"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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! ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... the rock, and pile the massive ore, Or carve a niche, or shape the arched roof; So I, as calmly, weave my woof Of song, chanting the days to come, Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawn Wakes from its starry silence to the hum Of many gathering armies. Still, In that we sometimes hear, Upon the Northern winds, the voice of woe Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I know The end must crown us, and a few brief years Dry all our tears, I may not sing too gladly. To Thy will Resigned, ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... that October evening—there, in that exuberant vista of gilding and crimson velvet set amidst all those opposing mirrors and upholding caryatids, with fumes of tobacco ever rising to the painted and pagan ceiling, and with the hum of presumably cynical conversation broken into so sharply now and again by the clatter of dominoes shuffled on marble tables, I drew a deep breath and, "This indeed," said I to myself, "is life!" (Forgive me that theory. Remember the waging of even the ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... sneered the taller visitor. "You're afraid we might steal some of your ideas. Hum! Come on Montgomery," and, swinging on his heels, with a military air, he hurried ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... phalanx of guardsmen, followed by rigid infantrymen in measured tread; the clattering of horses' hoofs, the beat of drums, the clanking of scabbards and the jangling of royal banners, rising even above the hum of eager voices. The great coach of gold, with its half score of horses, rolled sombrely beneath nature's canopy of green, surrounded on all sides by proud members of the Royal Guard. Word came down the line that the Prince sat ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... passer-by. Overhead, white, billowy clouds float lazily over their background of ethereal blue. Cool June breezes fan the cheek. Distant knolls are dotted with flocks of sheep whose bells tinkle dreamily; and drowsy hum of beetle makes the bass, while lark song forms the air of the sweet symphony that Nature plays. Such was Grasmere as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... He laughed. "It doesn't scare me one little bit, old boy. The pretty devil lady's got the wrong slant. When you've had a pal standing beside you one moment—full of life, and joy, and power, and potentialities, telling what he's going to do to make the world hum when he gets through the slaughter, just running over with zip and pep of life, Doc—and the next instant, right in the middle of a laugh—a piece of damned shell takes off half his head and with it joy and power and all the rest of it"—his face twitched—"well, ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... senators and people smile, who call Quirinus god, All temples bright, in shining white, fly open at thy nod! A lucky sun doth shine; nor voice, nor thought of ill, be stirr'd To tempt the time; the happy day demands the happy word. No brawls assail the ear; cease now the harsh-vex'd forum's hum, And calumny with eager tongue, for once thy spite be dumb! Lo! where the pure and fragrant flame from every altar round Upwreathes, while ears devout receive the saffron's crackling sound! The wandering flame, far darting, strikes the golden-fretted roof, And with the tremulous ray ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... you will, she will feel more at home when we meet." There was a pause of a moment, and then Guy, as he appropriated a cigar from a china stand that tempted him close by, resumed, "this certainly is a strange, unlooked- for incident in your hum-drum life, but it is also a very fortunate one, since she is such a comfort to you and such an acquisition to your home—I fancy, from your description she could scarcely be otherwise. I hope we will ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... right mind again, or was it some coincidence of his delirium, that he should have chosen this for his song? With moist eyes his friends looked back through the darkness, for well they knew that home was very near to this wanderer. Gradually the voice died away into a hum, and was absorbed once more into the masterful silence ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... swei glass. Any other fellow takin' your wind?" and his furtive eyes darted a keen interrogation. Sam did not answer at once, and his friend went on: "Why, she don't hardly know anybody but me and you, and, he-he! I wouldn't stand no chance at all against you—hum?" ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... the low green ridges in the churchyard, where the drowsy hum of the threshing in a wheatfield across the road, was the only reminder of the serious business of life. And immediately, as if the beneficent green had enveloped her memory, her weaknesses were effaced and her virtues were exalted in the minds ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... 'Hum; his hand!' growled the squire. 'His hand's been pretty lively on the Continent, William. Here, look at this book, William, and the bundle o' cheques! No, I promised my girl. We'll go into it to-morrow, he and I, early. The fellow has shot away thousands and thousands—been ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I should fear, but lo! amid the press, The whirl and hum and pressure of my day, I hear Thy garment's sweep, Thy seamless dress, And close beside my work and weariness Discern Thy gracious form, not far away, But very near, O Lord, to help ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... by the European species is a sort of drumming or whizzing note, like the hum of a spinning-wheel. The male commences this performance about dusk, and continues it at intervals during a great part of the night. It is effected while the breast is inflated with air, like that of a cooing Dove. The Piramidig has the power of inflating himself in the same manner, and he utters ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... transplant them, and I treasure them like gold. One cluster bears light-coloured bloom; another bears dark shades. I sit with head uncovered by the sparse-leaved artemesia hedge, And in their pure and cool fragrance, clasping my knees, I hum my lays. In the whole world, methinks, none see the light as peerless as these flowers. From all I see you have no other friend more intimate than me. Such autumn splendour, I must not misuse, as steadily it fleets. My gaze I fix on you as I am fain ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... river had paused in the valley to rest, dreaming, perchance, of the long cool shadows in the uplands, the far altar-fires of daybreak. There were pleasant things to do in the valley, to lie at full length, basking in the sun, to hum a bit of the old music, to touch gently the harp-strings of the marsh grass and rushes, dimpling with pleasure at the faint answer, to reflect every passing mood of cloud and sky, even to hold the little clouds as a mother might, upon its deep and tender bosom. There were lily-pads ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Lily appeared on the stage, she transfixed every white shirt-front, every opera-glass. She took a real delight in it all. Her beauty captivated the audience. In her pink tights, Lily turned and turned and turned, to the hum of the orchestra, against the "wood" back-drop of purple and gold. Then she returned to the wings, all excited by her show, received bouquets, chatted freely with the comrades. She met old friends: the green-eyed female-impersonator, for instance, pressed her closely. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... buoyant on the glistening bubble of Dignity, she had likewise a modest estimate of her dues. Alack, my poor heroine had no pride! Mrs. Ford's silent censure awakened no resentment. It sounded in her ears like a dull, soporific hum. Lizzie was deeply enamored of what a French book terms her aises intellectuelles. Her mental comfort lay in the ignoring of problems. She possessed a certain native insight which revealed many of the horrent inequalities of her pathway; but she found it so cruel and disenchanting a faculty, that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... a hum of voices on the other side of the tree; and though they were low, as if not intended for her ear, they were also very earnest and in evident dispute over some subject which she gradually learned was none ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... the front of Grant Hall by this time and were strolling slowly along, their voices hushed for the moment by the cheery hum of boyish talk and the clatter of mess furniture, as the Corps sat at their late supper. Then several officers, gathered about the steps of the club rooms in the south end, lifted their caps to Mrs. Graham and ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... all day long; To her wakening sense the first sweet warning Of daylight come is the cheerful song To the hum of the wheel in the early morning. Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy. On his way to school, peeps in at the gate; In neat white pinafore, pleased and coy, She reaches a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... insects, and passing, by God's mercy and the Spaniard's bad marksmanship—passing high. Between two crashes, came a sudden sputter, and some singing thing began to play up and down through the trees, and to right and left, in a steady hum. It was a machine gun playing for the range—like a mighty hose pipe, watering earth and trees with a steady, spreading jet of hot lead. It was like some strange, huge monster, unseeing and unseen, who knows where his ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... 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 farther back. The whole formed ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... "Huh! Huh—hum—m—m! Writes me on Monday from Sacramento that he's busted, an' to send him a money order to San Francisco, General Delivery. Letter postmarked ten thirty A. M. Then he wires me from Stockton, the same ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... haste, he traveled by easy stages, stopping over frequently to rest. He saw on every hand evidence of awakening interest and prosperity. New houses were building; new towns were laid out; new fields were inviting the ploughman; the busy hum of industry everywhere filled the heart of the patriot, and he ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... eagerly; but he could hear nothing, save the dismal creaking of the bulkheads, the moaning of the wind, the monotonous swish, swish of the water washing across the deck outside with the roll of the ship, and the dull hum and crackling of the flames as they slowly ate their destructive way further and further into the heart ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... was clear that she was going to make a struggle for her life, and to do vicious damage, it might be, before she yielded it up. The watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this. Their wagers, and the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round the ring of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... his left he could see part of a courtyard or small square, with a fore-shortened black figure, no doubt a policeman, carrying a flash-lamp. The tree-lined Mall seemed to be utterly deserted. But Piccadilly showed a line of faint stationary lights and still fainter moving lights. A mild hum and the sounds of motor-horns and cab-whistles came from Piccadilly, where people were abroad in ignorance that the raid was not really over. All the heavens were continually restless with long, shifting rays from the anti-aircraft stations, but ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the seconds with the activity of a lot of monkeys, and the two men were hurriedly seated upon stools and each was fanned furiously with a towel by one second, while the other bathed his neck and face with cold water. A hum of conversation arose. ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... was on the way to her lips. She set it down again. The drunken old wreck of an entertainer at the piano in the corner was bellowing out his favorite song—"I Am the King of the Vikings." Susan began to hum the air. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... why I was where I was, and what time of the day or night it might happen to be—were questions which presented themselves to my mind in hazy succession, as, roused from my slumbers by the hum of voices, I woke slowly to the consciousness that, though I had been asleep, I was not in bed. It was only by a very gradual process of recollection that the past came back upon me almost like a fresh story, ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... 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 show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... way through the crowd which milled in front of the loudspeaker. The hum of excitement was giving away to a silence, the silence of a stunned people, the fearful silence of a populace facing a presence it is unable to understand, an embattled world standing with useless weapons before ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... During this, deathlike preparation, Mr. Wharton, with a feeling nearly allied to that of his son, led Sarah from the apartment. His retreat was noticed by the divine, in a kind of scornful disdain, who began to hum the air of a popular psalm tune, giving it the full richness of the twang that distinguishes the Eastern [Footnote: By "Eastern" is meant the states of New England, which, being originally settled by Puritans, still retain many distinct shades ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... to push through with Lady Maxwell on his arm. But there was an angry hum of voices in front of him, an angry pressure ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my lord." Asked the Sultan, "What is thy counsel?" And the thief said, "I repent and will deliver into thy hand all who are evildoers, and whomsoever I bring not, I will stand in his stead." Cried the Sultan, "Give hum a robe of honour and accept his profession of penitence." So he went down from the presence and returning to his comrades, related to them that which had passed, when they confessed his subtlety and gave him that which they ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and with the politicians at the St. James's. In the morning, he often listens to the hum of the Exchange; in the evening, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small circle ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... weather be warm. Ireland will never be happy till you get small coal(27) likewise; nothing so easy, so convenient, so cheap, so pretty, for lighting a fire. My service to Mrs. Stoyte and Walls; has she a boy or a girl? A girl, hum; and died in a week, humm; and was poor Stella forced to stand for godmother?—Let me know how accompts stand, that you may have your money betimes. There's four months for my lodging, that must be thought on too: and so go dine with Manley, and lose your money, do, extravagant ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... two more had left the table, but the rest, lingering over their fresh filled coffee cups, sat around telling tales, and Tex Calder was among them. He was about to push back his chair when the hum of talk ceased as if at a command. The men on the opposite side of the table were staring with fascinated eyes at the door, and then a big voice boomed behind him: "Tex Calder, stan' up. You've come to the end ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... afternoon, when the boat, under sail, was doing little more than barely stem the current, they gradually became aware of a low, faint roar, at first scarcely distinguishable above the rustle of the wind in the trees aloft and the buzzing hum of the innumerable insects which swarmed in the forest and hovered in clouds over the surface of the water. But as the boat continued to creep upstream the roar gradually increased in intensity, until at length, as they rounded a bend and ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... people. What the total casualties were I never heard. Luckily a ward had just been evacuated that evening and the wounded and dying were brought in immediately. It was horrible to see little children, torn and maimed, being carried past our door into the ward. The hum of the Gotha's engines could still be ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... The hum of voices in and about the big house ceased. Even the barking dogs were silent at last, and the music from the men's quarters, stopped. There was where he, Jim belonged, by right. Out in some of ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... Grace, trusting to her companion, quitted the car, strolling out amongst the masks. Gradually they left the main crowd, unconsciously approaching the steep brow of the hill, where, looking towards the east, they beheld the broad red moon swinging out from the blue horizon. The loud hum of the revellers came softly and pleasantly on the ear. It was an hour of quietness and delight—a few hasty, happy moments snatched from these gaudy hours—the pomp and circumstance of life. Would that Sir John ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... spinnin' room was full of niggers. I can hear dem spinnin' wheels now turnin' roun' an' sayin' hum-m-m-m, hum-m-m-m, an' hear de slaves singin' while dey spin. Mammy Rachel stayed in de dyein' room. Dey wuzn' nothin' she didn' know' bout dyein'. She knew every kind of root, bark, leaf an' berry dat made red, blue, green, or whatever color she wanted. Dey had a big shelter whare ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... hum of approval greeted his words. "Well done, gallant von Eltz!" exclaimed one of the hearers. "He deserves ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... hobgoblins. All about us rose the croaking of the frogs, dominating all the other noises of the night, and uniting in one mighty chorus in the marshes along the river. An owl was hooting from a distant tree, and the hum of innumerable insects sounded on every side. Here and there a glittering, dew-spangled cobweb stretched across our path, a barrier of silver, and required more than ordinary resolution to be brushed aside. As we turned nearer to the river, the ground grew softer and the underbrush ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... creek trying to call the attention of some boatman to take him across, he was impressed by the silence, for though the city wall was not much more than a stone's throw distant, there was none of the usual hum which arises from the movements of people. On looking closer he noticed, too, that there were few persons on the merchant vessels, and not one gang at work loading or unloading. Except the warder stalking to and fro on the wall, and the crew of the war-ship, there was no ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... walls consisted of boards. A window of four panes admitted the light, and a chimney of brick, well burnt and neatly arranged, peeped over the roof. As I approached, I heard the voice of children and the hum of a spinning-wheel. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... came now, and she wept bitterly, silently, under the starry banner, beside the dead. I heard the hum of many voices, and now and then a cry of pain, and knew they were all helping the sufferers. Then I turned to her again. Her streaming hair swept the ground, golden in the light. Her fair face was hidden on the cold dead face. And I dared not speak to her. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the 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
... was the splash of oars and the hum of voices, and in a few moments he saw a boat containing two men appear around a corner of the higher rock, which descended sheer to the water's edge, and make its way slowly toward ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... I stand before you tonight to report that the state of our union is strong. Now, America is working again. The promise of our future is limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the hum of our prosperity to lull us into complacency. How we fare as a nation far into the 21st century depends upon what we ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... when the men came in with the thrasher and the homestead vibrated to its hum, others whose harvests were garnered came too, out of good-will, and Harry was cooking and baking all day long. Sometimes for hours together they kept me busy beheading and plucking fowls—we turned a steam jet on them from the engine to make the feathers come off; and it amused me to wonder ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... by her side with fly-whisks, that she might be free to write. But the struggle was too exciting for her, and the flying insects seemed to increase. Moths of every description—large brown moths, small, delicate white millers—whirled about her, while the irritating hum of the mosquito kept on more than ever. Mr. Peterkin and the rest of the family came in to inquire about the trouble. It was discovered that each of the little boys had been standing in the opening of a wire door for some time, watching to see when Elizabeth Eliza would have made her preparations ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... lever back to zero. The power hum died. The liquids slid back to their natural level, the chair tipped over and lay still, papers ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... a white cloud, and when they swoop downwards to the ground the air vibrates with the hum of whirling wings. They have a trick of sitting along the coping tiles of the roof in single file like a company of soldiers drawn up in line, and on one occasion I saw some hundreds resting so closely together in this fashion ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... very very much" replied Helen the tears gathering in her pretty eyes as she spoke. But she soon wiped them away and leaning back in the comfortable hansom she commenced to hum a little tune as she arranged her ruffled hair at the little looking glass. Little did she dream how very soon she would have to ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... mighty green pyramid of graceful leaves, and then, from top to bottom, hundreds and hundreds of the blossom-spikes standing like little floral trees themselves; while from every part of it came a continuous hum, as the bees and other insects rifled the honeyed treasures ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... "Hum!" said the Duke thoughtfully, "you shall have your promotion in due course. You are young, and can afford to wait for it." This to Matthew. "As for you"—turning to George—"you have fairly earned your lieutenancy." And he ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... upon the heap of lumber, stretched his arm as far as it would go. "Hum," he drawled, "I can't quite make it, Sam. . . . There's a place where she narrows way down here and I can't ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... sounds of carriages rolling in the distance. They often went out after that, and chose in preference the paths near the pond of Madrid where, behind sheltering shrubs, they sat talking and listening to the busy hum of Parisian life, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... thou saw'st me sit at home: Thy great forefather called me to his side— And there I built for him a second Rome; Through me it grew to be an empire's pride. A paradise of stately pleasure-grounds Arose beneath the magic of my wand; And now the busy hum of life resounds Where once a desert stretched on every hand. The thunder of the cannon of thy fleet Alarms the hoary ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... "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 ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... creation? Regarding the immensities receding over him in unfathomable abysses bursting with dust heaps of suns, must not man be dwarfed into unmitigated contempt, his life and character rendered absolutely insignificant, the utmost span of his fortunes seeming but as the hum and glitter of an ephemeron in a moment's sunshine? Doubtless many a one has at times felt the stupendous truths of astronomy thus palsying him with a crushing sense of his own nothingness and burying him in fatalistic despair. Standing ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving: Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... sink, I seem the higher. In Pope I cannot read a line, But with a sigh I wish it mine; When he can in one couplet fix More sense than I can do in six; It gives me such a jealous fit, I cry, "Pox take him and his wit!" [4]I grieve to be outdone by Gay In my own hum'rous biting way. Arbuthnot is no more my friend, Who dares to irony pretend, Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it first, and shew'd its use. St. John, as well as Pultney, knows That I had some repute for prose; And, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... all ale And beer that is stale Rosa-solis and damnable hum, But we will rack In the praise of sack 'Gainst ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... In the darkness the Germans were unable to aim carefully. The boys heard the hum of bullets around them, but they did not falter. There was no second volley, for the lads had disappeared in the darkness, and the Germans were not minded to ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... soon retrace those steps, humming, to all intents, the first bars of a wedding-march; so beautifully had it cleared up that he was "going to like" letting Mrs. Worthingham accept him. He was to have hummed no wedding-march, as it seemed to be turning out—he had none, up to now, to hum; and yet, extraordinarily, it wasn't in the least because she had refused him. Why then hadn't he liked as much as he had intended to like it putting the pleasant act, the act of not refusing him, in her power? Could it all have come from the awkward minute of ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... we'll see that dance. I tell you it's worth it. It's a queer thing, utterly unlike anything I have ever seen. It is a sort of cross between a cake-walk and an Indian war-dance. Jove! how it carried me back!" Arms began to hum. "That's it, pretty near, isn't it, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and with a most sustained attention. This attention originated in idleness for which I have a natural talent. One evening I wandered into a cafe, in a town not of the tropics but of the South of France. It was filled with tobacco smoke, the hum of voices, the rattling of dominoes and the sounds of strident music. The orchestra was rather smaller than the one that performed at Schomberg's hotel, had the air more of a family party than of ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... Paradise now came up to me again, followed by a square man, middle-aged, and hum-drum, who, I found was Lord Say and Sele, afterwards from the Kirwans, for though they introduced him to me, I was so confounded by their vehemence and their manners, that I did ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the young man—well, he is a good soldier—has fought a lot against Napoleon, and will fight again. To look at?—Oh, he is big and round and rosy, with yellow moustaches and cheeks like apples, nice plump red apples. He goes 'Hum-hem-hum' in his throat when he speaks to me, and he always kisses my hand. Generally he calls me 'Most Noble Lady,' and then I wonder how many hundred yards I could give him and beat him in a mile race along ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... impressed by the scene. In front lay the river, a band of silver, with here and there the twinkling, swaying lights of a crossing boat upon it. All around was the great city, and from the distance there came a murmuring hum of voices, like waves lapping upon a far-off shore. Around us, towering above and ringing us in with its immense strength, rose the Louvre, its vast outlines looking, if possible, larger and more gigantic in ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... many a day ago. There was nothing but darkness, and the shadows of tomb-stones, and the damp smells of the lonely bogs about his roots and his leaves. But there was the heavenly sunshine in your flowers, Miss Patsey, and I could smell the sweet fields, when I looked at them, and hear the hum of the bees!" ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... about Mapleton. John Burrill was to be buried that day, and the sad funeral preparations were going on. People were moving about, making the bustle the more noticeable by their visible efforts to step softly, and by the low monotonous hum of ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... not help lifting his head. Erect, happy, smiling, the girl was looking straight past him, and he felt like one of the yellow grains of dust about her horses' feet. And then within him a high, shrill little yell rose above the laughter and vocal hum going on around him—there was John Burnham coming up the walk, the school-master, John Burnham—and Jason sprang to meet him. Immediately Burnham's searching eyes fell upon him, and he stopped—smiling, measuring, surprised. Could this keen-faced, ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... breezes and comfort. There were proud limousines; comfortable family cars; trim little roadsters; noisy runabouts. Not a hoof-beat was to be heard. It was as though the horseless age had indeed descended upon the world. There was only a hum, a rush, a roar, as car ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... morning you open your eyes, I shall leave you to a world a-hum with bees, and songful ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... The oratorio is, in fact, the Opera of the 'serious' world. It is at once a place in which to listen to music and a point of social reunion. There are oratorio habitues as well as Opera habitues; and between the parts of the performance, the same buzzing hum of converse rises from the assemblage which you hear in the Opera corridors and lobbies. A glance at the audience will enlighten you as to their character. They represent the staid respectability ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... a 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 ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... rushed into his eyes, but, before the other man could comfort him, he began to hum a lilting sea song as though there was no such thing as heartbreak ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... the fellow is an out-and-out savage," Capper was saying. "P'r'aps he'd be more tolerable if he were. But the fatal streak is there. Never noticed it? I thought you women noticed everything. Oh, I can tell you he's made things hum on our side more times than I've troubled to count. Talk of the devil in New York and you very soon find the conversation drifting round to Nap Errol. Now and then he has a lapse into sheer savagery, and then there is no controlling him. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... meant by "they," and whether he was naming one man or many, he replied that the Koothum-pas were many, but there was only one man or chief over them of that name; the disciples being always called after the names of their guru. Hence the name of the latter being Koot-hum, that of his disciples was "Koot-hum-pa." Light was shed upon this explanation by a Tibetan dictionary, where we found that the word "pa" means "man;" "Bod-pa" is a "man of Bod or Thibet," &c. Similarly Koothum-pa means man or disciple of Koothoom or ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... literary gathering, and for a time he was the most marked of American authors. The hit stimulated and encouraged him. Like another and prouder satirist, he too found "something of summer" even "in the hum of insects." Sorrowfully enough, but three years elapsed,—a period of influence, pride, anguish, yet always of imaginative or critical labor,—before the final defeat, before the curtain dropped on a life that for him was in truth a tragedy, and ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... placed side by side, there could not be a doubt of the identity of the interests and passions, which lay concealed under both. But enterprise, that moral perpetual motion, overcomes all obstacles. Neat and flourishing villages rose in every valley of New-England. The busy hum of machinery made music with her neglected waterfalls. All her streams, like the famous Pactolus, flowed with gold. From her discouraged and embarrassed commerce arose a greater blessing, apparently indestructible. Walls of brick and granite ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... Mr. Palmer. "Hum! I like business better than pleasure—I will be patient, if it is really business that keeps him away ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... King said, "Hum," and the Queen said, "Oo! That curtain! What a bee-ootiful blue!" But a Glug stood up with some very large ears, And said, "There is more in this thing than appears! And we ought to be taxing those goods of the Ogs, Or our industries ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... way of passin' a rainy Sunday," said the Cap'n, sarcastically, pushing the plate back across the table; "set and look at that and hum a pennyr'yal hymn! It's sartinly a rollickin' life you're leadin', ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... for instruction and delight of posterity. And all the time the wretch was drawing his chair nearer and nearer. Once or twice he looked about to see if we were observing, but we were in appearance blankly oblivious to all but one another and our several diversions. The low hum of our conversation, the gentle tap-tap of the cards as they fell in play and the furious scratching of the adjutant-general's pen as he turned off countless pages of words without sense were the only sounds heard. No—there was another: at long intervals the distant boom of a heavy gun, followed ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... laughed, and then would have burst forth a storm of derision. But the keenest critic had never found Franklin Marmion wrong yet, and he had far too great a reputation to permit himself to say in such a place that which he did not seriously mean. So the hum died down as he went to the black-board, and Nitocris looked at Merrill with something like ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... hand her wheel she keepeth, And her heart within her leapeth, With a burdened, bashful yearning, For the babe's weight on her knee, For the loving lisp of glee, Sweet as larks' throats in the morning, Sweet as hum of honey-bee. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... 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 still high in the heavens. The hills ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... who was here last summer. Now, there was a man up to whom the young men could look, a reglar soldier, who had been in the fight in Africy, had lived among lions, tagers and niggers. He was a hero, an' if we could git a rale live missionary like that, he'd make Glendow hum, an' the old church 'ud be packed to the doors every Sunday. It's them missionaries who has the hard time. Oh, they're wonderful people. Parson John's a good man, but he ain't in the same line with them nohow. He's too commonplace, an' don't stir ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... which he had seen the men come forth. It stood at the corner of the street. Thick hangings hung across the openings for the windows, and prevented even a ray of light from finding its way out. Listening attentively Malchus could hear a low hum of voices within. As there were still people about he moved ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... review his possessions and verify their condition; but this was a pastime to which he now struck her as almost extravagantly addicted, and when she passed near him and he turned to give her a smile she caught—or so she fancied—the greater depth of his small, perpetual hum of contemplation. It was as if he were singing to himself, sotto voce, as he went—and it was also, on occasion, quite ineffably, as if Charlotte, hovering, watching, listening, on her side too, kept sufficiently within earshot to make it out ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... "Ha! Hum!" exclaimed Grandpa Croaker. "I'm afraid I don't know any giant stories, but I'll tell you one about how I once went hunting ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... neither spoke during many minutes. The Andromeda jogged along steadily south by west, and the threshing of the propeller beat time to the placid hum of her engines. The sturdy old ship could seemingly go on in that humdrum way forever, forging ahead through the living waters, marking her track with a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... his door in the minister's face. It was one of his favourite relaxations to peregrinate the district, telling the farmers who were not on the Board themselves, but were given to gossiping with those who were, that though he could slumber pleasantly in the school so long as the hum of the standards was kept up, he immediately woke ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... in you, my Soul ... Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat;... Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... 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. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... farther off a little I could distinguish the waxen leaves and huge lily-like blossoms of the great American laurel—the Magnolia grandiflora. I could hear the voices of many singing-birds, and a low monotonous hum that I supposed to be the noise of falling water. These were the only sounds that reached ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... think worse of us than we deserve; and it is an effect of what I myself am sensible, in my shorter exile: the most piercing shriek, the wildest yell, and all the ugly sounds of popular turmoil, inseparable from the life of a republic, being a million times more audible than the peaceful hum of prosperity and content which is going on ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stage. We had halted the night before at a short distance from the Imperial camp. The black and white tents of Theodore, pitched on a high conical hill, stood out in bold relief as the setting sun made the dark background darker still. A faint, distant hum, such as one hears on approaching a large city, came now and then to us, carried by the soft evening breeze, and the smoke that arose for miles around the dark hill crowned by its silent tents, left us no, doubt that we should before long find ourselves face to face with the African despot, and ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... no conception that in so doing he was guilty of an act of moral cowardice. Returning to the studio, he pulled out a clean canvas and began a vigorous drawing of two fauns chasing each other round a tree. Presently, as he drew, he began to hum. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... night long the men keep up a low singing of Quabara songs, together with the chanting of amorous phrases of invitation addressed to the woman. At daylight the man stands up alone and swings the churinga, causing it first to strike the ground as he whirls it round and round and makes it hum. His friends remain silent, and the sound of the humming is carried to the ears of the far-distant woman, and has the power of compelling affection and of causing her sooner or later to comply with the summons. Not long ago, at Alice Springs, a man ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... and white, the delegates stood and walked about the hall, waiting for the session of the League of Nations Assembly to begin. The hum of talk rose up and filled the hall; it was as if a swarm of bees were hiving. What a very great deal, thought Henry, had the human race to say, always! Only the little Japs at the back sat in silent rows, scores and scores of them (for Japanese are no ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... "Hum—haw—you gave me an awful fright, I can tell you." The squire breathed more freely. "You set that little Fluff on to begin it, and you ended it. I won't be the better of this for some time. Yes, let me lean on you, Frances; it's a comfort to feel I'm not without a ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... huge city wall, the blue car was the one note of modernity; but hardly had we turned in at a great gate worthy to open in welcome for Queen Jeanne of Naples, or Bertrand du Guesclin, than we were in the hum of twentieth-century life. I resented the change, for one expects nothing, wants nothing, modern in Avignon; but in a moment or two we had left the bright cafes and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle ages. Anything, it seemed, might ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... a few soldiers traversing the square drew the eyes of all in their direction, and caused a brief pause in the hum of conversation. Our friends, the captives, were in the midst of these soldiers, and beside them marched the negro interpreter whom they had first met ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... garden, for it had two rows of poplar-trees, which smelt very sweet, especially after rain, and acacias, and tall trees, and apple-trees hung over the fences and hedges. May evenings, the scent of the lilac, the hum of the cockchafers, the warm, still air—how new and extraordinary it all is, though spring comes every year! I stood by the gate and looked at the passers-by. With most of them I had grown up and had played with them, but now my presence ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... did his Mistress (honourable I mean) sit knotting under his Nose when he was writing, and so gave occasion for the changing it instead of Bawdy, that that odious word might not offend her, tho the Phrase was made Nonsence by it—hum—No faith, the case seems to me now to be quite otherwise, and really the effect of downright Hypocrisy, unless done as I said for the last reason; for those that have read his Book, may find sprinkling up and down the other words extreamly plain upon occasion, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... The victory and the spoils; And Montezuma's halls shall ring, When there we end our toils.' ON, then, ye brave' like tigers rage, That you may win your crown, Mowing both infancy and age In ruthless carnage down. Where flows the tide of life and light, Amid the city's hum, There let the cry, at dead of night, Be heard, 'They come, they come!' Mid scenes of sweet domestic bliss, Pour shells of livid fire, While red-hot balls among them hiss, To make the work entire And when the scream of agony Is heard above ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... "Hum,—well," said Gypsy, drawing her sack-collar closer, "pretty long time to sit out in a boat and shiver. It might be worse, though." Just then her foot struck something soft under the seat. She pulled ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... buzz! buzz! Hum-a-bum buzz! As I went over Tipple-tine I met a flock of bonny swine; Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed! They were the very bonniest swine That ...
— The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin • Beatrix Potter
... one kisses me now—my winter has come: (To ice turns fortune when once you have passed her.) I long for the angels to beckon me home (hum) (For dead, deader, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... brass, too, in the buckle. Shouldn't have expected that in a Persian-made article. Inscription scratched on with the point of a knife or some other implement not employed in metal engraving. May I trouble you for a pin? Thank you. Hum-m-m! Thought so. Some dirty, clayey stuff rubbed in to make the letters appear old and of long standing. Look here, Mr. Narkom; metal quite bright underneath when you pick the stuff out. Inscription very recently added; ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... no other engagement. All ready, Dale?" for the chauffeur was in his seat, and the engine was purring with the placid hum of a machine ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity; While everything around was calm and still Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he Heard—and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... 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 awkwardly, though with the best intentions in the world, to follow ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... him up the following day, and he quickly noticed Toni's extreme disquietude upon learning that Dona Cinta wished to talk with him. The mate left the boat in lugubrious silence as though he were being taken away to mortal torment: then he began to hum loudly, an indication that he ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... hum and whir The wheel goes round and round. For my brother's sake the charm I'll break! Prince Hero ...
— The Rescue of the Princess Winsome - A Fairy Play for Old and Young • Annie Fellows-Johnston and Albion Fellows Bacon
... staring for a moment at the hook. Then he looked up and caught my eye. His own turned quizzical. He shifted his quid and began to hum: ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... them now with a peculiar sense of isolation, and with, perhaps, a feeling of the futility of the effort they had made. Our adventures were all before us. Our hearts were light and our hopes high. As we stood by the obelisk, talking over plans for the morrow, we heard, high overhead, the faint hum of motors, and saw two lights, one green, one red, moving rapidly across the sky. A moment later the long, slender finger of a searchlight probed among little heaps of cloud, then, sweeping in a wide arc, revealed in striking outline the shape ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... Worcester and Savery; every steamship will bring into grateful memory Fitch and Stevens, and Bell and Fulton; thousands of locomotives, crossing the continents, will perpetuate the thought of the Stephensons and their colleagues in the introduction of the railway; the hum of millions of spindles and the music of the electric wire will tell of the work of Corliss and his contemporaries and successors who made these things possible, and all kingdoms and races, all ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... dust cloths and such things. Determining to be methodical he went to the extreme end of the hall and tried that door. It was locked, but, while his hand was still on the knob, turning it in disappointment, a door, higher up in the house, opened and a hum of voices passed out to him. They grew louder, they turned to the staircase from the floor above and commenced to descend at a running pace. Three or four men at least, there must be, by the ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... "Hum!" cried he, scratching his head. "I guess it 'ud take an almighty load of dollars to make me ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... off, this was the darkest hour of the night, so that even the sounds of dockland were muted and the riverside slept as deeply as the great port of London ever sleeps. Vague murmurings there were and distant clankings, with the hum of machinery ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... It was mute and dusty, with a tangle of strings; but the Stranger set it against his knee, and began to mend it deftly, talking the while in murmurs as a brook talks in a covert of cresses. By and by as he fitted a string he would touch and make it hum on a word—softly at first, and with long intervals—as though all its music lay dark and tangled in chaos, and he were exploring and picking out a note here and a note there to fit his song. There was trouble in his voice, and restlessness, and a low, eager striving, and a hope which grew as the ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... lengthened period, during my early years, I studied the rudiments of education; and what a host of almost forgotten memories of the past came thronging back upon my mind, as I stood alone—in that well remembered room. I seemed again to hear the hum of youthful voices as they learned or recited their daily tasks, and, as memory recalled the years that had passed since we used there to assemble, I could not avoid saying mentally: "My schoolmates, ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... last her eyes opened—when at last her senses falteringly returned to the consciousness of present things—she was in her own familiar room. The atmosphere breathed of repose and peace; through the drawn curtains the hum of London came subdued and soothing; in the room itself the lights were modulated and the fire glowed soft and mellow, while a faint, pungent smell of restoratives filled the air. But these details came but vaguely to ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... resumed gravely, "Of course you will not mention to any one that Dr. F. was with me; the health of public men is not to be suspected. Hum—were you in your own ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... was born in Coleraine, Ireland, in 1837, his parents, who were small farmers, bringing him to this country at the age of sixteen. They settled at Philadelphia and the boy was apprenticed to a chair-maker, but he soon broke away from that hum-drum employment, and in 1855, appeared in a minor part in "The Belle's Strategem." His story, after that, was the usual one of long years of training in various stock companies. He gradually worked his way into prominence, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... I 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 of ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... Dave! I didn't know nuthin' about that," pointing to the newspaper, "until a few minutes ago. I sed tew hum that I wuz a-comin' to see how Dave run things, and ef them disreptible associates of Jud's air a-gittin' up some fool paper, I don't know it! Ef they do send it in, don't you dare sign it! Why, I wouldn't hev that boy outen prison fer nuthin'. He's different from what he used to be, Dave. He ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... result. In a deep, careless stroke, his paddle struck a submerged log and the slender blade snapped short off with a loud crack, the ticklish canoe careened suddenly to one side, then righted again with a sullen splash. At the sound the silent point quickly stirred with life. There was the hum of excited voices and a blinding flash of flame lit up the darkness, followed by the sharp crack of rifles and the hum ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny; who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother, 'EDGAR.' Hum! Conspiracy?—'Sleep till I waked him,—you should enjoy half his revenue.'—My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart and brain to breed it in? When came this to ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... all subject, for a moment I lost sight of untidy Gothic facades and gaunt unfinished church walls; and as I walked, I was in the Close of Salisbury on a perfumed summer afternoon. The drowsy scent of lime-flowers and mignonette, the cawing of elm-cradled rooks, the hum of bees above, the velvet touch of smooth-shorn grass, and the breathless shadow of motionless green boughs made up one potent and absorbing mood of the charmed senses. Far overhead soared the calm grey spire into the infinite air, and the perfection of accomplished beauty slept beneath ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... his mouth. The "quills," or reed pipes, were cut of such graduated lengths that they constituted the Negro's peculiar music Scale. The music intervals though approximating those of the Caucasian scale were not the same. At times, when in a reminiscent humor, I hum to myself some little songs of my childhood. On occasions, afterwards, I have "picked out" some of the same tunes on the piano. When I have done this I have always felt like giving its production on the piano the same greeting that I gave a friend ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... saying that the kingdom of music is especially the realm of sentiment. Music raises us to a loftier plane of thought and feeling. It has been beautifully said that "The composer's world is the world of emotion; full of delicate elations and depressions, which like the hum of minute insects hardly ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... of here to-night," he muttered, and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit. It was in a deference to old habit, and the "qu en dira't on," that he ordered a half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... us into solitude; nay, is even more life-pervading there than in the hum of men. There the stocks and stones are more impressible than those we sometimes stumble on in human society, and, moulded at our will, take what shape we choose to give them; the trees follow our footsteps, though our lips be mute, and we ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... nine o'clock. The roll of vehicles and hum of voices filled the air, a mighty morning-choir mingled with the footsteps of the pedestrians, and the crack of the hack-drivers' whips. The clamorous traffic everywhere exhilarated me at once, and I began to feel more and more contented. Nothing was farther from ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... place, a constant stream of people coming in and going out, and the hum of many voices—the whole putting Richard in mind of some huge machine, grinding out ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... sound— The new-chopped tree's deep thundering on the ground; The patter of the rain on forest leaves, The tree-frog's pipe, which oft the ear deceives, The blazing log-heaps, and the rude rail fence— The wild-bee's hum of gratitude intense For hoards of honey, which our woods still yield; The plenteous crops contained in each small field; The Summer evening's song of "Whip-poor-will," Near, or remote, while all beside is still; The clamorous crow's ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... with you until you promised to marry me, I was at one sort of fever-pitch, and when I got to work on that play I was at another. No writer while exercising an abnormal faculty is quite sane. His brain is several pitches above normal and his nerves are like hot taut wires—that hum like the devil. If this were not the case he would not be an imaginative writer at all. But he certainly is in no condition to reveal himself to a woman. I have made wild and sporadic love to you—sporadic is the word, for between ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... is to take a soft cork and hum it thoroughly; when it ceases to blaze, powder the coal very fine on a plate. Mix a table-spoonful of this powder with a little milk or water, or any thing agreeable to the palate; repeat the dose till the disorder ceases, which it generally ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... Behind all this the sky, pale to whiteness immediately overhead, deepened to the splendid orange of the sunset. Each tree cast his shadow upon his neighbour, so that only the topmost branches burned in the light. Over and above us floated the drowsy hum of the insect world; rarely we heard the moaning of a wood-dove, more rarely still the stirring of deer hidden in the thicket shade. This was a magical evening, primed with wonders, in the glamour of which Master Harkness could find nothing better for him to rehearse ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... 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 the machinery was ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson |
