"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remembering that he had once heard something of Crosbie having behaved very ill to some one before he married Lady Alexandra De Courcy. He stopped his horse also, falling a little behind Lily, so that he might not be supposed to have seen her tears, and began to hum a tune. Emily also, though not wickedly clever, understood something of it. "If Bernard says anything to make you angry, I will scold him," she said. Then the two girls rode on together in front, while Bernard fell ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... rather bigmouthed," said Maskull coolly. "But after we have heard you play, perhaps I shall adventure a tune myself." ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... same tune again, saying how she had kneaded him with her own hands of sugar and almonds, how she had made his hair of gold, and his eyes and mouth of pearls and precious stones, and how he was indebted to her for his life, which the gods had granted ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... movement and music—dissipated these preoccupations. Male and female created He them...There they were, Anne and Gombauld, and a hundred couples more—all stepping harmoniously together to the old tune of Male and Female created He them. But Denis sat apart; he alone lacked his complementary opposite. They were all coupled but he; all ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... attain." For a few days he seemed exceedingly submissive in deed and speech. The beggars who wished him well he thanked with bows. The ragged old women who saluted him he replied to most gently. But after three days he changed his tune and dashed the hopes which had begun to spring. Easter Sunday came, and the bishop was at Mass and John's chamberlain slipped twelve gold pieces into his hand, the usual royal offering. He was standing (they always stand at Mass) surrounded by a throng of barons before ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... merchandize, and plate, the result of their robberies. He expressed, however, in the name of the two provinces, a willingness to sign the Edict, provided the states-general would agree solemnly beforehand, in case the departure of the Spaniards did not take place within the stipulated tune, to abstain from all recognition of, or communication with, Don John, and themselves to accomplish the removal of the troops by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Bennett decidedly. "Music of that description happens to be the one thing which jars unendurably on my nerves. My nervous system is thoroughly out of tune." ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... animal creation, excepting only the canines; and even the howling of the dog—one cannot be sure—may be an honest, however unsatisfactory, attempt towards a music of his own. I had a fox terrier once who invariably howled in tune. Jubal hampered, not helped us. He it was who stifled music with the curse of professionalism; so that now, like shivering shop-boys paying gate- money to watch games they cannot play, we sit mute in our stalls listening to the paid performer. ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... case of the very best brandy, the first I think I ever tasted; and he could play some tunes on the practise chanter. "Dinna think bonnie lassie, I'm goin' to leave you," I remember was his best; it is a strathspey tune; I learned it from him. The trouble came when it blew up hard off the Scheldt; but even when coming over the bar, the "romance" of the sea qualified its pains a little. I can feel the cold in my hands to-day of the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... his words. She hung her head, and looked red and pre-occupied, anything but pleased. Philip had addressed his first expression of personal admiration at an unfortunate tune. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... guests had eaten enough, she assembled her family and attendants, who seated themselves before her; she read to them the Bible in her own language, and then offered up a prayer. After this, she leading, the rest joined in singing a hymn, the tune of which Tom recognised, though the words were strange to him. The evening's devotions being thus concluded, she led them to a part of the house screened off by mats, and bidding them enter, pointed to three beds, also ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... was now playing a stirring march tune and the Magician unlocked his cabinet and took out the gold bottle containing ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... suspected: it passed in the days of confidence; but the flag was not presented by Mr. Adet till several months after the treaty had been ratified. Mr. Washington made this the occasion of saying some fine things to the French Minister; and the better to get himself into tune to do this, he began by saying ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... rays of the rising sun showed him a village. It was in a hollow, and above it the ground rose sharply to a large house, evidently very old, built of a grey stone that had been weathered by the winds and rains of centuries. It was a very old house, and strangely out of tune, it seemed to Fred, with the country though not with the times. It was so old that it showed some traces of fortification, and Fred knew how long it was since private houses had been built with any view to defence. It was ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... arithmetical figure, has an absolute, as well as a relative value. It may not be sufficient in itself to produce harmony; but when placed in UNION with others, it gains a double or triple value, according to the part assigned it in a musical Whole. A single jar in time or tune spoils the entire effect of the marvellous variety and order, attained in the utter oneness of any good musical work. The desire to increase the limits of art, to multiply its delicious emotions, will infallibly lead those who cultivate this ethereal study to frequent reunions, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... what I see before me," he answered doggedly. "This—in five years. And if this be progress as we view progress—if this be desirable industrial or agricultural evolution, then I'm out of tune with my world and my times, and as soon as I am certain of it I'll blow ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... stir of the camp in preparation for a flitting; canvas sinking to the ground, bales and boxes heaped together, mule-bells tinkling through the grove, horses refreshed by their long rest whinnying and nipping at each other in play—all these are charming variations and accompaniments to the old tune of "Boots ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... had worked on through their basket of clams, and now the last were sputtering on the stove. The work had been done almost in silence, for though the excitement now and then made Reuben break into a low whistle of some tune or other, he always checked himself the next moment with a very apologetic look. For the rest, if he had not done all the work himself, it certainly was not his fault. Now, watching quietly the opening shells of that last dozen of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... Cumberland County dreaded him. All the scattered valley-folk spoke softly at his name. And the jest and joy of Israel's care-free life was to make them skip and shiver and dance to the tune of their trepidations. ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... much-respected friend in this place, the Rev. Dr. Webster. Mr. Cruikshank maintains that you write the best Latin since Buchanan. I leave Edinburgh to-morrow, but shall return in three weeks. Your song you mentioned in your last, to the tune of "Dumbarton Drums," and the other, which you say was done by a brother in trade of mine, a ploughman, I shall thank you for a copy of each. I am ever, Reverend Sir, with the most respectful esteem and sincere ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... of amateurs, and certainly music without melody is nothing. Understand, however, what these persons mean by it: a simple, flowing and pleasing rhythmical tune; this is enough to satisfy them. There are, however, others of a different sort, and whenever you open Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or any real master, their melodies meet you in a thousand different shapes. I trust you will soon be tired of the inferior melodies, especially those ...
— Advice to Young Musicians. Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln • Robert Schumann
... explanation," rejoined the piper, furiously, "she has given me pain enough already. I'm engaged with this jovial company. Fill my glass, my masters—there, fill it again," he added, draining it eagerly, and with the evident wish to drown all thought. "There, now you shall have such a tune, as was never ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... strewed about her feet. Then she stood still, instinctively listening for a sound that would complete the magic of the garden and her own despair. She waited for it. She even felt, strangely, that she wanted, that she needed it—the sound of the flute of Larbi playing his amorous tune. But his flute to-day was silent. Had he fallen out of an old love and not yet found a new? or had he, perhaps, gone away? or was he dead? For a long time she stood there, thinking about Larbi. He and his flute and his love were mingled with her life in the desert. And ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... hundred.] Here is part of his proclamation. He offers 'peace, liberty, and security,' or, 'war, slavery, and destruction.' Confound his impudence," exclaimed the choleric farmer, striking his fist on the table till the dishes rattled again. "He may whistle another tune before he is ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... remember that not only did Maelzel induce Beethoven to write it, but even laid before him the whole design of it; writing the drum marches and trumpet flourishes of the French and English armies himself, giving Beethoven hints how he should herald the English army by the tune of 'Rule Brittania;' how he should introduce 'Malbrook' in a dismal strain; depict the horrors of the battle, and arrange 'God Save the King,' with effects representing the huzzas of the multitude. Even the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... no option but to obey, but the awesome tune had carried its doleful message. The mournful notes had reached the ears of the wounded lad in the canoe. Its message was plain to him. Walter was a captive, or in great danger. And now began a contest between will-power and pain and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... member is added to the same division under the head of Analogous Terms. The word 'sweet,' for instance, is applied by analogy to things so different in their own nature as a lump of sugar, a young lady, a tune, a poem, and so on. Again, because the head is the highest part of man, the highest part of a stream is called by analogy 'the head.' It is plainly inappropriate to make a separate class of analogous terms. Rather, terms become equivocal by being extended ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... that originally some of the British ballads too were first improvised, and circulated in rustic dances. We learn from M. Bujeaud and M. de Puymaigre in France, that all ballads there have their air or tune, and that every dance has its own words, for if a new dance comes in, perhaps a fashionable one from Paris, words are fitted to it. Is there any trace of such an operatic, lyrical, dancing peasantry in austere Scotland? We find it ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... sitting over their gin in a side-room which opened into the dancing-room, and was filled with men talking and drinking, or with couples who came in to rest for a moment. Neither took part in the dancing. Salve was gloomy and out of tune for pleasure, although, for Federigo's sake, he made his humour as little apparent as possible. Federigo looked very disconsolate, and during the early part of the evening sat and sipped his glass abstractedly. But as the time wore ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... was rather maddening in its levity than impressive by its force. Thought was beaten down by the confounding uproar—a gleeful vacancy possessed the brains of men, a state akin to madness; and I found myself at times following the dance of the Merry Men as it were a tune ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the same scheme would enable him to discover Agnes, should She be in the Convent. He chose a Ballad which She had taught him herself in the Castle of Lindenberg: She might possibly catch the sound, and He hoped to hear her replying to some of the Stanzas. His Guitar was now in tune, and He prepared to ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... his amorous head, When my owne Conscience tells me that Bunhill Is worth a hundred on 'em, and but Higate Compar'd with 'em is Paradice. I thanke you; Ile not be vext and squeez'd about a rime Or in a verse that's blanke, as I must be, Whine love unto[268] a tune. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... in mournful retrospect commune O'er what that still cold heart and brain have won: A hymn of life in lispings first begun, Ending in harmony's most perfect tune. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... ever of setting one foot before the other. And the rest of them would be just the same—old stick-in-the muds, unchanged by a hair, or, if they HAD changed, then changed for the worse. Laura had somehow never foreseen the day on which she would find herself out of tune with her home circle; with unthinking assurance she had expected that Pin, for instance, would always be eager to keep pace with her. Now, she saw that her little sister would probably never catch up to her again. Such progress as Pin might make—if she were not already glued firm to her silly ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... genuineness of the last two lines;—not because they are vile; but first, on account of the rhythm, which is not Shakespearian, but just the very tune of some old play, from which the actor might have interpolated them;—and secondly, because they interrupt, not only the sense and connection, but likewise the flow both of the passion, and (what is with me still more decisive) of the ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... of a church and a steeple, With three or four houses, and as many people, There went an Address in great form and good order, Composed, as 'tis said, by Will Crowe, their Recorder.[1] And thus it began to an excellent tune: Forgive us, good madam, that we did not as soon As the rest of the cities and towns of this nation Wish your majesty joy on this glorious occasion. Not that we're less hearty or loyal than others, But having ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... question arises: Who is paying the Scarlet Piper? In seeking the answer you encounter for the first time America's intimate and all-important part in the costly drama now being unfolded to the tune of billions. She sits in the armoured box-office with the ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... dissipates: he sings, when asked, but in general his songs are in a mournful strain, and he keeps time by swinging his arms: whenever asked to dance, he does it with great readiness; his motions at first are very slow, and are regulated by a dismal tune, which grows quicker as the dance advances, till at length he throws himself into the most violent posture, shaking his arms, and striking the ground with great force, which gives him the appearance of madness. It is very probable ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... stories in melodious verse. Lowell justly says: "One of the world's three or four great story-tellers, he was also one of the best versifiers that ever made English trip and sing with a gayety that seems careless, but where every foot beats time to the tune of the thought." ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... see her—and they will change their tune!" spake Bertrand quickly. "A low-born woman! Would they speak thus of the Blessed Virgin? And yet according to the wisdom of the flesh it would be as true of ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... lineage, extraction; sort, kind; overexertion, effort; tension, intension; tune, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... as separated from the others, was saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from rank to rank. The company wags all made their best endeavors. The regiment tramped to the tune of laughter. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... must not get sentimental and out of tune, though the snores of the whisky-claret Chinaman are particularly discordant. However he passed—as happily passengers do—and so did the night and the early dawn as the s.s. Malacca approached the beautiful island of Singapore (does everyone ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... coming after us, Wandering Willie began playing a most triumphant tune upon his darling bagpipes. How the poor old woman enjoyed it, I do not know. Perhaps she liked it. For us, we set off to outstrip the Kelpie. It did not matter to Turkey, but she might lock me out again. I was almost in bed before I heard her ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... myself on the sofa, the 'Study Card' was dropped, and the general noise and confusion indicated that recess had arrived. A line of military characters, bearing the title of the 'Freedom's Band,' was soon called out, headed by one of their own number. The tune chosen to ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... morning," said Mrs. Sherman. "I want Lloyd to see some of those wonderful music boxes they make here; the dancing bears, and the musical hand-mirrors; the chairs that play when you sit down in them, and the beer-mugs that begin a tune when you ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... the men inside were playing draughts, others were finishing their breakfast; one was playing "Auld Lang Syne", with many extempore flourishes and trills, on a flute, which was very much out of tune. A few were smoking, of course (where exists the band of Britons who can get on without that!) and several were sitting astride on the cross-beams below, bobbing—not exactly for whales, but for any monster of the deep that chose ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... song for their festivities. It goes to the tune of "One Bottle More," and is a wonderful illustration of his versatile powers, in the admirable bibulous sort of joviality which he distils, as it were, from the very dust of ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... their true blackness, and feel unworthy to look up to God, that then will come a nobler, holier, manlier feeling—self-respect, and a clear conscience, and the thought that, weak and simple as you are, you are in the right way; that God and the Angels of God are smiling on you; that you are in tune again with all earth and heaven, because you are what God wills you to be. Not His proud, peevish, self-willed child, fancying yourself strong enough to go alone, when you are really the slave of your own passions and ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... heard him refer to any Scripture, and state and discourse upon any fundamental doctrine of the gospel; but he knew a number of "spiritual songs by heart," of these he would give two lines at a time very exact, set and lead the tune himself; he would pray with great fervour, and his exhortations were amongst the most ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... that she's refused to marry him why don't I go home?" Denham thought to himself. But he went on walking beside Rodney, and for a time they did not speak, though Rodney hummed snatches of a tune out of an opera by Mozart. A feeling of contempt and liking combine very naturally in the mind of one to whom another has just spoken unpremeditatedly, revealing rather more of his private feelings than he intended to reveal. Denham began to wonder what sort of person ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... It's all clear. It's the same old tune, brother. If even you are a sensualist at heart, what of your brother, Ivan? He's a Karamazov, too. What is at the root of all you Karamazovs is that you're all sensual, grasping and crazy! Your brother Ivan writes theological ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... soul beautifully poised upon itself, nothing doubting, nothing desiring, clothed in peace. It was not possible to separate her thoughts from her appearance. The turn of her wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the lines of her body, fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the accompaniment that sustains and harmonises the voice of the singer. Her influence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only to be felt with gratitude and joy. To Will, her presence recalled something of his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evening when the service was done, and for that end received the keys of the Amarcholim, and returned them when he had done his duty; He that visited the night-watches; He that by a Cymbal called the Levites to their stations for singing; He that appointed the Hymns and set the Tune; and He that took care of the Shew-Bread: there were also Officers who took care of the Perfume, the Veil, and ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... years of struggle, to pride, fear, doubt. He had bowed before his morbid sense of honor—a perverted sense, he now admitted, but still one which bound him in fetters of steel. His life had been one of grossest inconsistency. He was utterly out of tune with the universe. His incessant clash with the world of people and events had sounded nothing but agonizing discord. And his confusion of thought had become such that, were he asked why he was in Simiti, he could scarcely have told. At length he ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... that this promise came to nothing. Smith, however, told the girl that she must be mad to take up with a man who was surely wrong in his head. All the same, when she heard him in the gloaming whistle from beyond the orchard a couple of bars of a weird and mournful tune, she would drop whatever she had in her hand—she would leave Mrs. Smith in the middle of a sentence—and she would run out to his call. Mrs. Smith called her a shameless hussy. She answered nothing. She said nothing at all to anybody, ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... sleighs with three horses abreast to each, their harness jingling with bells, drew up in a line before the steps, the runners creaking and crunching over the frozen snow. Natacha was the foremost, and the first to tune her spirits to the pitch of this carnival freak. This mirth, in fact, proved highly infectious, and reached its height of tumult and excitement when the party went down the steps and packed themselves ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... is said that his attendants, while his illness was at the height, brought a lute player into his apartment, in hopes of soothing his distress. While a favourite air was playing, he was said to have beat time with perfect accuracy, and expired just when the tune was finished. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... her proud father! I tried to say something in reply, but the light in her eyes seemed to hypnotise me, and after a few incoherent sentences Chilvers came to my relief by striking up our club song, to the tune of ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... quoth Bracebridge, between snatches of a tune, his coolness maddening Lancelot. 'Old Lavington will find us dry clothes, a bottle of port, and a brace of charming daughters, at the Priory. In with you, little Mustang of the prairie! Neck ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... die for the fatherland," exclaimed Eliza. "Go, Andreas Hofer, descend and tell our men what is to be done, for it is high tune for the hay-wagons to come up and cover ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... she is, and mightier Prince doth bear, Yet pomp of princely train she would not have; But doubtless, heavenly choirs attendant were, Her Child from harm, herself from fall to save: Word to the voice, song to the tune she brings, The voice her word, the ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... And, though it is most certain that two lutes, being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon, the other that is not touched, being laid upon a table at a fit distance, will—like an echo to a trumpet—warble a faint audible harmony in answer to the same tune; yet many will not believe there is any such thing as a sympathy of souls; and I am well pleased that every reader do enjoy his own opinion. But if the unbelieving will not allow the believing reader of this story, a liberty to believe that it may be true, then I ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... cylinder. "Whack her up, boys. They've given us five pounds more steam"; and he began humming the first bars of "Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah," which, as you may have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not built for high speed. Racing-liners with twin-screws sing "The Turkish Patrol" and the overture to the "Bronze Horse," and "Madame Angot," till something goes wrong, and then they render Gounod's "Funeral March of a ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... loves not June [2] Is out of tune With love and God; The rose his rival reigns, [5] The stars reject his pains, ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... do?" she asked. "Dance!" was the reply. "Well, then, dance, and show me what dances you like," replied the librarian, and immediately the girls formed for a figure of a folk-dance, and each girl humming softly the tune they danced it through. "The Girl Scouts" Club was formed, and in a day or two the secretary of the club submitted the following program for the librarian's approval: Program. 1. Chapter from the life of Louisa M. Alcott; 2. Recitations; 3. Games, Flinch; 4 One folk dance. From this beginning ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... flat minor Scherzo, from op. 35. I confess to being stirred by this B minor study, with its tempo at a forced draught and with its precipitous close. There is a lushness about the octave melody; the tune may be a little overripe, but it is sweet, sensuous music, and about it hovers the hush of a rich evening ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... "What I want to know is, is the piper to be paid, or shall we have to dance to another tune by way of reprisal." ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the precondition and ground of the rational possibility of the Christian Faith, that is, the Incarnation and Redemption), rests securely on the position,—that in man 'omni actioni praeit sua propria passio; Deus autem est actus purissimus sine ulla potentialitate'. As the tune produced between the breeze and Eolian harp is not a self-subsistent, so neither memory, nor understanding, nor even love in man: for he is a passive as well as active being: he is a patible agent. But in God this is not so. Whatever is necessarily ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... old Amintaas had recovered their power, for he now seized a conch shell, held it in both hands, and with incredible strength blew long wild notes, with scarce any thing like a tune. I grew dizzy in listening to this clamor, and at once understood what is meant by the heathen making a "vain noise," This cannibalistic music was kept up for a long time, and seemed to form the climax of the sacred rites. The finale was a combination of wild ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... very unhappy when his daughter left the room, and he had recourse to an old trick of his that was customary to him in his times of sadness. He began playing some slow tune upon an imaginary violoncello, drawing one hand slowly backwards and forwards as though he held a bow in it, and modulating the unreal ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... 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 for you ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... called upon to sing "God save the King," what would be the result? Why, that more than half the passengers would prove so shy they could not even attempt it; another quarter might wander about the notes at their own sweet will, and, perhaps, a small percentage would sing it in tune. But then, just think, the Finns are so imbued with music, and practise so continually—for they seem to sing on every conceivable occasion—that the sopranos naturally took up their part, the basses and the tenors kept to their ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... courtmartialed, tried, convicted, and publicly disgraced, with his epaulets torn off, and his sword broken, and likely as not he'd stoop down, pick up a splinter of steel to use as a toothpick, and Castlewalk down the aisle to the tune with which they were drumming him out of the regiment. Stay right here. Meyers's explanation ought to be at least amusing, ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... the bunny uncle, and ran along, and the rabbit gentleman began brushing the chalk marks off the black-boards, at the same time humming a little tune that went this way: ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... itself alone; I hear fond music—here and there From hawthorn-hedge and orchard come. I hear—but all is strange and new: I sat on my old bench last June, The sailing puddock's shrill "pee-lew," O'er Royce Wood seemed a sweeter tune. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... best known of the three, will repeat one melody perhaps a dozen times, then change it for a second, and in turn leave that for a third; as if he were singing hymns of twelve or fifteen stanzas each, and set each hymn to its appropriate tune. It is something well worth listening to, common though it is, and may easily suggest a number of questions about the origin ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... He heard her voice as before, fluttering like a bird's in the full sweetness of her utter music. It was no tune nor melody, it was just formless, boundless music. The boy forgot himself and all the world besides. All his darkness was sudden light; dazzled he crept forward, bewildered, fascinated, until with one last wild whirl the elf-girl paused. The crimson ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... keep in sight of the house by the clump of oaks on the hillside. Last week I should have moped and fumed here, and cursed my luck in being bound to a log on a day like this. Now I turned my face to the sunlight and drank in the keen air. Now I whistled as merry a tune as I knew. ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... And to me they cannot spare a few trifling Principalities? If the Queen does not now grant me all I require, I shall in four weeks demand Four Principalities more! [Nay, I now do it, being in sibylline tune.] I now demand the whole of Lower Silesia, Breslau included;—and with that Answer you can return ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... includes various devices, such as variable condensers, variocouplers, loose-couplers, variometers, the purpose of which is to "tune" or adjust the receiving set to be capable of receiving the radio waves. An explanation of such devices is not within the scope of this book, but there are numerous reasonably priced books and pamphlets on the market which describes in a simple manner all the component parts ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... pretending to stumble, put his finger against his friend's lips. O'Grady passed on the signal soon afterwards to Reuben. This matter arranged, they quietly followed their captor—O'Grady doing his best to hum a tune which he had heard Rosalie sing, and forgetting that he pretended to be deaf as well as dumb. There was still sufficient light for them to see that their captor was a gendarme, a discovery far from pleasant, as it led them to suppose that some ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... have been a few months in blue water, youngster," observed Sam Grimshaw—"old Grim," as his shipmates called him—"when we get down to the salted cow and pickled horse, and pork which is all gristle and bone. You will then sing a different tune, I have a notion." ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... thousand springs, And dies if one be gone; Strange that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long. ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... Mab and all, nursed up the fire that Henry had raked out; and if Saturnalia could be held over the writing out of a hymn tune, they did it! At any rate, it had the charm of an assertion of independence; and to Averil it was something like a midnight meeting of persecuted Christians—to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that; all the world has heard of Donnybrook, owing to the humours of its fair. Many is the merry tune I have played to the boys ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... heart Lies hushed—fireside and busy mart, And mortal pulses beat the tune That charms the calm cold ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... one had ever the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and have held for so long? This business fascinates me like a tune or a passion; yet all the while I thrill with a strong distaste. The horror of the thing, objective and subjective, is always present to my mind; the horror of creeping things, a superstitious horror of the void and the powers about me, the horror of my own devastation and continual murders. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... ring and sang all the songs we knew. None of us were trained,—we had never seen a sheet of music—but some of us could sing any tune that was ever heard in Polotzk, and the others followed half a bar behind. I enjoyed these singing-bees. We had Hebrew songs and Jewish and Russian; solemn songs, and jolly songs, and songs unfit for children, but harmless enough on our innocent lips. ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good) Hated to hear, under the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... son, stole a pig and away he ran! "But all the tune that he could play, was 'Over the hills ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... Treble, tenor, and bass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force, above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which was the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately traceable than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. In it lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... up on the bridge and reported that the light in Mr. Reardon's state-room had been out fifteen minutes. So Mr. Schultz waited an hour longer to make certain the chief engineer would be asleep; whereupon commenced a harsh, discordant tune—the music of the anchor chain paying in through the hawse pipe. When it ceased Mr. Schultz stepped to the marine telegraph; a bell jingled in the bowels of the Narcissus; an instant later all the lights aboard her went out ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... cheer and tune my heartless breast— Defer no time; That so thy favours granting my request, They and my mind may chime, And mend ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... their airs, with the view of interesting her friends, or producing good humour and happiness in the family circle. She had formed the acquaintance of Neil Gow, the celebrated violinist, and composed, at his particular request, the words to his popular tune "Farewell to Whisky,"—the only lyric from her pen which has hitherto been published. In all the collections of Scottish song, it appears as anonymous. In the present work, it is printed from a copy in one ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... musical questions of Aristotle's Problems (which, if not by Aristotle himself, are at least the product of his time or the succeeding century) he refers to the phenomena of sympathetic resonance; he asks further, why it is that when mese (the keynote of the lyre) is out of tune everything is out of tune; yet when any other string is out of tune it affects only the particular string which is not correctly adjusted. One of his most instructive, but also, as it turned out, most misleading ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... a hoop, you say; and jump over a stick. O, I forgot!—and march like the men in the red coats, when papa plays a pretty tune ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... man from his mind, and, whistling a cheery tune, bent over the book in which he had been writing for ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... very doleful tune. How a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she long'd to eat adders' heads ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... attention; most of them sat down, while monitors and teachers in the rear were getting the students into the aisles and marching them off to study halls and classrooms and workshops. The orchestra struck up a lively march tune. He leaned his left elbow—Literates learned early, or did not live to learn, not to immobilize the right hand—on the lectern and watched the interminable business of getting the students marched out, yearning, ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... the trees are stains Out of tune and rare; The world is wine unmixed; And nakedness, a mistress. Here, the shade is but a dream; And even on the night's dim ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... it to the tune of "Dunfermline," and soon I was borne out to sea upon its far-flung billows; for of a truth these old Scottish tunes have the swing of eternity in them, and seem to grandly overlap the bourne of time and space. And when we prayed the only liturgy which Presbyterians will own, I could not forbear ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... lyre disconsolate! Our wonted music is in tune no more. Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! On earth I will no ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... had a wretched little room close to the pigsties; here he had to stay, but the whole day he sat working, and when evening was come he had made a pretty little pot. All round it were little bells, and when the pot boiled they jingled most beautifully and played the old tune— ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... art is there so much affectation, assumption and charlatanry as in music. Some years ago a musician in New York of considerable reputation refused to play on a friend's piano because, as he said, it was a little out of tune and his ear was excruciated by the slightest discord. The lady wondered that the instrument should be out of tune, as it was new and of a celebrated manufacturer. She sent to the establishment where it was made, however, and a tuner promptly appeared. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... forthcoming solemnities. Madame de Frontignac had also gone to spend the day with some of her Newport friends. And Mary, quite well pleased with the placid and orderly stillness which reigned through the house, sat pleasantly murmuring a little tune to her sewing, when suddenly the trip of a very brisk foot was heard in the kitchen, and Miss Cerinthy Ann Twitchel made her appearance at the door, her healthy glowing cheek wearing a still brighter color from the exercise of a three-mile walk in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... in the river. Of course he is come to request military aid. This is the old story. Upon my last visit I was bored almost to death by Kamrasi, with requests that I would assist him to attack Rionga. I have only been here for a few days when I am troubled with the old tune. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... century; and is, therefore, a giant in fetters; the amplitude of stride is still there, but it is checked into mechanical regularity. A similar phenomenon is observable in other writers of the time. The blank verse of Young, for example, is generally set to Pope's tune with the omission of the rhymes, whilst Thomson, revolting more or less consciously against the canons of his time, too often falls into mere pompous mouthing. Shaftesbury, in the previous generation, trying to write ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... eyes, for she knew she had regarded the poor ugly girls with feelings of repugnance, on account of their personal defects. Even Jim, careless and reckless though he was, possessed an excellent heart, and he looked grave, and turned to the window, and tried to hum a tune, to get rid of an unpleasant sensation about his throat, which Mrs. Waddel's artless words had ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Excellent, my Lord! excellent! It shall be played out of tune on a score of regimental ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... by the absence of the crimson spot on the back of the head), apparently full of business of her own, and now and then would drum in a shy, tentative manner. The male watched her a few moments and, convinced perhaps that she meant business, struck up his liveliest tune, then listened for her response. As it came back timidly but promptly, he left his perch and sought a nearer acquaintance with the prudent female. Whether or not a match grew out of this little flirtation I ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... drop in and have a chat with him. He was a good old man, and generally asked me to have a bit of reading or a prayer with him before I left. And when he discovered that I played on the violin, nothing would pacify him until I had brought it down and given him a tune. ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... reins; and that which, to justify the prerogative of the will, St. Augustine urges, of having seen a man who could command his rear to discharge as often together as he pleased, Vives, his commentator, yet further fortifies with another example in his time,—of one that could break wind in tune; but these cases do not suppose any more pure obedience in that part; for is anything commonly more tumultuary or indiscreet? To which let me add, that I myself knew one so rude and ungoverned, as for forty years ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... plaguy obstinate," said her husband, and it must be confessed that he rather hoped his wife, who had ventured to ridicule him, might herself meet with a reception that would make her change her tune somewhat. ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... he stood on the poop at high noon; He paced fore and aft and he whistled a tune; Then put by his sextant and thus he did say, "The girls have got hold of our ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... sang the throstel* cock: *thrush Tubal himself, the first musician, With key of harmony could not unlock So sweet a tune as that the throstel can: "The Lord of Love we praise," quoth he than,* *then And so do all the fowles great and lite;* *little "Honour we May, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... at mass, a brand new composition by Vogler. I had already been at the rehearsal day before yesterday afternoon, but went away after the Kyrie. In all my life I have heard nothing like this. Frequently everything is out of tune. He goes from key to key as if he wanted to drag one along by the hair of the head, not in an interesting manner which might be worth while, but bluntly and rudely. As to the manner in which he develops his ideas I shall say nothing; but this I will say that it ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of wine, but Nick drank no wine, and went down to the spring instead. There was a wild bird singing in a bush there, and as he trotted down the slope it hushed its wandering tune. Nick took the sound up softly, and stood by the wet stones a little while, imitating the bird's trilling note, and laughing to hear it answer timidly, as if it took him for some great new bird without wings. Cocking its shy head and watching him shrewdly with its beady eye, it sat, almost persuaded ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony is yet to be proved. Misery is often ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... the housework would sigh, Till SAPOLIO I urged her to trigh, Now she changes her tune, For she's done work at nune, Which accounts for the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... lost!" The question came to him faintly, but it was so in tune with his unhappy mood that it affected him strangely. He found that his eyes were blurring and that an aching lump had risen into his ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... immense delight, had heard all that passed, betook them to bed; however, little sleep had they that night, but spent the best part of it in disporting themselves and making merry over the unfortunate scholar, who, his teeth now chattering to such a tune that he seemed to have been metamorphosed into a stork, perceived that he had been befooled, and after making divers fruitless attempts to open the door and seeking means of egress to no better purpose, paced to and fro like a lion, cursing the villainous weather, the long night, his simplicity, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and most moderate; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart and insolent, and the other, illiberal and base; and money, and property, and distinction all go to the same tune. The excess of any of these things is apt to be a source of hatreds and divisions among states and individuals; and the defect of them is commonly a cause of slavery. And, therefore, I would not have any one fond of heaping up riches for the sake of ...
— Laws • Plato
... patterns—the cloud-masses either float or else drive like a typhoon. His rhythmic sense is akin to Flaubert's, of whom Arthur Symons wrote: "He invents the rhythm of every sentence, he changes his cadence with every mood, or for the convenience of every fact; ... he has no fixed prose tune." Nor, by the same token, has Conrad. He seldom indulges, as does Theophile Gautier, in the static paragraph. He is ever in modulation. There is ebb and flow in his sentences. A typical paragraph of his shows what ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... living, No man dead, save haply one Now gone homeward past the sun, Ever found such grace as might Tune his tongue to praise aright Children, flowers of love and light, Whom our praise dispraises: we Sing, in sooth, but not ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... his version of the first touchdown—how he had been forced inch by inch across the goal line to the tune of thirty thousand yelling throats and his companions were hanging upon his words, when their new friend interrupted in such a tone that Anthony inquired ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... nuisance: now, by the persevering labours of these ingenious gentlemen, converted into an instrument of public gratification. Most of the guards of the stage-coaches now make their entrance and exit to the tune of some old national ballad, which, though it may not, perhaps, be played at present in such exact time and tune as would satisfy the leader of the opera band, is yet pleasant in comparison to the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... after this Mrs. Cricky overheard the green inch-worm practising a tune. It pleased her so much that she tried to sing it again to Father Cricky for the Marsh Grass Vesper Quartette. Of course it was all about Toadie Todson, and this ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... the storage and stockpile business to the melancholy tune of more than $16 billion. We must continue to support farm income, but we should not pile more farm surpluses on top of the $7.5 billion we already own. We must maintain a stockpile of strategic materials, but the $8.5 billion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was a sea of shifting visions, the next it was caught and held by an inevitably thrilling sound—the sound of feet tramping to a martial tune. The touch had been given: the vague visions of tradition and history crystallized into a picture, and his heart leaped to the pulsing, steady tramp, to the clash of fife and drum ringing out upon the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... have a little surprise for Mr. Voice, the next time we grapple, which will be an encore of his own tune, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... romantic Are out of date as an old wife's rune. Britain is doomed as Plato's Republic—" When in at the door came a lilting tune! ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... more jocund than any, As blithe as the month of June, Do carol and sing like birds of the spring, No nightingale sweeter in tune; To bring in content, when summer is spent, In pleasant delight and play, With mirth and good cheer to end the whole year, And drive the ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... old favourite song, and Harold crowed, they danced to the tune and rocked the baby's cradle to it, and the song always ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... cross fellow was beating an ass, Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass; He took out his pipe and played them a tune, And the jackass's load was lightened ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... Hilltops? Will darling Alicia Keith break out in green spots next time we watch her on the air? Has Captain Al of the star-roving space-ship breathed in spores of the Swelling Fungus? Are the space-travellers doomed? Tune in on our next broadcast and see! My dear Bill, if we weren't signed up for sponsors' fees, I'd raise ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
