"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said in the most light-hearted and airy manner conceivable. Coronado waved and floated on zephyrs of fancy and fluency. A butterfly or a humming-bird could not have talked more cheerily about flying over a parterre of flowers than he about traversing the North American desert. And, with all this frivolous, imponderable grace, what an accent of verity he had! He spoke of the teamsters as if he had actually conversed with them, and of ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... and animal distribution, so in the case of many orchids we find that when any genus is confined to one hemisphere, those who look for another representative genus in the other are rarely disappointed. Thus hornbills in the East are represented by toucans in the West, and the humming bird of the West by the sunbird of the East, and so also in the Malayan archipelago. Notably in Borneo we find bolbophyls without pseudo bulbs, and with solitary or few flowered scapes and other traits singularly suggestive at first sight of the Western Masdevallia. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... caused chiefly through bad stoking, in having an uneven fire, full of holes, or crooked bars, the cold air rushing through where there is the least resistance, and into the tubes, causes the humming noise—a locomotive nearing home after her day's work has very little fire on the bars and will generally hum, so there is some excuse for her, but none for a stationary boiler. Some stokers take credit to themselves for ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... It's too chilly for work upstairs. (Coughs) What shall I do here this winter with only one comfortable room in the house? Keep warm by the fire in my brain, I suppose. (Sits and writes. Virginia is heard without, humming a song. She enters, left, front, with a rose ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... about the real and actual things which you know is likely to keep your attention. This goes back to the truth that our emotions and feelings are primarily the reaction to the concrete things that happen to us. The spontaneous whistling and humming of tunes that indicate a cheerful heart rise naturally as a response to the sunlight in spring; the fear at the terror that flies in a nightmare is the instinctive and physical reaction to indigestion; we sorrow ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... The sweet-smelling clover, He, humming, hangs over; The scent of the roses Makes fragrant his wings: He never gets lazy; From thistle and daisy, And weeds of the ...
— McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... in patience. We know that the factories are humming night and day on our behalf; and that if, upon a certain day in a certain month, the contractors do not deliver our equipment down to the last water-bottle cork, "K" will want to know the reason why; and we cannot imagine any contractor being so foolhardy ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... removed, arose a faint odor, a dust of arsenic through which gleamed the piles of insects, impaled before being shipped, the birds packed closely together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... heart beat high as he watched the warlike preparations, and, glancing across to where near Haughmond Abbey floated the rebel standard, he found himself humming one of the rough old war tunes ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... east bound, heaves up in a superb spiral and takes the air of us humming. Her underbody colloid is open and her transporter-slings hang down like tentacles. We shut off our beam as she adjusts herself—steering to a hair—over the tramp's conning-tower. The mate comes up, his arm ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... to the carcase of the hear, they became aware of a curious humming sound in the air. The cause was soon apparent and the mystery that had puzzled them was solved when they reached the beast. The carcase was covered with bees while close above it hummed a swarm of others watching for an exposed place to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... them unless superfluous animals were taken into the ark to be killed, or Noah had learned the art of potting flesh. Otters would require fish, chameleons flies, woodpeckers grubs, night-hawks moths, and humming-birds the honey of flowers. What vast quantities of water also would be consumed! In fact, the task of collecting food to last all the inmates of the ark, including the eight human beings, for more ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... her dish towels by that time, for she wasn't much of a housekeeper, I'll say that, though as pretty as a picture, and I never looked up. She walked round the hut, humming to herself to show how calm she was, but I noticed that when her broom fell over she ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... come to seek my due, and they imprison me for debts in arrears!" [FN239] When Ja'afar came in to the presence of the Caliph, he found him sitting with his head bowed earthwards, breast straitened and mind melancholy, humming ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... gained strength and intelligence, and one lovely day his men lifted him to a couch by the window. The lattices were flung wide open, that he might see the trees tossing about their young leaves, and the grass like grass in paradise, and hear the bees humming among the apple-blooms, and the sheep bleating on the fells. The earth was full of the beauty and the tranquillity of God. The squire looked long at the familiar sights; looked till his lips trembled, and the tears rolled heavily down his gray face. And then he ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... two vessels were within arrow flight, and the bolts from the crossbowmen pattered upon the English ship. These short thick devil's darts were everywhere humming like great wasps through the air, crashing against the bulwarks, beating upon the deck, ringing loudly on the armor of the knights, or with a soft muffled thud sinking to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the humming-bird, that hung Like a jewel up among The tilted honeysuckle horns, They mesmerized and swung In the palpitating air, Drowsed with odors strange and rare, And, with whispered laughter, slipped away, And left him ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... Desvarennes saw that she had something of an embarrassing nature to speak of. To begin with she was more affectionate than usual, seeming to wish with the honey of her kisses to sweeten the bitter cross which the mistress was doomed to bear. Then she hesitated. She fidgeted about the room humming. At last she said that the doctor had come at the request of Serge, who was most anxious about his wife's health. And that excellent Doctor Rigaud, who had known her from a child, had found her suffering from great weakness. He had ordered ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... true. The Griffin's cup of sorrow and mortification was full. Four great indignant tears trembled upon his cheeks ready to fall. He had been compelled that day to stand and listen to people humming his, the Griffin's, own, pet song as they left the Court, and the Griffin had not been able to join ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... humming piano very badly, and he sang, not so badly. Gino got out a guitar and sang too, sitting out on the loggia. It ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... and, losing no part of this stature by his setting up, a better object for a sharp- shooter could not have been presented than he now offered. The crack of a rifle soon saluted the ears of the garrison; then followed the whizzing of the bullet as it came humming through the air towards the Hut. But the report was so distant as at once to announce that the piece was discharged from the margin of the forest; a certain evidence of two important facts; one, that the enemy had fallen back to ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, The Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and strumming, Oh ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... road we had come by in the morning. When I got down, I found my way blocked by the 18th Chasseurs a cheval, who, four abreast and lance in hand, were setting out for battle. They were anything but a beaten army—most of them were softly humming some popular song, while others were calmly filling their pipes and still others catching forty winks in their saddles. One or two I noticed wore no caps, and their heads ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... for honey-bees," said Webb, laughing. "How easily he seems to laugh of late!" Amy thought. "They can't reach the honey in the long, tube-like blossoms. Here the bumble-bees have everything their way, and get it all except what is sipped by the humming-birds, with their long beaks, as they feed on the minute insects within the flowers. I've heard the question, Of what use are bumble-bees?—I like to say bumble best, as I did when a boy. Well, I've been told that red clover cannot be raised ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... he, "that is very good of you." And, pausing a few moments, he looked abstractedly into the air, humming ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... busier streets the crowds filled the space from wall to wall, so that when a string of coolies came along, bearing burdens in the usual manner from a stick over the shoulder and humming the cheerful though monotonous "get-out-of-the-way" tune, we had to step aside, close against or into some store to let them pass; and when an occasional chair came along it swept the entire traffic aside as a taxi might in a crowded alley of ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... showed me where the assassin had fled. While I was looking round, with that pensive curiosity that one feels in places where great crimes have been committed, soldiers were ascending and descending; they stopped to look at me, and then went away singing and whistling; some near me were humming; others were laughing loudly in the courtyard. All this youthful gayety was in sharp and moving contrast to the sad gravity of those memories, and seemed like a festival of children in the room where died a grandparent whose ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... Chantel, humming a tune, reached for his helmet, and rose. He paused, struck a match, and in an empty glass, shielding the flame against the breeze of the punkah, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... deprive him of the power of walking; and he thought that in all his limbs he perceived an evident interruption to the circulation of the blood. A giddiness was the next symptom, which was not accompanied with nausea. His eyes became watery, and he could not see distinctly; a kind of humming noise in his ears continually disturbed him, until he was reduced to the ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... being, as always, the theater and concerts. He loved music passionately, especially Italian music, and like all great amateurs was hard to please. He would have much liked to sing had he been able, but he had no voice, though this did not prevent his humming now and then pieces which struck his fancy; and as these little reminiscences usually recurred to him in the mornings, he regaled me with them while he was being dressed. The air that I have heard him thus mutilate most frequently was that ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Memoirs of Napoleon • David Widger
... went on, smiling, "I guess it didn't take me thinking five seconds. I set the wires humming asking a description of this fighting kid. I got it. It was my man. The feller at ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... of howling jaguars, and snarling pumas, and buzzing mosquitoes, and the whole host of nocturnal abominations peculiar to those regions, our weary travellers lay peacefully in their hammocks, and slept like humming-tops. In regard to Quashy, we might more appropriately say like ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... for books. How many times have I seen those cuffs with the patent fasteners sticking up in the air, as if reaching out helplessly for their owner; the owner in the mean time standing high upon a ladder which creaked under his weight, humming to himself as he industriously examined every volume within reach. This ability to live without cuffs made him prone to reject altogether that orthodox bit of finish to a toilet. I have known him to spend an entire day in New York between club, shops, and restaurant, with one cuff on, and ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... to thee, Lord of the Forest! Remember me, when under thy shade other students chant their lessons to an accompaniment of bees humming and ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... war whoop rose, and, after, women wailed their warriors slain, List the Saxon's silvery laughter, and his humming hives of gain. Swiftly sped the tawny runner o'er the pathless prairies then, Now the iron-reindeer sooner carries weal or woe to men. On thy bosom, Royal River, silent sped the birch canoe, Bearing brave with bow and quiver, on his way to war or woo; Now with flaunting flags and streamers—mighty ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... of themselves, and Moti forgot about them, but the brightness did not go out of Sunni's face, and all day long he went about humming the air of 'Weel may the keel row,' with such variations as might be expected. He grew very thoughtful toward evening, but his eyes shone brighter than any sapphires in the Maharajah's iron boxes. As to an old Mahomedan woman from Rubbulgurh, who ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... take a bath in the spray of the garden-hose, or dart their long bills in the fuchsias almost within your reach. The bill shields a double tongue, which gets not only honey, but small insects from the flower or off the leaves. The humming-bird's tiny nest is a soft, round basket, not much bigger than half a walnut-shell, and holding two eggs, which are like small-white beans. Bits of moss and gray cobwebs are woven in this nest till it looks like the branch itself; and here the little mother in her plain brown ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... the bank at Crocky's to-night, which he fancied he should, he would send him two or three thousand pounds; at the same time he shook him heartily by the hand, and descended the staircase of the spunging-house, humming Vive ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... in his secret idol, Luck Lindsay; but he took two of the little bundles and went and wired the wagon tongue. And in the work he found a salve of anticipatory pleasure, so that he ended the task to the humming of the tune he had heard a movie theatre playing in town as he rode by ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... the street, humming bits of the opera or intent on some new scenic effect, dashed the young composer a dozen times a day, and he and Nannerl were perfectly sure that no performance ever was or ever could be so marvellous, as ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... countess walking on the paved court before the main door of the chateau. It was a fine day, and she walked up and down, with a shawl about her shoulders, humming a cheerful ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... was a mere whirligig, and all things about him seemingly danced to the same tune. Stationary objects were become unstable in the eyes of Soames, and the solid earth, burst free of its moorings, no longer afforded him a safe foothold. There was a humming in his ears; and a mist floated before his eyes. By the time that the motor-'bus was come to the south side of the bridge, Soames had succeeded in slowing down his mental roundabout in some degree; and now ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... civilization; and the story of wheat down to modern times showed the development of man. Wheat-fields of many lands, surrounding homes of prosperous farmers; fruitful toil of happy peoples; the miller and his humming mill! ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... little court of which I forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice. Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... these and other better thoughts, the visitor, lightly humming a tune, now began indifferently pacing the poop, so as not to betray to Don Benito that he had at all mistrusted incivility, much less duplicity; for such mistrust would yet be proved illusory, and by the event; though, for the present, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... I felt easier in mind as I lay huddled under the seat, though it seemed to me that Mr. Jope took matters lightly. For the squadron ahead had resumed the singing of Tom Bowling and he sat humming a bar or two here and there with evident pleasure, and paused only to bow out of window and acknowledge ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the opposite wall opened; a peculiar, high-pitched humming sound became audible, and Jervis came out on tiptoe with ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Ben was there, Humming a song upon the old black settle, "Or leave a kiss within the cup And I'll not ask for wine," But meanwhile, he drank malmsey. [Footnote: Tales of the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... they all heard Lady Mary's voice in the corridor above. She was humming a song, and as she neared the open staircase the words of her song came ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... with his eyes fixed, as it were, upon the flying past, and then off upon a fresh subject. He had been with Talma at Brunoy, he had been in the drawing-room of Josephine, full of musical boxes and artificial humming-birds covered with jewels, which sang and clapped ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... woods. A green fly appeared, buzzing about the dead man. Another zig-zagged through the sunshine, lacing it with streaks of greenish fire. Others appeared, whirling, gyrating, filling the silence with their humming. And still Leverett dared not budge, dared not search the dead and take from it that for which the dead ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... girls, so warmly that Joyce went up-stairs for her drawing material. Betty watched her spread her paper on the library table. "I believe that I could put that story into rhyme," she said, after a few minutes of silent thought. "I can feel it humming ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the little ones moan." But, ah, she gave me never a look, For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book! Loud prays the priest: shut stands the door. Come away, children, call no more! Come away, come down, call no more! Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy. For the humming street, and the child with its toy! For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!" And so ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... mankind in the inheritance of tricks or unusual gestures, to which we shall presently recur. To those who admit the gradual evolution of species, a most striking instance of the perfection with which the most difficult consensual movements can be transmitted, is afforded by the humming-bird Sphinx-moth (Macroglossa); for this moth, shortly after its emergence from the cocoon, as shown by the bloom on its unruffled scales, may be seen poised stationary in the air, with its long hair-like proboscis uncurled ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... To-day five combats, four of them at less than 25 meters, and the fifth at 50 meters. In the first, gun jammed at 50 meters. In the second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aerodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: pan, a bullet near my head. In the fifth, I cleaned ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... were interrupted by a sudden change in the quality of the noisy silence that the insects made. Just before he noticed it, half a dozen bees had been humming near him. Now he heard something that sounded like the humming of a far vaster bee. Suddenly it stopped, and, as it did, he looked up, his eyes as well as Dick's being drawn upward at the same moment. And they saw, high ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... face when she had lifted it to him out of the crowded street, that first day, and smiled at him... and of their long talks since. It was the Child who understood. The strange ladies had smiled at him and talked to him and drank their tea and talked again... he could hear the soft, keen humming of their voices and the flitter of garments all about him as they moved. But the child had sat very still—only her face lifted, while he told her of Athens and its beauty... and he had told her again—and again. She would never ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... no use now but to gather brine, And began a kind of level whine Such as they used to sing to their viols When their ditties they go grinding Up and down with nobody minding 410 And then, as of old, at the end of the humming Her usual presents were forthcoming —A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles, (Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles) Or a porcelain mouth-piece to screw on a pipe-end— And so she awaited her annual stipend. But this time, the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... greenest, meadows sweet with newly cut hay, cinnamon-roses in the hedges and water-lilies in the ponds, bees buzzing in and out of the clove-pinks and larkspurs which edge the beds of cabbages and carrots in the kitchen-garden, a humming-bird at work in the scarlet trumpets of the honeysuckle on the porch,—everywhere the sense of fullness and growth, with no shadow as yet of rankness or decay. August is over-ripe. September's smile is sad, but midsummer is all ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... "Never a secret, never a plan, but he must bawl it aloud to all who care to listen, or sound it as he gads about from camp to city—aye, and chatters it to the forest trees for lack of audience, I suppose. All New York is humming with it, is it ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... that have felt her heart beat against their bark; when I look at the lake, the mountains, snows and meadows, trees and jagged rocks, swimming in a warm atmosphere which seems to bathe all nature in one perfumed liquid; when I hear the sighing breeze, the humming insects, and the quivering leaves, the waves of the lake breaking on the shore, with the gentle rustling sound of silken folds unrolling one by one; when I see the shadow of her whom God has made my companion until my life's end cast beside mine ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... that, as they entered; saw Notely enter with his easy, unobservant swagger, lest the unexpected visit of this fashionable company should embarrass her. He walked across the room, humming an air, ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... on long humming notes, chiefly, it seemed to me, upon two notes with the occasional interjection of a third and fourth, and, at long and rare intervals, of a fifth. It was harmonious beyond all description, just as it was weird and unearthly; but now that I heard it more ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... vociferating insults. "Who can those people be?" He waited patiently. At last the noise ceased, the brawlers had taken their departure. The young man was about to do the same, when a door on the floor immediately below was noisily opened and some one went downstairs, humming a tune. "Whatever are they all up to?" wondered Raskolnikoff, and closing the door again he waited a while. At length all became silent as before; but just as he was preparing to go down, he suddenly became aware of a fresh sound, footsteps as yet far off, at the bottom of the staircase; and he no ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... kept an anxious eye upon him. He was becoming decidedly restless. At one moment he would rave about the glorious scenery; the next, plunge into a brown study of the Tulliwuddle rent-roll; and then in an instant start humming an air and smoking so fast that both their cases were empty while they were yet half an hour from Torrydhulish Station. Now the Baron took to biting his nails, looking at his watch, and answering questions at ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... bird-like voices, which told me that a covey of Jenny's pretty young street birds had just alighted there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and nodding humming-birds, and made one or two errands in that direction only that I might gratify my eyes with a ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sensitive plant, which, on the approach of anybody, has the power of doubling up its leaves as if in sudden fear. Birds in great variety—all scarlet, gold, and azure—inhabit spacious aviaries within the grounds. Lyre birds, argus pheasants, great eagles, and owls from Java, doves, pigeons, lories, and humming birds, the metallic lustre of whose plumage flashes in the light like the sheen of steel. One or two tigers—in a cage, of course—invite our curiosity. I was not, however, prepared to make quite so close an acquaintance with these lovely supple creatures, as one of the marines of our ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... sun. Round them flutter innumerable butterflies in gaudy colours. On the border between sunlight and shade scream droll parrots, and busy pigeons steer their way among the trees on rustling wings. There humming-birds dart like arrows through the air. They are small, dainty birds with breast, neck, and head shining like metal with the brightest, most vivid colouring. They build their nests carefully with vegetable fibres and moss, and their beaks are long and fine as a reed. There is a humming-bird ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... no perishing ones conveniently near for me to save. I am of little more use in the world than a humming bird." ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... have killed it too wrathfully! Translating Moliere is like humming an air one has heard performed by an accomplished violinist of the pure tones ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... window in the dome which would look down into the hall below. This he gained in safety, and found that it had been left half open, for ventilation. He leaned over the ledge, gazing downward; and a ripple of music from hidden players rose to him above a humming undercurrent of sound. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... to the brook, where the honeysuckle, tipping O'er its vase of perfume spills it on the breeze, And the bee and humming-bird in ecstacy are sipping From the fairy flagons of the ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... the old lady gently on the shoulder, and humming a music-hall ballad cheerfully, started off into the garden. He had only gone a few steps when his mother called to him. He stopped. She ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... rumor of it ran through the Western reserves like red fire through prairie-grass, blowing almost into flame the war-spirit of the young braves of the Bloods, Piegans and Sarcees and even of the more stable Blackfeet. Three days after that check, the news of it was humming through every tepee in the West, and for a week or more it took all the cool courage and steady nerve characteristic of the Mounted Police to enable them to ride without flurry or hurry their ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... itself of the image of the dead Spaniard's face; and as he walked away down the street with his companions, leaving the crowd behind them, and the dead body where it lay for its friends to look after, his ears humming and ringing from the deafening noise of the pistol-shots fired in the close room, and the sweat trickling down his face in drops, he knew not whether all that had passed had been real, or whether it was a dream from which he ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... administrative offices were humming with frantic activity as Walter glanced down the rows of cubbyholes. In the middle of it all sat Bailey, in his black-and-yellow checkered tattersall, smoking a large cigar. His feet were planted on his desk top, but he hadn't started on his morning Western yet. He ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... cuckoo sat on a tree and sang, "Summer is coming, coming"; And a bee crept out from the hive and began Lazily humming, humming. ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... bless your soul! She would never have thought of such a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. We were going to pull down the old house, anyhow. It was a rickety concern, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... great ape shuffled into the full glare of the moon. At his side, swinging gracefully along in marked contrast to the awkwardness of his companion, strode the boy, the dark, shaggy coat of the one brushing against the smooth, clear hide of the other. The lad was humming now, a music hall air that had found its way to the forms of the great English public school that was to see him no more. He was happy and expectant. The moment he had looked forward to for so long was about to be realized. He was coming ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Marie. Round it were some two thousand Hurons to whom Father Daniel ministered. Father Daniel was just closing the morning services on July the 4th, 1648. His tawny people were on their knees repeating the responses of the service, when from the forest, humming with insect and bird life, arose a sound that was neither wind nor running water—confused, increasing, nearing! Then a shriek broke within the fort palisades,—"The enemy! the Iroquois!" and the courtyard was in an uproar indescribable. Painted redskins, naked but for the breech ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... of such a banquet. By nine o'clock they were talking as people talk after forty-two bottles of various wines, drunk by fourteen persons. Dessert was on the table, the odious dessert of the month of April. Of all the party, the only one affected by the heady atmosphere was Cydalise, who was humming a tune. None of the party, with the exception of the poor country girl, had lost their reason; the drinkers and the women were the experienced elite of the society that sups. Their wits were bright, their eyes glistened, but with no loss of intelligence, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... music and are constantly humming or whistling a tune, are persons that need not be feared, they are kind-hearted and with few exceptions possess a loving disposition. Very few good musicians ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... mother, who just stared at me, not knowing what it meant. When I made it all clear she began crying, and then she dropped on her knees and I dropped alongside of her, and when she got through praying I took up the job and kept things humming for another half hour. After I'd let up I grabbed her in my arms, and we danced about that cabin, just as she used to do when she was the belle of the town, and we laughed and frolicked and made a couple of ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... we went to see if tea's ready," said Priscilla. She hoisted herself up from the sofa and went swishing off across the room, striding beneath the trailing silk. Denis followed her, faintly humming to himself: ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... of the Dominie, the boys perceiving that he was no longer wrapped up in his algebra, had partly settled to their desks, and in their apparent attention to their lessons reminded me of the humming of bees before a hive on ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in the late Fifties, when leaving the farm in Illinois he came at sixteen to New York and found a job as time clerk in one of the ship yards along the East River. They are all gone now, but then they were humming and teeming with work. And my young father was deeply excited. He told me of his first day here, when he stood on the deck of a ferry and watched three great clippers go out with the tide, bound for Calcutta. There were pictures of these vessels on the walls of his office, stately East Indiamen ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... constantly, with the hand that held the knife, at the flies. They were green flies—huge, shiny-backed, buzzing, persistent vermin. There were a thousand of them; there seemed to be a million of them. They filled the shut-in room with their vile humming; they swarmed everywhere in the half light. They were thickest, though, in a corner at the back, where there was a closed, white door. Here a great knot of them, like an iridescent, shimmering jewel, was clustered about the keyhole. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... large eyes, poked their heads up out of the sea as I sang "Johnny Boker," and "We'll Pay Darby Doyl for his Boots," and the like. But the porpoises were, on the whole, vastly more appreciative than the turtles; they jumped a deal higher. One day when I was humming a favorite chant, I think it was "Babylon's a-Fallin'," a porpoise jumped higher than the bowsprit. Had the Spray been going a little faster she would have scooped him in. The sea-birds sailed around ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... veining of each leaf—saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon-flies' wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... Brown began: "You may not see me at the store again; For a ship's cousin wants my place, and so, With little ceremony, I'm dismissed. Now, if you've no objection, tell me what The old man gave you for that composition In which a bird—a humming-bird, I think— Follows a child who has a bunch of flowers." "Yes, I remember. Well, 'twas fifteen dollars." "Whew! He said fifty. Is it possible? You've seen the chromo copy, I suppose?" "The chromo? I've seen nothing of a chromo. Never has my consent been given to publish!" "That's little ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... heel and went downstairs humming a tune. I remained with Mrs. Housekeeper who carried out his instructions zealously. I can feel the soreness on ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... all nerve, not even all sensory nerve. There's no taint of pain, real pain, in the sensations of the optic nerve. If you wound the optic nerve, you merely see flashes of light,—just as disease of the auditory nerve merely means a humming in our ears. Plants do not feel pain, nor the lower animals; it's possible that such animals as the starfish and crayfish do not feel pain at all. Then with men, the more intelligent they become, the more intelligently ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... curious lid of their seed-vessel, in which a child's fancy found a curious resemblance to a pepper-box; I often forced it to serve as one in the imaginary feasts spread out on the door-step, though there were no guests to be invited, except plenty of wandering butterflies, or an occasional humming-bird, whizzing about the crimson blossoms of the balm. Oh, the delights of Aunt ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... rehearsal the next day—on Sunday, I think. The company stood about in groups on the stage while Henry walked up and down, speechless, but humming a tune occasionally, always a portentous sign with him. The scene set was the Brocken Scene, and Conway stood at the top of the slope as far away from Henry as he could get! He looked abject. His handsome face was very ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... became on a sudden, animated, noisy, riotous, and resplendent with light. By the smoky flames of torches, which threw a red glare upon the dark fir-trees, and the white tombstones, many grave-diggers worked merrily, humming snatches of some favorite tune. Their laborious and hazardous industry then commanded a very high price; they were in such request that it was necessary to humor them. They drank often and much; they sang long and loud; and this to keep up their strength and spirits good, absolute ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... prove it for yourself, lie down on the grass in a sheltered nook and listen attentively. If there be ever so little wind stirring you will hear it rustling gently through the trees; or even if there is not this, it will be strange if you do not hear some wandering gnat buzzing, or some busy bee humming as it moves from flower to flower. Then a grasshopper will set up a chirp within a few yards of you, or, if all living creatures are silent, a brook not far off may be flowing along with a rippling musical sound. ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... little way from the road. It seemed very curious to watch the sails going round in the darkness, but Jimmy could see them rise and fall, because they looked black against the blue sky. The mill was so near that he could hear the noise of the sails as they went round, it sounded like a very loud humming-top, and there were one or two patches of light to be seen ...
— The Little Clown • Thomas Cobb
... bursts. It was Florence clearing up one of the dark places of the earth, leaving the world a little lighter than she had found it. She would tell him the story of Hamlet; explain the form of a symphony, humming the first and second subjects to him, and so on; she would explain to him the difference between Arminians and Erastians; or she would give him a short lecture on the early history of the United States. And it was done in a way well calculated to arrest a young ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... for an instrument made of a small flat slip of wood, through a hole in one end of which a string is passed; swung round rapidly it makes a booming, humming noise. Though treated as a toy by Europeans, the bullroarer has had the highest mystic significance and sanctity among primitive people. This is notably the case in Australia, where it figures in the initiation ceremonies and is regarded with the utmost awe ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the ornament of the Protestant clergy, he thought he might not unworthily be deemed, as it were, "a shred of the linen vestment of Aaron." Nor was Roger one of those worthy parish clerks who could be accused of merely humming the psalms through the nostrils as a sack-butt, but much oftener instructed and amused his fellow-parishioners with the amorous ditties of the Waiting Maid's Lamentation, or one of those national songs which awake the remembrance ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... without looking of that broad green earth; it made his work pleasant to him. Near the shadow at the gable the mother of the little nigger stood churning. Slowly she raised and let fall the stick in her hands, murmuring to herself a sleepy chant such as her people love; it sounded like the humming ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... to be heard on board save the footsteps of the solitary watchman who slowly paced the deck, and now and then beguiled the tedium of his vigil by humming a snatch of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... twenty-four, and known in literature! In my long walks I have composed to a tune (I don't know what it is) which all the people are singing and whistling in the street at present, a poem in frightful Italian, beginning "Medea, mia dea," calling on her in the name of her various lovers. I go about humming between my teeth, "Why am I not Marcantonio? or Prinzivalle? or he of Narni? or the good Duke Alfonso? that I might be beloved by thee, Medea, mia dea," &c. &c. Awful rubbish! My landlord, I think, suspects that Medea must be some lady I met while I was staying ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... went up between limestone rocks, higher and higher, till the noise of waters became indistinct, a faint humming of swarming hives in summer. He walked some distance on level ground, till there was a break in the banks and a stile on which he could lean and look out. He found himself, as he had hoped, afar and forlorn; he had ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... korno. hospitable : gastama. hospital : hospitalo. host : mastro; gastiganto; hostio. hostage : garantiulo. hotel : hotelo. hover : flirti. hub : radcentro, akso. hue : nuanco, koloro, hum : zumi. human : homa. "-being," homo. humane : humana. humble : humila. humbug : blago. humming-bird : kolibro. humorous : humorajxa, sprita, sxerca. hump : gxibo. hunger : malsato. hunt : cxasi. hurrah : hura. hurricane : uragano. hurt : vundi, malutili. husk : sxelo. hut : kabano. hymn : himno. hyphen : streketo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... out-sail them, we'll fight them, and show the mounseers that 'hearts of oak are our ships, British tars are our men,'" he exclaimed with a gay laugh, humming the tune. ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... a humming-top into the midst of others on the ground, and if well aimed it scatters them prettily. I seemed to be playing such a game with my thoughts, for each new one sent the others here and there, and so what could I do in the end but fling my tops aside, and return ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... [sketch] early this morning, and it seemed so jolly after the long winter. My jonquils are just coming out, and one or two other things. In the elm tree two bright yellow birds were cheeping. I mean to plant scarlet-runners to attract the humming birds. It is something to see fireflies and humming birds in the flesh, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... by a garden filled with gooseberry-trees; but the very secrecy of their operations aroused suspicion, and popular superstition at once connected them with some kind of witchcraft or sorcery. Two old women who lived close by averred that they heard strange noises in it of a humming nature, as if the devil were tuning his bagpipes, and Arkwright and Kay were dancing a reel, and so much consternation was produced that many were inclined to break open the place. The building has since been changed into a public-house, which is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... write her name at the top of the county teams. All sorts of other open-air sports were being talked of, and there was a host of eager candidates ready to apply for every sort of position. Jack Winters had managed to awaken the sleepy town, and "start things humming," most fellows admitted, being willing to give him the greater ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... centre point of branching alleys, or to find the aqueduct trailing, thousand-footed, through the brush. It is not a wilderness; it is rather a preserve. And, fitly enough, the centre of the maze is not a hermit's cavern. In the midst, a little mirthful town lies sunlit, humming with the business of pleasure; and the palace, breathing distinction and peopled by historic names, stands ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moon, but the stars shone far up in the soft indigo, and the grasses whirled back in endless ripples to the humming wheels, dimmed to the dusky blue that suffused the whole intermerging sweep of earth and sky. The sweetness of wild peppermint rose through the coolness of the dew, and the voices of the wilderness ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... she had waited for so long at length approaching. Gay, Mr. Joseph, you have thrown off the fetters of town and work and dull care and responsibility, and here you are free and untrammelled as the air, good humored, cheerful, humming your Old Country tunes as usual, brisk, debonnair, untouched by thought of present trouble or evil, unthinking and unsuspecting! Gay Mr. Joseph, urbane Mr. Joseph, what have you got in your hand this time? Last time it was a bunch of the red field lily. Now it is, or it looks ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... some music for it. Then he practises at singing it, and then he sings it. The man of genius, on the other hand, whether he be a great one or a very little one, is known by the fact that he has a song sent to him. He sings it. He has a habit of humming it over afterwards. His humming it over afterwards is his analysis. It is ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... stole to the foot of the attic stairs and then paused to listen. The house seemed very quiet, but he could hear his mother's voice softly humming a cradle-song that she had sung to him ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... very communicative during the long drive, and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gaslit streets until we ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... scent of the perfumed talcum powder mingled with the odor of the grass, the trees, and the flowers, over which the bees were humming. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... for this, I have here almost an avenue of fine lemon-trees, in cases; humming-birds, which are a marvel and enchantment to me; and fire-flies, which are ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... trying to learn the hovering. One of the parents flew out over the tall flowers, poising himself gracefully, his body held perfectly erect, legs half drawn up, turning his head this way and that, hanging thus in the air several seconds in one spot, then suddenly darting off to another like a humming-bird. The little ones in a row close together on a low branch of a shrub, looked on, and in a moment two or three sallied out and tried the same movement. They could fly well enough, but when they tried ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... whose name was Adams, trudged behind his burro toward the buildings that shimmered in the heat, humming to himself now and then or addressing some remark to the beast. When he reached the outskirts of Denver he realized something was amiss. He stood and gazed at the quiet scene. Nothing moved except some skinny packrats and a few sparrows foraging ...
— And All the Earth a Grave • Carroll M. Capps (AKA C.C. MacApp)
... another, interlacing, overlapping with the intricacy of a puzzle. The houses were high, too, and there was not a window with glittering balcony of glass and iron, where dark-eyed women did not lean between heaven and earth, to smile down upon our humming motor. It was all very quaint and gay, in spite of ancient, tragic memories; and though few cities of Spain are older than Cadiz—which claims Hercules for founder—the white houses looked as clean as if they had been built yesterday or ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... counted Mr. Kincaid, "and its a humming good boat load. It'll do. Now you take this demijohn and fill it from the spring-hole you'll find back of the house, ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... of dark reddish colour—were escorting to the district town a tramp who refused to remember his name. The first waddled along, looking from side to side, chewing now a straw, now his own sleeve, slapping himself on the haunches and humming, and altogether had a careless and frivolous air; the other, in spite of his lean face and narrow shoulders, looked solid, grave, and substantial; in the lines and expression of his whole figure he was like the priests ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a pint of punch, and, charging my pipe, sat smoking with my feet against the furnace. It was after eight o'clock by the watch I was wearing. I knew by the humming noise that it was blowing a gale of wind outside, and from time to time the decks rattled to a heavy discharge of hail. All sounds were naturally much subdued to my ear by the ship lying in a hollow, and I being in her with the hatches closed; but this very faintness of uproar ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... perfect, tempting were her lips— The bee or humming-bird that sips From scarlet blossoms in the South Beguiled might ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... life should have appeared PRECISELY AT THE RIGHT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH to which their adaptations were appropriate, and precisely at the proper place in which all the conditions of life to which they were adapted occurred: the humming-birds at the same time as the flowers; the trichina at the same time as the pig; the bark-coloured moth at the same time as the oak, and the wasp-like moth at the same time as the wasp which protects it. Without processes of selection we should be obliged to assume a "pre-established ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... distant humming in Betty's ears. Senator North had entered and taken his seat. He apparently settled himself to listen to the speech, and he looked as ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... occasionally "I love." Very crass little statements, and not at all satisfactory to persons like Levine, Andre, and Tolstoi, who, for the most part, know them only second-hand; but wonderfully satisfying, thank goodness, to the great majority which hears them for ever humming and beating with the sound of its own lungs and heart. And one might even suspect that they are merely a personal paraphrase of the words which the spheres are singing and the ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... raids upon the market had been planned on paper in the inner room of the offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never carried out. Blackbeard would quell the mutiny of his old self within him and go soberly down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of "Spanish Ladies," perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... (who, it is rumoured, has an eye to the bedchamber) was interrogating Sir Robert Peel a little closer than the wily minister in futuro approved of. After several very evasive answers, which had no effect on the lady's pertinacity, Sir Robert made her a graceful bow, and retired, humming the favourite air of— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... below. Peter picked up his splendid guitar and, sprawling upon the transom, gave himself up to soft humming and, presently, to the work of composition. Soon, after some little painstaking effort, he produced the following, to be rendered to the tune ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... his disposal by our government; and at the end of this time appeared the fourth and concluding volume of his engravings, and the fifth of his descriptions. The whole comprised four hundred and thirty-five plates, containing one thousand and sixty-five figures, from the Bird of Washington to the Humming Bird, of the size of life, and a great variety of land and marine views, and coral and other productions, of different climates and seasons, all carefully drawn and colored after nature. Well might the great naturalist felicitate ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... 'Humming a tune as she goes,' said Mark, listening, 'in case I should think she's at all put out, and should be made down-hearted. Come, here's some credit in being ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Now the humming October goes merrily round, And each with good humour is happily crown'd, The song and the dance, and the mirth-giving jest, Alike without harm by each one is expressed; For never as yet it was counted a crime, To be ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... retreated a few rungs. Phillips could hear the others scrambling further down. He got his head out of the way before pulling the switch that opened the hatch. With a subdued humming of electric motors, the massively constructed door swung down. One after another, they pulled themselves ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... Humming a melody all its own, it made its zigzag way between birches, and alders, maples, and elderblow, carrying on its shining surface stray leaves, and water spiders that struggled to see which first should reach ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... out, talking and jesting. There was a high expectancy in the air that affected all of us. Major Simpson broke off humming "We are the Robbers of the Wood" to say, "Well, if this show comes off to-morrow, leave ought to start again." "I should shay sho," put in Lamswell in his best Robey-cum-Billy Merson manner. "Doesn't interest me much," said I. "I'm such a long way down the list that it will be Christmas before I ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... each step, he began cautiously to work his way down. To my wrath he even looked up at me and indulged in a grimace—but his triumph was ill-timed, for at that very instant I beheld, strolling along the street below, humming and swinging his night-stick, as leisurely, complacent, and stalwart a representative of the law as one could ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... microphone picked up a low, humming sound. A long, cigar-shaped object was heading toward the ship at high speed. It had been painted a dark, mottled green, and was nearly invisible against background of foliage ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... had long ago gone to sleep, in the big Colonial house beyond the turn in the road, idly humming ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... very pretty china vase, as if more precious than the other flowers. Several blossoms were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson tips. As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure. Were it not that the emotions of a few ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of their home, a boulder-built cottage facing the broad plaza where palms shaded the graveled paths, and purple, yellow and scarlet blooms lured humming-birds and butterflies, stood ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... pushed aside and a man stepped into the clearing—a tall, elegant figure, who having paused to glance sharply about him, strolled on again towards the barn, swinging his tasselled walking-cane, and humming softly to himself as he came. He was within a yard of Barnabas when he saw ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... young smiles along his rounded cheek. Grief hath not dimm'd the brightness of his form, Love and Affection o'er him spread their wings, And Nature, like a nurse, attends him with Her sweetest looks. The humming bee will bound From out the flower, nor sting his baby hand; The birds sing to him from the sunny tree; And suppliantly the fierce-eyed mastiff fawn Beneath his feet, to court ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... with me to the door, and on to the terrace. And as I wheeled my bicycle away from the porch, he took a step or two alongside me, his hands in his pockets, his lips humming a careless tune. And suddenly he turned ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... they were all humming about Dama Ecciva, interrupting each other with excited questions; for Dama Ecciva had been, if possible, more mysterious and tantalizing than ever since these rumors had been afloat—which was a sign ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... at the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn dead-hush of his library there, hearing the cinders click in the extinguished fire, and that humming stillness in which one may fancy one hears the midnight Fates busily stirring their embryos. The lamp glowed mildly on the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... full of poisonous suspicions. How did Mr. Gabriel know the schooner prepared to sail? And this man, could he tell boom from bowsprit? I didn't believe it; he had the hang of the up-river folks. But there stood Mr. Gabriel, so quiet and easy, his eyelids down, and he humming an underbreath of song; and there sat Faith, so pale and so pretty, a trifle sad, a trifle that her conscience would brew for her, whether or no. Yet, after all, there was an odd expression in Mr. Gabriel's face, an eager, restless expectation; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various |
