"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... steep slope behind the encampment, and so was the farthest removed from the stream, and from the Indian lodges disposed in a half-moon at the water's edge. Here all was quiet as the grave, and the clamor of the Indian camp came softened by the distance to a low monotonous humming like the buzzing of a bee-hive. The flap of the tepee-lodge was closely drawn, and the bit of fire before it had burned out to a heap ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... of a sudden to the boy as if his arms were asleep up to the shoulders; he had a stinging sensation in his flesh and a humming in his ears, which made him fear that his last hour had come. If the bear renewed the attack now, he was utterly defenceless. He was not exactly afraid, but he was numb all over. It seemed to matter little what ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... excuse shall I make?" The man's voice was weary but patient. The tone of it set a chord humming faintly somewhere in Captain Cai's memory: but his mind worked slowly and (as he would have put it) wanted ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 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 calm and ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... these impressions, particularly from uneasy emotions, by employing it on something that makes a less impression, and which does not require much exertion, or produce too much commotion; such as counting to a thousand, or counting drops of water which fall slowly; by listening to the humming of bees, or the murmuring of a rivulet. Virgil describes a situation fitted to induce sleep, most beautifully, ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... again, and went up between limestone rocks, higher and higher, till the noise of waters became indistinct, a faint humming of swarming hives in summer. He walked some distance on level ground, till there was a break in the banks and a stile on which he could lean and look out. He found himself, as he had hoped, afar and forlorn; he had strayed into outland and occult territory. From the eminence of the lane, skirting ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... hour—certainly not less than forty minutes—before the train could be restarted. Mr. Molesworth looked at his watch. Forty minutes to explore the road: forty minutes' holiday! He laughed, pocketed the watch again, and took the road briskly, humming a song. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... door a humming voice floated out to her, and going inside, she found the girl, in a new frock, practising a dance step before the mirror. "This is the lame duck, mother, but it's different from the one we danced ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... were green and gold and scarlet and yellow and blue—fresh and bright and brilliant as the sky beneath which they were nurtured. The great toucan, with a beak nearly as big as his body, flew clumsily from stem to stem. The tiny, delicate humming-birds, scarce larger than bees, fluttered from flower to flower and spray to spray, like points of brilliant green. But they were irritable, passionate little creatures, these lovely things, and quarrelled with each other and fought like very wasps! Enormous butterflies, ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... whistle. Enticed on by these successes, we knelt down so as to break through a wider extent of the calcareous stratum; but our torches began to burn palely, and the close chamber, now filled with a thick smoke, was no longer bearable. Sumichrast complained of humming in his ears, and I also felt uncomfortable; so, much against our inclination, I gave the signal of departure. The lamp was dying out, and was filling the outer chamber with a nasty smell, which gave the finishing-stroke to our unpleasant feelings. L'Encuerado and Lucien were the ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... killed in Elliott Street, Atlanta, Georgia, by a cowardly stroke from a stiletto. The assassin escaped. Strange what a humming there was in the belfry of St. Michael's Church that night! Had the murderer taken refuge there? Was it a knell for his lost soul, chasing him through the empty streets and beginning already an eternal punishment of terror? Perhaps the guilty one ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday Among the fields above the sea, Among the winds at play; Among the lowing of the herds, The rustling of the trees, Among the singing of the birds, The humming of the bees. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... The seeker is become the sought. I 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 verses ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... horse and take Meigs's old skate myself," I said to Brower, "but when you first get on him this bronc of mine is a rip-humming tail twister. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... gentle girls," He thought, "beneath the blessed sun!" He saw her lashes hung with pearls, And swore to give away his gun. She smiled to find her point was gained, And went, with happy parting words (He subsequently ascertained), To trim her hat with humming-birds. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... steadily the humming drone that filled the cabin kept its undertones that lulled, that soothed. The Frenchman, staring, hardly breathed. Rigid he sat and pale, with sweat now slowly guttering down his face, his jaws clamped hard ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... small equal squares, and he was apparently covering them with pictorial designs—strange-looking figures. He worked rapidly and attentively, sometimes threw back his head and held out his drawing at arm's-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding humming and whistling. The lady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts were voluminous. She never dropped her eyes upon his work; she only turned them, occasionally, as she passed, to a mirror suspended above ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... sides of the garden, giving a comforting sense of privacy. In spite of the suffering he had gone through, the raw nerves of the man felt a healing pressure settling over them, resting on them, out of the scented stillness. There were no voices from the house; bees were humming somewhere near the rose-bushes; the first cricket of summer sang his sudden, drowsy song and ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... colloquy between his friend and the young girl had kept discreetly in the background, felt undecided what to do. But at a peremptory sign from de Batz he, too, turned in the wake of the gay little lady, who ran swiftly up the rickety steps, humming snatches of popular songs the while, and not turning to see if indeed the two men were ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... beautiful, she is scarcely interesting in expression, and she is decidedly unsteady. She seems to have no more power of keeping herself in one position or of remaining in one part of the room, or even of being quiet, than a humming-top. The whole thing is an unutterable bore to her, for she does not even reap the reward—her father, or husband, or other male attendant always taking the money. She is petite, constitutionally phlegmatic, and as fat as her parents can manage to make her; she has small hands and ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... captain my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck.—As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore and aft, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... (Anson's Voyage). Those found in the Pellew Islands Crawfurd) are believed to be feral; and lastly, it is asserted that they have become feral in New Zealand, but whether this is correct I know not.) as that a humming-bird should be found in the Old World. From the character of the other gallinaceous birds of Africa, it is not probable that Gallus is an African genus. We need not look to the western parts of Asia, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... 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
... little, the groups scattered over the floor fell into silence. Here and there, one took up the refrain, now humming it softly, now singing it with full voice. Then the refrain died away; there was an instant's hush, an instant's modulation; and, as a man, the crowd beneath rose to their feet and stood, pipe in hand, while slowly, steadily from the organ ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... went the Spaniard's shot like so many humming-tops, through the rigging far above their heads; for the ill-constructed ports of those days prevented the guns from hulling an enemy who was ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... had set Odo's memories humming like a hive of bees, and without heeding his companion's allusions he asked—"And ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... through the one small deep-set window whose shutter had been opened, that you could not have said what it was. There were three or four cabinets—one of them old Japanese; and on a table a case of gorgeous humming birds. The scarlet cloth that covered the table was faded to a dirty orange, but the birds were almost as bright as when they darted like live jewels through the tropical sunlight. Exquisite as ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that talks, these lungs that shout, These thews that hustle us about, This brain that fills the skull with schemes, And its humming hive ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... the broad green foliage over him, and the sun struck fiercely down beyond the border of shade; but then, again, beyond there were more trees and more shade. The nameless little crickets and flies and all manner of humming things panted musically in the warm air; the small birds chirped lazily now and then in desultory conversation, too hot to hop or fly; and a small lizard lay along the wall dazed and stupid in the noontide heat. The genius loci ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... himself. He brought the score of the operetta to Gray Gables last night and we tried it over on the piano. The music is beautiful. It is so tuneful it lingers. I've been humming snatches of it ever since he played it for me. The 'Rebellious Princess' has some wonderful songs. That clever young man, Eric Darrow, composed the libretto and thought out the plot. It's about a princess who grew tired of staying at home in her father's ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Thus I passed three weeks at Nether Stowey and in the neighbourhood, generally devoting the afternoons to a delightful chat in an arbour made of bark by the poet's friend Tom Poole, sitting under two fine elm-trees, and listening to the bees humming round us, while we quaffed our flip. It was agreed, among other things, that we should make a jaunt down the Bristol Channel, as far as Lynton. We set off together on foot, Coleridge, John Chester, and I. This Chester was a native of Nether Stowey, one of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... humming with mining news and mining plans. The word "Klondike" blazed out on banners, on shop windows and on brick walls. Alert and thrifty merchants at once began to advertise Klondike shoes, Klondike coats, Klondike camp goods. Hundreds of Klondike exploring companies were being ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... is, of course, impossible to tell; but in a stirring proclamation Maximilian called them the "Zouaves of Mexico," a compliment which was received by the men with deafening shouts of enthusiasm. This account, as I read it after the final catastrophe, awoke a memory; and I found myself unconsciously humming the bit of satire upon these brave fellows, most of whom were now lying cold and stiff under the sky ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... highways that would make the "sand-papered roads" around Boston seem almost unfit for cycling in comparison, and that lead through picturesque villages and noble parks; occasionally catching a glimpse of a splendid old manor among venerable trees, that makes one unconsciously begin humming:- "The ancient homes of England, How beautiful they stand Amidst the tall ancestral trees O'er all the pleasant land." "Oh, you'll get much better roads than this in the southern counties," is the reply; though, fresh from American roads, one ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... pointing at the humming computer. "Can't tell about it yet. You never can until the computation is complete. There's a temptation to try and guess from the first figures, but they're meaningless. Like trying to predict the winner of a horse race by looking at the starters lined ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... his leather bag on a chair, and sat down opposite to his father, composed, and smiling, and humming a little tune. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the roar of the crowd, Hand of the beggar, and purse of the proud, Gladly go back to the humming of bees, Carols of birds, and the whisper of trees, Gladly dispense with the voices of men, Thankful to hear only ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... in the small, ugly chapel down beyant near Ballybrosna. Some people, it is true, said that she was "just a fairy of a crathur, and too little for anythin'," and she was, no doubt, diminutive in size. Nor had she any brilliancy of colouring to make amends in a humming-bird's fashion for the insignificance of her proportions, resembling rather, with her dark eyes and hair, one of those filmy white blossoms which look the paler and frailer for their knots of ebon stamens, ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... tongueless girl into a swallow, a bird with a little cry, and fleet wings to carry its cry all over the world, and the unhappy wife into the bird "which sleeps all day and sings all night." "Sophocles," Owen said, "speaks of the nightingale as moaning all the night in ivy clusters, moaning or humming. A strange expression his seems to us, our musical sense being different from that of the antique world, if the antique world really possessed any musical sense." The lovers wandered round the house, listening to the bird's ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... ready. Going softly into George's state-room, they paused for a minute or two to listen for any sounds which might furnish them with a clue to the condition of affairs on deck; but nothing was to be heard, save the occasional clank of the wheel-chains, and the low humming of a ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... intelligence he could of its lord and master, from the servants left in charge of that most noble and encumbered property. Accordingly he quitted his apartment, threw a ghastly smile into his countenance, and then came quickly upon his clerks, humming a few cheerful notes, with about as much spirit and energy as a man might have if forced to sing a comic song just before his execution. Thoroughly persuaded that the officials had not obtained an inkling of what had transpired in his sanctum, and that he left them without a suspicion of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... they approached Paliuli. Then they heard the humming of the wind in the thicket from the tongue of that great lizard, Kihanuilulumoku, coming for them, but they did not see the creature, so they went on; soon they saw the upper jaw of the lizard hanging right over them; ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... his eyes on the busy sight beneath, while Adam Woodcock, after he had compared his companion to the "Laird of Macfarlane's geese, who liked their play better than their meat," disposed of his time with the aid of cup and trencher, occasionally humming the burden of his birth-strangled ballad, and beating time to it with his fingers on the little round table. In this exercise he was frequently interrupted by the exclamations of his companion, as he saw something new in the yard beneath, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... company, but the occasion was urgent. So she entered, though not without some uneasiness, and went on and up the rough uneven way, till she reached the huge cranny in the Chimney where the Wind sat, humming a whining song to himself, as he lounged against the ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... letter, to which every one in the apartment did obeisance by touching the floor with their foreheads, and the Grand Marabout further rubbed it on his brow before proceeding to read it, which he chose to do for himself, chanting it out in a low, humming voice. It was only a recommendation, and the other letter was from the French Consul containing all particulars. The Marabout seemed much startled, and interrogated the interpreter. Arthur could follow them in some degree, and presently the keen ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... see the broad shoulders of the man as he stooped over on the other side of the fire to throw on more wood. Presently she knew he had thrown himself down with his head on the saddle, but she could hear him still humming softly something that sounded like a lullaby. When the firelight flared up it showed ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... she said, and fell again to her work. I thereupon investigated an ice-box and found enough matter for complaint against the Hobbs boy to enable me to manage a dignified withdrawal to the rear. The remarkable creature was humming ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... once. The noise was so loud that Desmond wondered whether old Martha would hear the din. He sat in his chair by the door, a silent witness of the scene. Then suddenly, at the height of the hubbub, he heard the faint humming of a motor-car. It lasted for perhaps thirty seconds, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Dick stopped on the ramp to the machinery hold to listen. McCarthy was humming the tune of a song that had been the rage at home, but the ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... seemed to be the case, for the strange ovoids wafted still lower, dropping until a faint humming of the internal gravity mechanism came to their ears. These were a highly developed people of scientific attainment; civilized beings. But Mado kept firm hold of his torpedo tube, and Carr fingered the ray pistol at ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... of my story. In Venice there is a little court of which I forget the name: but in it is an apothecary's shop, whither I went to buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice. Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), whom ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was really ruffled, and the only comfort was that if nobody saw anything George Corvick was quite as much out of it as I. This comfort however was not sufficient, after the ladies had dispersed, to carry me in the proper manner—I mean in a spotted jacket and humming an air—into the smoking-room. I took my way in some dejection to bed; but in the passage I encountered Mr. Vereker, who had been up once more to change, coming out of his room. HE was humming an air and had ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... I watch thy coming, As evening shadows stretch o'er moor and dell; When the wild bee hath ceased her busy humming, And silence hangs on all things ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... Arlee hesitated, while her imagination fluttered about the thought like humming-birds about sweets. Already she was thinking of the story she could have to tell to her fellow travelers here and to the people at home. It was a chance, she repeated to herself, in a thousand, and the familiar details of phones and motors seemed to rob its suddenness ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... where all these doors led, but was so busy dressing I had no time, so must leave it for my amusement to-morrow. Uncle says it's a very Radcliffian place. How like an angel that man did play!" chattered Amy, and lulled herself to sleep by humming the last air ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... this arbor, stretched a wide field with a fringe of woods at its distant edge, gay with the colors of autumn. The sky was bright and blue, and fair white clouds moved slowly over its surface; the air was sunny and warm, with bumble-bees humming about some late-flowering shrubs; and, high in the air, floated two great turkey-buzzards, with a beauty of motion surpassed by no other flying thing, with never a movement of their wide-spread wings, except to give them the necessary inclination ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... prettily; she, Gloria Gaynor, flushed up because Mark King said in blunt, unvarnished fashion: "I like you very much." The grave sobriety went out of her eyes; they shone happily. When they reached the "funny little store" she was humming a snatch of a bright little waltz tune. And she was thinking, without putting the thought into words: "And I like you very much. You are quite the most ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... would mock her? She would return their malevolent stares with her evil look, which she knew would be eminently disagreeable to them. Her thoughts turned back to Guestrow now—Guestrow and Monsieur Gabriel. Almost unconsciously, as she thought of her old friend, she found herself humming an air. At first she but whispered it under her breath, then she was gradually carried away by the physical enjoyment of letting forth her powerful voice, and ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... a day late in June when the rich, thick, amber light of afternoon seemed to float in the air. Warm summer lay on the land. The bees were humming in the rose vines over the porch. Mrs. Iden, who evidently heard Lane's step, appeared in the path, and nodding her gladness at sight of him, she ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buzz mixed of walking tongues and feet: it is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... . . . Farrell and I were ranging arm-in-arm through a quarter that had mysteriously hushed and hidden itself at our approach. There were pianos tinkling from upper storeys: there were muffled choruses with banjo or guitar accompaniments humming up from the bowels of the earth: there were chinks of light between blinds, under doorways, down areas. There was even a flare of light, now and again, blaring to gramophone accompaniment across the street from a gin-palace or a corner public. But the glass of these places of entertainment was ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a definite tone, the bee-song of work happily consummated. So this great human mechanism seemed, to Harrington Surtaine as he entered the realm of its activities, moving to music personal to itself. Through its wide halls he wandered, past humming workrooms, up spacious stairways, resonant to the tread of brisk feet, until he reached the fifth floor where cluster the main offices. Here through a succession of open doors he caught a glimpse of the engineer who controlled all these lively processes, leaning ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was being played, and so, as she had to do something, she hummed. She didn't hum very well, and her program was limited to the first two lines of "How Firm a Foundation," but she carried it off very well and often got the players to humming it along with her. She could also drum rather well with her fingers on the back of the chair of one of the players while looking over his shoulder. "How Firm a Foundation" didn't lend itself very well to drumming; so she had a little patrol ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... of which reminds me of a section of Missouri more than anything I have seen in Asia. Fields and pastures are fenced in with the same rude corduroy-fences one sees in the Missouri Valley, some well kept and others neglected. The pastures are blue grass and white clover; bees are humming and buzzing from flower to flower, and, to make the similitude complete, one hears the homely tinkle of cow-bells here and there. It is difficult to realize that all this is in Persia, and that one has not been transported in some miraculous manner ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... had lost their splendour and become antiquated. Fashion had taken up its abode in the Marais, near the Place Royale, and it was thither that profligate women and celebrated beauties now enticed the humming swarm of old rakes and young libertines. Not one of them all would have thought of residing in the mansion, or even in the quarter, wherein the king's mistress had once dwelt. It would have been a step downward in the social scale, and equivalent ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... to his apartments, and threw his hat on one sofa, his sword on another. Little Napoleon entered, took his uncle's sword, passed the belt round his neck, put the hat on his head, and then kept step gravely, humming a march behind the Emperor and Empress. Her Majesty, turning round, saw him, and caught him in her arms, exclaiming, "What a pretty picture!" Ingenious in seizing every occasion to please her husband, the Empress summoned M. Gerard, and ordered a portrait of the young prince ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... souls 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 as to provoke that terrible man ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... energies hanging about them for nourishment. Vittoria's horizon was within five feet of her. She saw neither splendid earth nor ancient heaven; nothing save a breach to be stepped over in defiance of foes and (what was harder to brave) of friends. Some wayward activity of old associations set her humming a quaint English tune, by which she was brought to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and stronger than Fawcett's. He used to say Jane was a better worker than he, though she did it by fits and starts, going at it sometimes as if every limb was iron and was moved by a steam-engine, and then for days doing nothing, playing with a neighbor's baby, sitting by the window, humming some old tune to herself, in a way that even Andy thought idle and childish. For the rest, he had thought little about her, except that she was a strangely clean and silent woman, and kind, even to tenderness,—to him; but to the very bats in the barn, or old Wart, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... drinking; you drink too much, and unless you are more temperate you will die in twenty years." That was too much for the Professor, whose occasional glass of beer—a habit left over from his student days—would not discolor the nose of a humming-bird. ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... what evil is coming, But my heart feels sad and cold; A song in my head keeps humming, A tale from the times ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... eyes on the track ahead, was smoking his second pipe and humming a tune, and the "Mary Ann" was making about forty miles an hour, but doing more rolling and pitching and jumping up and down than an eight-wheeler would at sixty. All at once I discerned something away down the track where the rails seemed to meet. The moon had gone behind a cloud, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... working in his garden, and sitting in the willow-tree with his violin, for that green nest was a fairy world to him, and there he loved to perch, making music like a happy bird. The lads called him "Old Chirper," because he was always humming, whistling, or fiddling, and they often stopped a minute in their work or play to listen to the soft tones of the violin, which seemed to lead a little orchestra of summer sounds. The birds appeared to regard ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... were roaring, the room seemed whirling, but in a moment that passed. I felt a sudden growing sense of lightness. A humming was within me—a soundless tingle. The drug had gone to every tiny microscopic cell in my body. The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrilling with activity. I know now that it was the exuding volatile gas of this disintegrating drug. Like ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... here a momentary view of a black piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg of one of the combatants; here a puff of smoke, and there a volley of belching flame—but all indistinct, terrible and indescribable. Solid shot, conical shell and spherical case went humming, hurtling and howling through the air, blotting out rebels and slaying loyalists. The leaden messengers of the sharp-shooters went shrieking to their living targets, killing, crippling and intimidating; buck, ball and Minie bullets missed and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... weather, which really for once in a way was equal to the conversational strain put upon it. At length these died away and there came an awful pause. It was broken by the Squire, who, standing with his back to the fire, his eyes fixed upon the wall opposite, after much humming and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... stone in the woods and sat down. After the sun there was a certain coolness. She fanned herself with some leaves. They were poison-ivy, but she did not know that. The perspiration dried on her face. There were curious whining, humming sounds in the woods. She began to scratch her ankles and wrists. Her ankles especially tickled and itched to the point of anguish. She was the delightful centre of interest to a swarm of hungry mosquitoes. She leaped ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Mrs. Lissman. I bet that boy drinks or something. Look at his face—like a sheet! I tell you that boy ain't walking up this street straight. Look for yourself, Mrs. Lissman. Ach, his poor mother!" A current like electricity that sets a wire humming ran in waves along ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... Would she come over to the university? He had been wanting to show her around, and this would be a good time. She dressed hurriedly, humming a little song they had heard often ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... ale-house was in a basement; it was damp and dark and reeking with tobacco smoke, tar and a musty odor. In front of Gavrilo, at another table, was a drunken sailor, with a red beard, all covered with charcoal and tar. He was humming, interrupted by frequent hiccoughs, a fragment of a song very much out of tune. He was ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... things, making a stiff conversation like a bridge over a torrent of unspoken intimacies. We discussed something; I think Lady Tarvrille's flowers and the Cape Flora and gardens. She told me she had a Japanese garden with three Japanese gardeners. They were wonderful little men to watch. "Humming-bird gardeners," she called them. "They ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... is the cause of the humming noise that issues from a steam boiler at times, and how would ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... turns, Scott saw them suddenly pulling in the ropes, and once more the box appeared, rusty and covered with slime, but still familiar. He at once sprang to his feet and sauntered carelessly down the walk, humming a tune and watching the occupants of the boat with an air of mild curiosity. The stranger was the first to see him, and with an expression of evident disgust gave Merrick warning of his approach. If the detective felt any annoyance he did not betray it as he turned ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... enwrapping the American mummies, a pair of mocassins made of the rind of plants, curious carvings which were pronounced by the French savans to resemble much the pieces of sculpture brought by M. Jaques de Numskull from the Ohio, and a human cranium or two, to which were added a Madagascar humming-bird, and a Malacca pepper plant. From the nature of these acquisitions, he was supposed to be well qualified to decide upon the merits of that part of the theory of the indigenous inhabitants of America, which represents the extinct race as descended from the Malays ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... warriors coming, bade them welcome, and led them to their ship. The wind whistled in the sails, and a pleasant humming sound was heard as the good ship sped on her way. So Beowulf returned home, having done mighty deeds and ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... under the window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... badgers with inability to climb, a swarm of tree-wasps lived in a big nest of wood-pulp suspended from a branch ten feet or so above the "set," and, every afternoon, the badgers, as they waited near the mouth of their dwelling for the darkness to deepen, heard the shrill, long continued humming of the sentinel wasps around the big ball in the tree—surely one of the most appetising sounds that could ever reach a badger's ears. But the wasps that had built among the ferns near the river-path, and in the hollows of the hedges, were remorselessly ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom; humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. When I feel my Muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... Foraminifera; beings whose very existence was unknown prior to the invention of the microscope. The Duke of Argyll has illustrated this in the "Reign of Law," by the variety, graceful forms and beautiful colouring of the humming birds in forests which man has ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... their heads, shining with the full glare of midday heat. Tiny, gold-flecked, steel-blue flies poised in the air with vibrating wings. Their ears caught a gentle humming and buzzing all round them, and far away in the wood were heard now and again the tap-tap of the woodpecker and the screech ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... sank limply into a chair. The windows were wide open; she heard the rippling of the brook, and the insects humming and buzzing in the big willow. At last she roused herself. She must be certain if Trautvetter was right in his suspicion, and that would need cunning. Her plan was soon made; it was very simple: she need only behave ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... each other till their transparent wings, like delicate plates of silver, and their scaly bodies, made a tiny rustling when they met in conflict. Then all was still again among the rushes, until the arrival of a female dragon-fly. She would come slowly and carelessly humming along from some other part of the garden, and when she got near the pond would change her course, turn off, and fly back again. Her little heart was doubtless beating high; but casting aside her fears, she at length took courage, and sped on over the pond. Away started five or six males, dashing ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... sincerely—sincerely?...like a moth caught in a gauze curtain! Well, would that preclude sincerity? Sincerity seems to convey an idea of depth, and she was not very deep, that is quite certain. I never could understand her;—a little brain that span rapidly and hummed a pretty humming tune. But no, there was something more in her than that. She often said things that I thought clever, things that I did not forget, things that I should like to put into books. But it was not brain power; it was only intensity of feeling—nervous feeling. I don't know...perhaps.... She has lived ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... Humming a tune quietly to himself Uncle Peter watched the flying squadron disappear in a bend of the road, then he sat down near me and said, "John, you're worried about something and I've a pretty fair idea what it is. This property is too big a load ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... the lane, swinging her light willow basket carelessly on her arm, and humming a joyous air all the way. Just as she opened the outer lawn gate, the great Newfoundland dog came towards her with a low growl; it changed directly ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... across the shop floor, listened with a rather wistful little smile upon her lips. Like a big bee Hopewell Drugg was humming the words of the song so popular forty years ago when sung by a ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... again joined her. He seemed in a better frame of mind, for he came in humming. Alice, having glanced at him, averted her face again and kept silence. She felt a hand smoothing her hair. Her brother, leaning over the back of her ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... useless as a timepiece. But now it was late March, and mild. The milkman's coming would soon again mark old Ben's rising hour. Before he had begun to take it easy, six o'clock had seen the entire mechanism of his busy little world humming smoothly and sweetly, the whole set in motion by his own big work-callused hands. Those hands puzzled him now. He often looked at them curiously and in a detached sort of way, as if they belonged to someone ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... and crept along the floor, Into the passage humming with their snore; As narrow was it as a drum or tub, And like a beetle doth he grope and grub, Feeling his way, with darkness in his hands. Till at the passage end he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... to be safe at home again, to watch the tender, reddish brown shoots of the Virginia creeper reaching in at my study window, to see the green of my own quiet fields, to hear the peaceful clucking of the hens in the sunny dooryard—and Harriet humming at ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... homewards a few paces in the rear of the other two, smiling to himself grimly, and humming a little ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... a moment, but Joel knew that he was smiling there beside him. A little throng of students passed by, humming softly a song in time with their echoing footsteps, and glanced curiously at the forms on the steps. Then Remsen struck a match ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... through the loft uncurtained windows; and, during my reading, often very interesting, I could hear the languid bumblebees bump heavily against the windows, and the flies intoxicated with light and heat, making their wings hum in circles around my head. So loud became their humming about three o'clock that I looked up from the document I was reading—a document containing very precious materials for the history of Melun in the thirteenth century—to watch the concentric movements of those tiny creatures. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... ca ira"—she laughed, humming beneath her breath a few notes out of that terrible song. "But you know French—let us talk in that language; we shall horrify ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... well to-night," said a dog as he skipped by. "Come and have another dance?" and he flew round and round like a humming top. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... is safe. The storm passes and the sun comes out, the air is the sweeter and the richer for the rain, like verses with a rhyme; there will be more honey in the flowers. Humble he is, but wild; always in the field, the wood; always by the banks and thickets; always wild and humming to his flowers. Therefore I like the humble-bee, being, at heart at least, for ever roaming among the woodlands and the hills and by the brooks. In such quick summer storms the lightning gives the impression of being far more ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... marvels at this strange Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength. David's clear eye measures the length; With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee, Poises a moment thoughtfully, And hurls with a long vengeful swing. The pebble, humming from the sling Like a wild bee, flies a sure line For the forehead of the Philistine; Then ... but there comes a brazen clink, And quicker than a man can think Goliath's shield parries each cast. Clang! clang! and clang! was David's ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... provided they have the uniform sympathy of one person, with whom they become intimately acquainted without the distracting and varying attentions of strangers. And surely all God's people, however serious and savage, great or small, like to play. Whales and elephants, dancing, humming gnats, and invisibly small mischievous microbes,—all are warm with divine radium and must have ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... clapping and laughing. This was as it should be. Fun, youth, gaiety. She went to her easel in the north room, humming Joan's old ballad, and never did better work in her life than she did ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... within the doorway and refused to move on. Steena looked down the length of the instrument panels and officers' station-seats to where Cliff Moran worked. On the heavy carpet her boots made no sound and he did not glance up but sat humming through set teeth as he tested the tardy and reluctant responses to buttons which had not ...
— All Cats Are Gray • Andre Alice Norton
... this, I went forward with as much lightheartedness as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully putting aside thoughts of warmth and supper, while the dusk increased and the great forest vegetation seemed to grow ranker and ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... there! They ran so fast that the two small bodies were as one. They looked like the dark band on the humming-top when you spin it. And just as Tiny was about to catch him, the Elf leaped into a pan, swam across three pails of milk, climbed the wall and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... 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, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... produced a book and sat reading by the light of the wicks of the three brass lamps. Annetta had taken away the things and had not come back again. Gigetto strolled in and took his guitar from the peg on the wall, and idled about the room, tuning it and humming to himself. He was a tall young fellow with a woman's face and beautiful velvet-like eyes, as handsome and idle a youth as you might meet in Subiaco on a summer's feast-day. He exchanged a word of greeting with Dalrymple, and, seeing that the place was otherwise ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... went first to a large Jesuit establishment, where some most benevolent old priests were teaching a large number of Malay boys reading, writing, and geography. Then we went a little further, and, in a small wooden house, under the cocoa trees, at last found some of the little humming birds for which the Malay Archipelago is famous. They glisten with a marvellous metallic lustre all over their bodies, instead of only in patches, as one sees upon those in South America and the West ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... humming cheerily to himself, took a batch of letters out of a pigeon-hole and began to turn them over. Jeffreys watched him feverishly, and marvelled at ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... the woods, when some large object rose into the air from a clump of plashy rushes before him, and shot along the blast, uttering a booming sound, so loud and stunning that he stood riveted to the earth. The noise resembled that which sometimes proceeds from a humming-top, if a person could suppose one made upon such a gigantic scale as to produce the deep and hollow buzz which this being emitted. Nothing could now convince him that he was not surrounded by spirits, and he felt confident that the voice of undiscovered ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... no answer for a few seconds while he patiently adjusted the tuning knob. But then came a faint buzz like the humming of a drowsy bee. Suddenly, sharp and distinct, as if his father was at his elbow, came Mr. Chadwick's ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... propulsion was effected by a pump-like action of the legs, very tiresome and elegant. The passenger generally leaned forward in a position strongly suggestive of the favorite attitude of his arboreal ancestors. It was the peculiarity of the Trol-lee that it made a sort of humming roar as it went that sounded like a hundred prisoners groaning in unison; but the By-sigh-kel made no noise in going except in collisions and wrecks. The latter were so frequent that a whole cycle of restorative arts had to be undertaken of which the principal was dentistry. At the close ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... afterwards, the captain came very quietly on deck, and stood by me for some time looking at the compass. The officer at length became aware of the captain's presence, but pretending not to know it, began humming and whistling to himself, to show that he was not asleep, and went forward, without looking behind him, and ordered the main royal to be loosed. On turning round to come aft, he pretended surprise at seeing the master on deck. This would not do. The captain was too "wide ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... was so 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; and if his lids were lowered, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... down the dry watercourse, caught sight of his companion, who, advancing up the bed of the nullah, stood irresolutely about twenty yards off. The bully, who was evidently the male, after smelling at the head, came round the carcass, making a sort of complaisant purring—"humming a kind of animal song," and to it ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... are working today than were working 2 years ago. The average factory work week is once again more than 40 hours; our industries are turning out more goods than ever before; and more than half of the manufacturing capacity that lay silent and wasted 100 weeks ago is humming with activity. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... smiling back red and yellow smiles; who could not walk down the slope and see apples lying in ridges, or pairs, or dotting the grass everywhere. Robert was half-asleep, dreaming of apples. He felt thirsty, and heard a humming like the buzz of bees around the cider-press. He and aunt Corinne used to sit down by the first tub of sweet cider, each with two straws apiece, and watch their faces in the rosy juice while they drank ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... crooked; mean and grand, crazy and strong. Twining among a tangled lot of boats and barges, and shooting out at last into a Grand Canal! There, in the errant fancy of my dream, I saw old Shylock passing to and fro upon a bridge, all built upon with shops and humming with the tongues of men; a form I seemed to know for Desdemona's, leaned down through a latticed blind to pluck a flower. And, in the dream, I thought that Shakespeare's spirit was abroad upon the water ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... locker across the galley, he could thrust head and shoulders through the hatch. But the cockpit of the Follow Me remained empty and the entrance to the cabin was closed. Wink, his revolver ready, had returned to his post and watched grimly while the Adventurer, her engine fairly humming, slowly wore down the distance that ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... returning a few minutes later with a portable apparatus somewhat resembling its progenitor, the diathermy generator. He disposed a number of insulated loops about Quirl's body and head, connecting them through flexible cables to his machine. As a gentle humming began, Quirl was conscious of an agreeable warmth, of a quickening all over his body. A great lassitude ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... case—what one wonders about, you see, is what can be done for him. I mean, that is"—for he floundered a little, not knowing at last quite what he did mean, a great rush of mere memories, a great humming sound as of thick, thick echoes, rising now to an assault that he met with his face indeed contorted. If he didn't take care he should howl; so he more or less successfully took care—yet with his host vividly watching him while he shook the danger temporarily off. "I don't ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... "how the flies buzz; the place is full of them." Thrice he had heard something that sounded like the humming ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... goodness! It's always hemming and humming and a heise of the neck, and her head up like a Cochin-China, with a topknot, and 'How d'ye do?' and cetererar and cetererar. Aw, smooth as an ould threepenny bit—smooth astonishing. And partic'lar! My gough! You couldn't call Tom to ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... tower and all, a height of twenty-five stories, and was increasing at an average rate of two additional a year. It was not its size that aroused interest, overtopped as it was by many others, but its uniqueness; for, though a hive of humming industry, it did not house a single business that was not either owned outright or controlled by J. Wilton Ames, from the lowly cigar stands in the marble corridors to the great banking house of Ames ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... rode well ahead in the narrow road; we could just hear faintly the harmony of the tune they were humming in concert, as one hears the murmur of an AEolian harp. As a guard, they were of course ridiculous: the veriest suspicion of peril would have sent them all galloping helter-skelter, with frantic shrieks of fright. But the road was perfectly ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... they reached the somewhat sheltering woods, there sounded from the air above them several explosions, and with them was an undercurrent of humming and droning as if from a million swarms ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... cried the big black, fiercely, as he pointed to the vessel's side and listened to the peculiar dull humming sound ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... back into the dull flat was not half the gloomy effort he had fancied it was going to be. For one blessed thing, he came when he chose. Besides, something had given him a sense of his right, his cheerful right, to be as he liked, what he liked. Haldane went about the tiny rooms humming gently; he played softly on the piano some old love-songs he had composed when he was twenty—things she ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... has been where the rain is now, Bees in the heat to hum, Haply a humming maiden came, Now let the Deluge come: Brown of aureole, green of garb, Straight as a golden rod, Drink to the throne of thunder now! Drink to the wrath ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... the little Frenchman, dancing up and down upon his high-heeled boots. "If you have ze monnaie, zen I do not want heem." He broke out of the line, happily humming a chanson. Half ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... and murmuring. Again they made Griselda think of little rippling brooks in summer, and now and then there came a sort of hum as of insects buzzing in the warm sunshine near. This humming gradually increased, till at last Griselda was conscious of nothing more—everything seemed to be humming, herself too, till at ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... it? Why, just this way." He crumpled his hands together and blew between the knuckles of his thumbs a low, resonant, gruffly humming note. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... been telling her the substance of his conversation with the rector, and now curled up on the low wooden seat, his small legs crossed underneath him, he was gazing dreamily out into the sweet-scented garden. The bees were droning, and the gnats humming amongst the tall hollyhocks and crimson and white roses close by; the birds were already twittering their last 'good-nights' to one another, and a soft, peaceful spell seemed to be ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... us were alike about that. At that minute I knew mother was humming, as she did a dozen ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... dainties that are prepared with chocolate, and of the numerous trades concerned in the production of packages, boxes, and fancy cases, did space permit. Room after room might be visited, bright in the daylight, or equally well lighted by electricity at night, humming with busy machines; some peopled with girls—among whom only men wearing a certain badge on their arms are allowed—some with men and boys, but all vibrating with a genial air of content as well as of busy occupation. Suffice it to say that half the handicrafts of the town seem represented ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... stream, dashing along its rocky course with so many tiny waterfalls and impatient splashes, that the gurgling and bubbling of brooks come up even into the quietness of the tableland and mingle with the singing of the birds and the humming of the bees among the heather. There are not many paths across the hills, except the narrow sheep-walks worn by the tiny feet of the sheep as they follow one another in long, single lines, winding in and out through the ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... had come when Heinrich entered the reception-room of the studio. He divined no presence. There were no conflicting passions in his old heart. He pottered about, humming an old song to himself, dusting the vases and paintings, stirring the slumbering fire, until ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... room, humming a light opera tune, bringing with her the usual flood of perfumes, suggestion of cosmetics, a vivid apparition of the artificial. Her skirts rustled aggressively, her voice was just one degree too loud. Mannering rose to his ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... put the glove there, Cathro no longer doubted, and he would have liked to know why, but was reluctant to give him the satisfaction of asking. So the gauntlet—for gauntlet it was—was laid aside, the while Tommy, his head humming like a beeskep, muttered triumphantly through his teeth, "But he lifted it, he lifted it!" and at closing time it was flung in his face with this ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... So, humming a savage tune in make-belief of no embarrassment at all in regard to his recently disordered garment, Mr. BUMSTEAD reaches his boarding-house. At the door he waits long enough to examine his umbrella, with scowling scrutiny, in every ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... purple clover, the heat shimmered in dancing waves. Everywhere the growing crops were drinking in the light and heat with eager thirst, for the call of the harvest was ringing through the land. The air was sweet with scents of the hay fields, and the whole country side was humming with the sound of the mowers. It was the crowning time of the year; toward this season all the life of the farm moved steadily the whole year long; the next two months or three would bring to the farmer ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... suddenly spurred hot-foot through the town, and alighted at the shop of Maitre Jehan le Tellier, with the stupefying request for the hand of his only daughter Alice in marriage, by virtue of the King's command signed and sealed in his pocket. The belfry-fountain was humming like a swarm of bees as all the chambermaids and goodwives in the street rushed up to fill their pitchers at the very moment when Le Tellier's housemaid happened to ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook |
