every ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... Melville gazed blank astonishment at the notion. 'Oh! certainly, too late tonight. A-hum! I think, madam, you had better not be in too great a hurry to see him. Repose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this somewhat perplexing question, he felt the ground begin to quiver under him. Through the hum of London there gradually arose a louder roar, and in a minute the head-lights of an engine flashed out of the tunnel. One after another a string of bright carriages followed it, each more slowly than the carriage in front, till the whole train was at a standstill below him with the ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... 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 a neighborhood tea-drinking and a church social. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... snow 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 ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... big trade is done with Liverpool and Glasgow by means of the Dundalk and Newry Packet Company's fine service of boats. For this inland place has been made into a thriving seaport, and these Northerners make the water hum. At low tide the artificial cutting of the navigation works looks unpromising enough, but the people of these parts would be doing business if they had to float the boats on mud. The hills are cultivated to the topmost peak, or planted ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... set to the flower-show, which was held under a large tent in a field. Laura heard the hum and buzz about her; the jolly wives of the various gardeners and florists admiring their husbands' prizes; the band of the militia playing outside; Brandon's delightful voice—how she wished that ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... undisturbed about the approaches to the building, fluttering to be fed from the hand of some recognized friend, and scarcely evading the feet of the casual wayfarer. With this scene before him, if one will close his ears to the hum of the great city at his back he can readily imagine himself on classical soil, and, dreaming of Greece and Italy, he will enter the door quite prepared to find himself in the midst of antique marbles and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... when a breeze of sufficient strength sweeps across it. The larks are so multitudinous that no distinct song can be caught, and amidst the confused melody comes the note of the thrush and the blackbird. A constant under-running accompaniment is just audible in the hum of innumerable insects and the sharp buzz of flies darting past the ear. Only those who live in the open air and watch the fields and sea from hour to hour and day to day know what they are and what they mean. The chance visitor, or he who looks ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... against arbitrary taxation followed. None but the immediate representatives of the people might dispose of lands or raise money. Thus early did Massachusetts echo the voice of Virginia, like deep calling unto deep. The state was filled with the hum of village politicians; "the freemen of every town in the Bay were busy in inquiring into their liberties and privileges." With the exception of the principle of universal suffrage, now so happily established, the representative ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... him—a quick rag. The patients brighten, hum, whistle, sway their heads or tap their feet in time to the tune. Doctor Stanton and Doctor Simms appear in the doorway from the hall. All eyes are ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... stagger and fall back, with an almost convulsive spasm, against a seat placed near one of the open windows. At the same instant his ear caught a sort of indistinct sound on the stairs, followed by the measured tread of soldiery, with the clanking of swords and military accoutrements; then came a hum and buzz as of many voices, so as to deaden even the noisy mirth of the bridal party, among whom a vague feeling of curiosity and apprehension quelled every disposition to talk, and almost instantaneously the most deathlike ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... men, stepping to the nearest telephone, unhooked the receiver. To his ear came the low busy hum of a live wire. Somebody touched a bell button, and the head janitor, running joyfully, two steps at a time, from his lair, cried out that his ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... wistful way she watched Barby when the postman came. It made her throat ache to see that little shadow of disappointment creep into Barby's lovely gray eyes and then see her turn away with her lips pressed together tight for a moment before she began to hum or speak brightly about something else. No Chinese letter had come in her absence ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... credito; de que el Rey muyto confiua: e ho doutor Ioam d'Eluas, e fernam de Pina por secretario. E foram por mar muy honradamente cum muy boa companhia: hos quaes foram en nome del rey confirmar as ligas antiquas com Inglaterra, que polla-condican deltas ho nouo Rey de hum zeyno e do outro era obrigado a mandar confirmar: e tambien pera monstrarem ho titolo que el rey tinha no senhorio de Guinee, pera que depois de visto el rey D'Inglaterra defendesse em todos seus reynos, que ninguen ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... His hat again falls from his head, and his body, following, lays its lumbering length on the stairs. Happy fraternity! how useful is that body! His companion, laying his muddled head upon it, says it will serve for a pillow. "E'ke-hum-spose 'tis so? I reckon how I'm some-ec! eke!-somewhere or nowhere; aint we, Joe? It's a funny house, fellers," he continues to soliloquise, laying his arm affectionately over his companion's neck, and again yielding to the caprice of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... tables in order to waken the sleepers, they, in their turn, give a good deal of annoyance. The man who talks about politics at great length, is only one of the common bores of the world transported into a club. But the man with a voice which in ordinary conversation pierces through all the hum of voices, like a clarion note in battle, would be a bore anywhere. If he were in the wilderness of Sinai, he would annoy the monks in the convent near the top. His voice is one of those terrible, inscrutable scourges of nature, like the earthquake and the mosquito, which ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... be seriously ill. Restlessly I paced the floor, longing for, yet dreading, the approach of the express train which was due at the station at 9 p.m. The wind had risen and was buffeting the telegraph wires, making them hum in an ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... "Ah, Glyndon!—hum!—welcome! What! thou art twice my rival! But Jean Nicot bears no malice. Virtue is my dream,—my country, my mistress. Serve my country, citizen; and I forgive thee the preference of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... running the entire depth of the building, and bringing you back again toward the Rue Lepelletier, which you left on entering the cul de sac, to seek the low entrance below. As you traverse the endless gallery, your attention is arrested by a deep hum, as of many voices at a distance, with which the entire structure seems pervaded, accompanied by a heavier sound, which rises and falls with measured stroke. This mysterious hum might have been heard ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... multitude they seemed, these flowers of London town! Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own. The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, Thousands of little boys and girls raising their ...
— Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience • William Blake
... over a 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
... in a whisper, "are you here?" But there was only the ticking of the clock and the hum of ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... fifty-dollar ivory rattles in an inarticulate greeting to one another. A million dollars of preferred stock laughs merrily in recognition of a majority control going past in a go-cart drawn by an imported nurse. And through it all the sunlight falls through the elm trees, and the birds sing and the motors hum, so that the whole world as seen from the boulevard of Plutoria Avenue is the very ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... into what was called a private bar. They sat in cushioned chairs, and Douglas gave his order mechanically. A few feet away, with only a slim partition between them, was the general room full of men. The tinkle of glasses and hum of conversation grew louder and louder. It was a cold evening and a busy time. Douglas sipped his wine in silence. The girl opposite was humming a tune and beating time with her foot. She was watching him ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... Freeman's Falls had never known a more severe season and among the mill employees there was much illness and depression. Prices were high, business slack, and the work ran light. Nevertheless, the Fernalds refused to shorten the hours. There were no night shifts on duty, to be sure, but the hum of the machinery that ceased at twilight resumed its buzzing every morning and by its music gladdened many a home where anxiety might otherwise ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... steadily. The shrill hum of a mosquito explored the place and grew shriller in indignation at Woodhouse's ointment. Then the lantern went out and all the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... "Oh—hum, look here—mother," interrupted Gypsy, jumping up and winking very fast, "isn't there a train up from Boston early Monday morning? She might come ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... cannot see him often; he has yet the work to do which he calls just and holy. But he is coming now. It is very quiet; she can hear her own heart beat slow and full; the warm air holds moveless the delicate scent of the clover; the bees hum her a drowsy good-night, as they pass; the locusts in the lindens have just begun to sing themselves to sleep; but the glowless crimson in the West holds her thought the longest. She loves, understands ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... "Ho, hum!" old Mr. Crow yawned. He had stopped to talk with Turkey Proudfoot in the cornfield. It was fall; and the shocks of corn stood on every hand like great fat scarecrows, with fat yellow pumpkins lying at their feet, as if the scarecrows' heads ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... see again. We sometimes came so near that it was possible to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart swells at the sight of so many bellying sails, and we feel strangely moved when the confused hum and far-off dance-music, and the deep voices of sailors, resound from the shore. But the outlines of all things vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening mist, and there remained visible only a forest of masts, rising long and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... seemed to Edith as if all the world were blotted out, and then again the hum of bees, the chirrup of birds, the fall of a fir-cone, the call of the cock-pheasant in the wood sounded obtrusively, making the girl's voice as she continued speaking appear far ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... begun to read upstairs; there's the sound of a steady hum. Yes, it's Sunday today, and she, being the best educated of them, naturally reads the service. Bravo! Magnificent! She has extended her self-discipline even to this, for they are all orthodox Christians in this neighborhood. Believing? No, but not hostile, either. One reads Scripture. Rather ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... begins to sit up and take notice when these dance-contests have been narrowed down to two couples. There are evenings when I quite forget myself, when I'm one of the last two left in, and get all excited. There's a sort of hum in the air, and, as you go round the room, people at the tables start applauding. Why, if you didn't know about the inner workings of the thing, you'd be ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... itself and the river seemed unusually still as twilight deepened and the many lights of the works wriggled in long reflection in the water. A spell of enchantment seemed to lie over everything, and the faint purring hum from the distant oil blast furnaces pervaded the still air. Old Sinbad came to anchor and night ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... neck so as to command a sight of the doorway. He obstructed my view, and only by his tense attitude and some subtle wave of excitement which he communicated to me did I know that a new arrival was entering. The hum of conversation died away, and in the ensuing silence I heard the rustle of draperies. The newcomer was a woman, then. Fearful of making any noise I yet managed to get my eyes to the level ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... mental powers decay in this utter monotony, it is his mission to be bored every day and all day long from his eighth year. Moreover, he must not take a moment's rest; the engine moves unceasingly; the wheels, the straps, the spindles hum and rattle in his ears without a pause, and if he tries to snatch one instant, there is the overlooker at his back with the book of fines. This condemnation to be buried alive in the mill, to give ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... singing in his face the sardonic ditty, "niche, niche, the devil is caught." Sometimes a group of squalid old crones, squatting in a file under the shadow of the steps to a porch, scolded noisily as the archdeacon and the bellringer passed, and tossed them this encouraging welcome, with a curse: "Hum! there's a fellow whose soul is made like the other one's body!" Or a band of schoolboys and street urchins, playing hop-scotch, rose in a body and saluted him classically, with some cry in Latin: "Eia! ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... felt their breath with incense sweet Or I might say, when the sunset burned The old farm gable, he thought it turned The milk that fell like a babbling flood Into the milk-pail red as blood! Or how he fancied the hum of bees Were bullets buzzing among the trees. But all such fanciful thoughts as these Were strange to a practical man like Burns, Who minded only his own concerns, Troubled no more by fancies fine Than one of his calm-eyed, long-tailed kine,— Quite old-fashioned ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... fellow glanced over the visitor's worn garments and dusty shoes, and said, dryly, "Hum! if it is for charity, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... began to sing, our airplanes were circling. No Boche planes were in sight now, I had been told, but there were many of ours. And sometimes one came swooping down, its occupants curious, no doubt, as to what might be going on, and the hum of its huge propeller would make me falter a bit in my song. And once or twice one flew so low and so close that I was almost afraid it would strike me, and I would dodge in what I think was mock alarm, much to the amusement ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... mischief of which most of us have familiar memories, but a sort of eager uproar, in which every child was intensely interested in the same thing; and did little rustling things because of this interest; something like the hum at a football game ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... inflicted on the rioters in 1863 seemed to have been forgotten by the mob, and it had evidently resolved to try once more its strength with the city authorities. Around the Orange head-quarters a still deeper excitement prevailed. The hum of the vast multitude seemed like the first murmurings of the coming storm, and many a face turned pale as the Orangemen, with their banners and badges, only ninety in all, passed out of the door into the street. ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... and in the old refectory, in the late afternoon, a few Huguenots, warned by messages from the farm, met to profit by one of their scanty secret opportunities for public worship. The hum of the prayer, and discourse of the pastor, rose up through the broken vaulting to Eustacie, still lying on her bed; for she had been much shaken by the fatigues of the day and alarm of the night, and bitterly grieved, too, by a message which Nanon conveyed to her, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... forth for a few minutes, clapping his hands, which were encased in gray woollen mittens, in order to restore some warmth to those almost frozen members. As he walked back and forth, he said several times, half aloud to himself, "I don't b'lieve she's comin' anyway. I s'pose she's goin' to stay ter hum and spend the evenin' with him." Finally he resumed his old position near the corner and assumed his ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... know on," muttered the man, drawing a rough hand across his eyes. "Makes me think of the time when I was a little feller ter hum, and had two sisters jest 'baout the size ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... exaggerated by unfriendly spirits. They, at all events, having built their bridge, took its stability for granted. Children of an emotional race, it sufficed to discover that they loved the cool green freshness of England, the careless kindly freedom of her life and ways; the hum of her restless, smoky, all-embracing London; her miles and miles of books and pictures. Above everything they loved Oxford, where all were brothers in spirit—with a proper sense of difference ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... A hum of admiration arose as Carlton, after retiring for a moment, returned with his palette and brush, and ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... "Hum-m! 'Tis no good way, to take such charge. Who knows what she may be saying after-times? I do feel glad she be married at last, and done with. Mayhap we may see a bit of comfort ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... water's din was heard, As down it fell into the other round, Resounding like the hum of swarming bees: When forth together issu'd from a troop, That pass'd beneath the fierce tormenting storm, Three spirits, running swift. They towards us came, And each one cried aloud, "Oh do thou stay! Whom by the fashion of thy garb we ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Kenyon Adams missed the large leisure and joyous comraderie that Grant had seen; indeed the only leisurely person whom Kenyon saw in his life until he was—Heaven knows how old—was Rhoda Kollander. The hum and bustle of Harvey did not ruffle the calm waters of her soul. She of all the women in Harvey held to the early custom of the town of going out to spend ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... light footstep drawing near. In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision of success that he withdrew into the entry of ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... nothing," said Captain Stubbs, putting his huge hands on the table. "But when a man comes into my cabin and begins to hum an' haw an' hint at things, and then begins to ask my advice about bigamy, I can't help thinking. This is a free country, and there's no law ag'in thinking. Make a clean breast of it, cap'n, an' I'll do ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... unfortunate prisoners, added to the ordinary service another. This consisted of his going up to the gilt hammered-out image (with black face and hands) supposed to represent the very God he had been eating, illuminated by a dozen wax candles, and proceeding, in a strange, discordant voice, to hum or ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy |
