"Whir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bluebird comes the robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
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... back room, and said comprehensively, "Burning Daylight's on the tear." And the men who entered remained, and kept the barkeepers busy. The gamblers took heart of life, and soon the tables were filled, the click of chips and whir of the roulette-ball rising monotonously and imperiously above the hoarse rumble of men's voices and their oaths and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
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... trenches—that mysterious land about which millions have read but have never had the opportunity of seeing. No mere verbal description would suffice to describe them. Every minute the murderous crack of rifles and the whir of machine-guns rang out. Death hovered all round. In front the German rifles, above the bursting shrapnel, each shell scattering its four hundred odd leaden bullets far and wide, killing or wounding any unfortunate man who happened to ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
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... no resounding street With babel of electric-garish night And whir of endless wheels has put to flight The liberty of leisure. Sandaled feet And naked soles that feel the friendly dust Go easily along the never measured miles. A land at which the patron tourist smiles Because of ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
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... deployed into thin lines, with short intervals between the men, as the shrapnel broke. From out the blur of the mingling of landscape and sky there came, simultaneously, a whir, a crash, and the quick dash of shrapnel balls over the ground, and of the brief flash which marked the shrapnel's burst there remained only a dimly-seen lingering cloud of dirty smoke and some silent, writhing ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
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... arose in the other part of the field. They heard the familiar whir of an airplane propeller, and as they looked to where the Clarion had stood, they saw the natives scatter and the gray machine of the other crew shoot up into the air. Rapidly it gained altitude, and was soon a mere ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
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... from the realms afar! Thy strong wings whir like some huge bellows' breath— Swift falls thy fiery eyeball, like a star, And dark thy shadow as the pall of death! But thou hast marked a tall and reverend tree, And now thy talons clinch yon leafless limb; Before ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
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... arms, two legs, a whole face with eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears, complete. He could see, for he had glanced about him as he dressed. He could speak, for he sang loudly. He could hear, for he had turned quickly at the whir of pigeon-wings behind him. His skin was smooth all over, and nowhere on it were the dark scarlet maps which the child found so interesting on the arms, face, and breast of the burned man. He did not strangle every little while, or shiver madly, and scream at a sound. It ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
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... unbearable ruthlessness, and soon after presented by Alver with a government, he spent his whole life in arms, visiting his neighbours with wars and slaughters; nor did he, in his estate of banishment, relax his accustomed savagery a whir, but would not change his spirit with ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
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... went the chain again, and whir-r-r the engine, and up would come a pair of oil casks, as though the crane were some giant forceps which was plucking out the great wooden teeth of the vessel. It seemed to Tom, as he stood looking down, note-book in hand, that some of the actual malarious air of the coast had been carried ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
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... the well-known knob and watched the great discs begin to whir softly around under their glass dome. At the familiar sound her hunger for the coming comfort mounted fiercely, and she seized the long, supple, silk-wrapped cords and pressed the bulbs to either temple. A slight shock ran through her blood ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
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... surpass Credence:—drinking sound of grass, Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth: The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake— Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, Without relief seeking ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
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... Jennie, do tell us if your father has been listening to us all this time!" was the next exclamation; and forthwith there was a whir and rustle of the silken wings, as the whole troop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
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... almost in his ear. Vassenka had fired at a flock of ducks which was hovering over the marsh and flying at that moment towards the sportsmen, far out of range. Before Levin had time to look round, there was the whir of one snipe, another, a third, and some eight more rose ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
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... beeches and hickories were mingled with the willows and live oaks and cypresses, and the foliage was thick, green, and beautiful. The birds seemed innumerable, and now and then flocks of wild fowl rose with a whir from the creek's edge. Keen, penetrating odors of forest and wild flower came to ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
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... into the azure sky, till small white specks alone are visible in the distance. Up, up they rise on sportive wing, till the straining eye can no longer distinguish them, and they are gone! Ducks, too, whir past in rapid flight, steering wide of the boats, and again bending in long graceful curves into their course. The sweet, plaintive cry of the whip-poor-will rings along the shore; and the faint answer of his mate floats over the lake, mellowed by ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
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... somehow by walking home with her. He felt like one who has undertaken to catch some skittish timorous thing, that, if you stand still, will come within a certain small but safe distance, but you must not move a step toward it, or, whir, away it is. He went slowly home, his heart warm and cold by turns; warm when he remembered the sweet hours he had just spent, and her sweet looks and heavenly tones, every one of which he saw and heard again; cold when he thought of the social distance that separated ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
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... beside the table, hardly moving, until she knew by whir and horn that the Norcross automobile was gone. Then she sent Ellen to bed, and herself moved quickly to a secretary in the little alcove library back of the drawing-room. Taking a key from her bosom, she unlocked a ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
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... the large front room, sat her mother and her aunt, busy with their sewing. The blinds were closed, to keep out the warm sun of a sultry July day, and only an occasional breath of air found its way in between their tightly turned slats. The whir of the locust outside, and the regular creak, creak of Aunt Jane's tall rocking-chair were the only sounds to break the stillness. This peaceful scene was ruthlessly disturbed by Polly, who came flying into the room and dropped into a chair ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
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... moment, any where in the world, to meet the growing demands for cotton. To supply this increasing demand, a new element must be brought into requisition; or rather old elements must be employed anew. Her cotton spindles must not cease to whir, or millions of the people of Great Britain will starve at home, or be forced into emigration, to the weakening of her strength. The old sources of supply being inadequate, a new field of operations must be opened up—new forces must be brought into requisition in the cultivation ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
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... of the lily pads, there's a flash and swirl of spray, And the line draws taut, and the rod dips low, and I sing as he speeds away; And I whir and click with the joy of life, as the line runs in and out, And I laugh with glee as I reel him in, the ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
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... quiet blue sky there shot like an arrow the great War-eagle. Beside the clear brown stream an old Beaver-woman was busily chopping wood. Yet she was not too busy to catch the whir of descending wings, and the Eagle reached too late the spot where she had vanished in the midst ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
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... difficulties had taught the captain just how to aim. As he pulled the lanyard, the little bronze cannon spit out fire viciously, and the long projectile, to which had been attached the end of the coiled line, sailed off on its errand of mercy. With a whir the line spun out of the box coil after coil, while the crew peered out over the breaking seas to see if the keeper's aim was true. At last the line stopped uncoiling and the life-savers knew that the shot had landed somewhere. For a time nothing happened, ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
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... September the war dragged on. It was a dull and dreary time, and as September drew near Gordon thought of happy days in England, with the scent of autumn leaves, and the whir of a covey of birds rising from the stubble, and he longed for partridge-shooting. But they shot men, not birds, in the Crimea. "The Russians are brave," he wrote, "certainly inferior to none; their work is stupendous, their shell practice is beautiful." Gordon was never one ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
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... Thomas; besides, I hear my next door neighbour, Madame Adversity, tirling at the door pin; so give me my down bed, Tom, and I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, and before I recover from my surprise, launches forth, with a loud whir, mattrass and all, leaving me, Pilgarlic, lying on the paillasse. Well, her nest is scarcely cold, when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit gizzened anatomy of an old woman—"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is it no enough that you consort with that ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
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... I was aware of everything. I took in every meter indication simultaneously and correlated their data in my mind, without the help of the computer. I was aware of every sound, the faint hum of the gas tubes and transformers, the whir of the gyros, the reedy buzz of hydraulic actuators, the periodic clicking of the oxygen reclaim unit. I was aware of everything that was happening in the ship, as if it ...
— Last Resort • Stephen Bartholomew
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... stillness that precedes a summer storm, and feathers and fur were tense and nervous. The birds were singing only a few broken snatches, and flying around, seeking places of shelter. One moment everything seemed devoid of life, the next there was an unexpected whir, buzz, and sharp cry. Inside, a pandemonium of growling, spatting, snarling, and ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
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... most of the Northern States April is the month of the robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
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... approaching along the corridor were heard. The jailer swiftly swung the heavy gate to and locked it. Catharine Knollys caught his last gesture, which bade her begone as fast as might be. Her feet were strangely heavy, in spite of her. She reached the curb in time to hear only the whir of wheels as a carriage sped away over the stones of the street. She stood alone, irresolute for half an instant as the crunch of wheels spun up to the curb again. A hand reached out and beckoned; involuntarily she ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
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... They were made of cotton rags wound tight and sewed, and then soaked in turpentine. When a ball was lighted a boy caught it quickly up, and threw it, and it made a splendid streaming blaze through the air, and a thrilling whir as it flew. A boy had to be very nimble not to get burned, and a great many boys dropped the ball for every boy that threw it. I am not ready to say why these fire-balls did not set the Boy's Town on fire, and burn it down, but I know they never ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
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... sleeps, there hain't a stir. Less it's a night-hawk's sudden whir, Or cottonwoods a-whisperin while The red moon smiles a lovin' smile. An' there I set an' hold her hand So glad I jes can't understand The reason of it all, or see Why all the world looks good to me; Or why I sees in it heap more Of beauty than I ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
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... darkness of eternity he sits, this god who has grown old. His rounded eyes are open on the whir of time, but man who ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
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... meaning he so plainly implied, but she was perfectly content with the explanation, and sat there dreamily, expecting to hear the reassuring whir of the motor at any moment. But the minutes dragged themselves out, and the only sound that came from the engine was the tapping of the tools Bates ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
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... into collision with the man in front of him, who has stopped dead at the sound. A strange tingling feeling goes up his spine. There is a hush! No one speaks. The whole essence of vitality strains to listen. A faint whir crescendoes rapidly into the shrill whoop of a steam-siren, and a great balloon-shaped cloud of smoke and dust has already arisen from amidst the marching mass of men ahead. There is no sign whence came the shot. Nothing can be more peaceful-looking than ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
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... There was never the least "factory atmosphere" about the place. It used to make me think of a reception, the voice of the machines for the music, with always, always the sound of much talk and laughter above the whir. Sometimes—especially Mondays, with everyone telling everyone else what she had done over the week end, and for some reason or other Fridays, the talk was "enough to get you crazy," Margaret used to say. "Sure it makes my head swim." Nor was the laughter the giggling kind, indulged ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
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... in the whir of the great city a restful breathing-spot is found, its stretch of grass dotted with moss-covered tombs grouped around a low-pitched church. At certain hours the sound of bells is heard and the low rhythm of the organ throbbing through ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
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... as if an ocean steamer had suddenly stopped the whir of its wheels at the approach of the pilot come out from shore to ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
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... and then said, "I know what you think, Bob; you are for my poor; you are brave." He did not answer, fearing to turn the balance. As she sank into a porch chair a rustling breeze moved the lilac plumes and brought their perfume to her. From down the avenue came the whir of wheels and the hurrying click of a horse's hoofs. At length she rose, and said tremulously: "I stand with you, Bob. May God make the blow as light ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
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... few seconds the whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the spring that she must have pressed as she entered. It seemed to them both ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
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... day when the two girls were working over their sewing-machines, the whir of the numerous machines filling the great warehouse, Agnes turned ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
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... the distant, sullen thunder, followed by the unmistakable whir of a Parrott shell. Suddenly shrapnel shells began to come over, screaming, exploding, filling the air with the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
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... verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
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... into the timber he went, avoiding the outreaching skidways and the sound of axes. Broad-webbed snow-shoe rabbits leaped from under foot and scurried away in the timber, and the whir of an occasional ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
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... of evening his strength began to revive. Now he fought the ghost with renewed spirit, calling from time to time on his medicine-bat, till at last when all the shadows had merged and gone together, with a whir came the little brown bat, crying "Na-hoin" ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
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... Buz-z-z-z! whir-r-r! He was back in the wheat-stack once more, listening to the dull humming of ten thousand bluebottles. From without came the sound of heavy tramping feet, whirring wheels, rough, human voices. The wheaten mass rocked ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
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... weary with my labour at making of shoes, than to find myself dropping into the death of sleep! how much sweeter then must it not be to sink into the sleepiest of sleeps, the father-sleep, the mother-bosomed death of nothingness and unawaking rest! Then shall all this endless whir of the wheels of thought and desire be over; then welcome the night whose darkness doth not seethe, and which ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
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... spangled with soft spots of light, which came and went curiously. She tried to fix her gaze upon one of them, but it was extinguished immediately and appeared elsewhere. She found another—and another, but they fled from her like ignes fatui. She heard the whir of a machine, fast and then slow again, near and then at a distance. Was it an automobile or an aeroplane? The notion of an automobile speeding in space was incongruous, the milky way—a queer concept! She ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
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... Hot lie the glimmering plain And uplands parched. 'Behold, the bending grain, Fair in the springtide, now is dead; and dry The brooks. If yet the rainfall fail, we die Of famine sore. No bleating lambs I hear in fold Safe shut, nor lowing kine; nor on the wold The whir of mounting bird: Nor thrives about me Any living thing. So seemeth, end must be Of striving. Since all the land is cursed, What matter if by famine scorched, or thirst, We die?' he saith. "And thick the warlock swarm Above his head, wide-spreading ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
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... the railway station has usurped, with its long slate roof, wooden signal-box, and advertisements in blue and white enamel, I can recall a still pool shining between beds of the flowering rush; and to this day, as I wait for the train, the whir of a vanished water-wheel comes up the valley. Sometimes I have caught myself gazing along the curve of the narrow-gauge in full expectation to see a sagged and lichen-covered roof at the end of it. And sometimes, of late, it has occurred to me that there never was such a mill as I used to know ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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... night had put an end to the struggle. A sputter of rifles would break out now and then, followed perhaps by a spiritless hurrah. Occasionally a shell from a far-away battery would come pitching down somewhere near, with a whir crescendo, or flit above our heads with a whisper like that made by the wings of a night bird, to smother itself in the river. But there was no more fighting. The gunboats, however, blazed away at set intervals all ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
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... glory, who came to comfort and deliver them with loving favour. Holy and heavenly bright, he cast aside the blaze of the hot flame; with mighty strength he swept away and quenched the flame of fire so that their bodies were not harmed a whir. But in his wrath he hurled the fire upon their foes, because of their ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
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... safety in travel now took more people where they could see for themselves the beauty of nature. In the new poetry we consequently find more definiteness. We can hear the whir of the partridge, the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the peculiarities ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
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... the drive! a drive any where in these hills 'pays'—to borrow the slang of this bank-note world—for itself. It is a pure enjoyment. On our return we repeatedly saw young partridges in our path, nearly as tame as the chickens of the Casse-cour. The whir-r-ing of their wings struck a spark even from our sportsman's eye, and—a far easier achievement—started the blood in my father's veins. The instinct to kill game is, I believe, universal with man, else how should it still live in my father, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
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... which ends in a nearly perpendicular slide down to within ten or twelve feet from the ground, the bird being closely followed by a second one pursuing. In reality I did not see the birds, but I heard the fast whir of their wings. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
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... said her brother. "It's a chap I met last night; he's just out of a convalescent home, and a bit down on his luck." His voice died away in a complicated jumble of whir and buzz, the bell rang frantically, and Norah, like thousands of other people, murmured her opinion of the telephone and all ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
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... unlike that which a traction engine, or any other monster that murders sleep, may make before quite getting up steam. Then there was plainly discernible a great whirring and flapping, as if a windmill had become deranged in its economy, and was laboring "without a conscience or an aim." Whir, whir, flap, thump, came the sounds, and then, mixed with and dominating them, the choking scream of a human being in agony. But, strangely enough, the scream appeared to be half checked and suppressed, as ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
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... with the odor of new-mown grass and the breath of wild strawberries that had fallen under the sickle, to make the sweet hay sweeter with their crimson juices. The whir of the scythes and the clatter of the mowing machine came from the distant meadows. Field mice and ground sparrows were aware that it probably was all up with their little summer residences, for haying time was at its height, and the Giant, mounted on the Avenging Chariot, would speedily ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
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... dodging between the vehicles that were standing around the disabled truck, helping to pull it from the car-tracks. Getting into a clear road, he opened the throttle and they proceeded like the wind for about six blocks. Then, for no apparent reason, the car slowed down, and with a whining whir of machinery came to a dead stop. "I'm afraid I can't make good my promise to catch that car," said the friend in a vexed tone, after vainly trying to start the car for several minutes. "I'll have to be towed ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
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... be anything," Verrian returned, trying instantly, with a whir of his inventive machinery, to phrase her. He made a sort of luxurious failure of it, and rested content with her face, which showed itself now in profile and now fronted him in full, and now was restless and now ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
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... Pluck reckoned he'd keep her to it a time longer, knowin' in his soul that every mile further he got the Devastation away from the Starlight, so much the better for Splitwater and the mackerel. It warn't long, afore whir! ziz! ziz! came somethin' what made a mighty splashin', and looked savagarous, square across her stern sheets. Pluck reckoned how the Britisher had got his dander up, and about cleverest thing would be to round to, seem' how the feller was wastin' ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
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... however, before my gun was at my shoulder and the trigger drawn; before I heard the crack I saw him cringe; and, as the white smoke drifted off to leeward, he fell heavily, completely riddled by the shot, into the brake before me; while at the same moment, whir-r-r! up sprung a bevy of twenty quail, at least, startling me for the moment by the thick whirring of their wings, and skirring over the underwood right toward Archer. "Mark, quail!" I shouted, and, recovering ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
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... rhythmic whir and the ensuing rattle of the little ivory ball at the roulette wheel, he did not disdain the quieter faro, playing that dignified game exclusively with the chocolate-coloured chips, which cost a thousand dollars a stack. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
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... Civilisation. Even now, as I sit on this trunk waiting for the hour of departure, I have a foretaste of the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children, the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars, the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating, smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A musician might extract some harmony from this chaos of noises, this jumble of sounds. But ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
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... wondering what had become of his one-span servant, when, with a whir! the little fellow alighted beside him, and wiping his face with his handkerchief, as if he were dreadfully hot and tired, said thoughtfully, 'Now I do hope I've brought enough, but you men ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
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... The whir of approaching wheels roused him. Mrs. Vansuythen was driving home Mrs. Boulte, white and wan, with ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
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... at the little station and hunted our way up, making great sweeps and jogs, as hunters must, to take in certain spots we thought promising—certain ravines and swamp edges where we are always sure of hearing the thunderous whir of partridge wings, or the soft, shrill whistle of woodcock. At noon we broiled chops and rested in the lee of the wood edge, where, even in the late fall, one can usually find spots that are warm and still. It was dusk by the time ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
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... had retired with a bounce she remained alone in the gymnasium, eyes downcast, lips quivering. Later still, sitting in precisely the same position, she heard the soft whir of the touring car outside; then the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
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... toy bird was singing its best, and the Emperor lay in bed and heard it, something inside the bird said, "Svup!" Something cracked. "Whir-r-r!" All the wheels ran round, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
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... shot dazzling sparks, and streamers of green and violet fire. There was a snapping, cracking sound that could be heard above the whir of the craft's propellers, for ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
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... with no little difficulty. My cork came up in the back water under the rock on which I stood, and there, almost at my very feet, it disappeared. I could not believe that a bass had taken it, but all doubt on the subject was dispelled by the shrill whir of my reel as the fine silk line spun out at a tremendous rate. The fish had darted across the current, and only stopped after he had taken out over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
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... will have forfeited any fervour he may have had, any learning, any gaiety. How can he, the jaded interpreter, hold any opinion, feel any enthusiasm?—without leisure, keep his mind in cultivation?—be sprightly to order, at unearthly hours in a whir-r-ring office? To order! Yes, sprightliness is compulsory there; so are weightiness, and fervour, and erudition. He must seem to abound in these advantages, or another man will take his place. He must disguise himself at all costs. But disguises are not easy to make; they require time and care, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
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... was within a foot of the Hoobat now and its fellows had frozen as if to allow it the honor of battle with the feathered enemy. To all appearances Queex did not see it, but when it sprang with a whir of speed which would baffle a human, the Hoobat was ready and its claws, halting their rasp, met around the wasp-thin waist of the pest, speedily cutting it in two. Only this time the Hoobat made no move to unjoint and consume the victim. Instead ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
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... the deliberations of the Council were disturbed by a loud and persistent rattle, like the whir of a Maxim gun, which proved, on investigation, to arise from the American lawn-mower. The vagrant was propelling it triumphantly across the lawn, and gazing down at it with the same fond pride with which a nursemaid leans over the perambulator ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
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... roun' back," responded the amiable voice of Genesis, while the lawnmower ceased not to whir. "Cut all ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
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... rattlesnake; from a near-by bush the exquisite song of the mocking-bird trills out, and far up the rocks the hoof-strokes of the mountain sheep strike with a rattle of stones that seems music in the crystal air. Yonder the wild turkey calls from the pine trees, or we hark to the whir of the grouse or the pine-hen. Noisy magpies startle the silence of the northern districts, and the sage-hen and the rabbit everywhere break the solitude of your walk. Turn up a stone and sometimes ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
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... the sound of the wild hunt, and speedily the storm is laid. Merely a wanton whir still pulses in the breeze, a wave of weird voluptuousness, like the sensuous breath of unblest love, still soughs above the spot where impious charms had shed their raptures and over which the night now broods once more. But dawn begins to break; already from afar is ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
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... to hide it, her fingers thrust the card back inside its envelope. And she was tucking it away in its warm hiding place within the scant fullness of the white blouse when the clock on the wall behind her began to beat out the hour with a noisy whir of ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
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... out of the window; below, in the race, there was a jam of logs, and the air was keen with the pungent smell of sawdust and new boards. The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint quiver through the planks under his feet. "The mill will net a good profit this year," he said to himself, absently. "'Thalia can have pretty nearly anything she ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
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... returned to her kitchen, was: "Well, it was nearer than the battle. Perhaps next time—" She shrugged her shoulders, and we all laughed, and life went on as usual. Well, I've heard the whir-r of a German bomb, even if I did not see the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
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... with a throbbing note in its character. That day, too, came the white squalls, lasting a minute or two each, with puffs of furious wind and a bucketful of rain, like bombs fired in advance of the hurricane by some huge aeolian howitzer. Steadily the whir of the advancing wind became louder, steady, without gusts, and more and more frequent became the ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
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... beat out its seconds with the same monotonous sound, and the finger crept towards the fateful hour. Then came the wheeze and whir preliminary to the strokes of four, conveying to familiar ears that only eight more minutes remained. At this warning Joseph arose from his seat, and, walking out into the graveyard, made direct to an eminence overlooking the long trend of road, and, raising one hand ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
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... indicate, in spite of his strength and color, some pulmonary weakness. He, however, rose after a moment's rest with undiminished energy and cheerfulness, readjusted his knapsack, and began to lightly pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous command of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow, deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the bushes, followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" of sawn planks, which they were ponderously ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
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... the window frame, Marcia closed her eyes. There was still the illusion of a purr about her. Probably because, as her kitten warmed in its circle, its coziness began to whir mountingly. The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. Presently Hattie began to tiptoe. The seventy-two jars were untopped now, in a row on a board over the built-in ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
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... in direct line with Harry between himself and the snake, so dared not shoot. Harry's automatic had dropped from his nerveless fingers at the first alarming whir of the vibrating rattles. Unable to make a sound or move a muscle the lad stood entirely unnerved while the ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
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... were the battles fought here! How terrible the scenes of devastation and the toll of life! Waste were the golden fields of grain upon which we gaze with such rapt admiration. Waste, too, were these mills with their whir of industry. The fury of war fell on those sunny acres like a great pestilence, and their usefulness and beauty became desolation. The only grist mill not burned by Sheridan and his men when they went through is still pointed out to the traveler. ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
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... red ball of fire low down in the southern horizon, and a peculiar gloomy twilight hung over the white wintry landscape. I could not overcome the impression that the sun was just rising and that it would soon be broad day. A white ptarmigan now and then flew up with a loud whir before us, uttered a harsh "querk, querk, querk" of affright, and sailing a few rods away, settled upon the snow and suddenly became invisible. A few magpies sat motionless in the thickets of trailing-pine as we passed, but their feathers were ruffled up around their heads, and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
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... had noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the ball-room, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor as the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off in ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
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... a whir-r and a single note. "Half-past five," I said to myself. "Will Peter never find that mistake?" Once during the long wait the night watchman shifted his leg—he was on the other side of the stove—and once Peter reached up above his head for ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
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... the hotels; no art can give the impression of their exceeding multitude. Expresses, panting with as much impatience as the disciplined English expresses ever suffer themselves to show, await them in the stations, which are effectively parts of the great hotels, and whir away to London with them as soon as they can drive up from the steamer; but many remain to rest, to get the sea out of their heads and legs, and to prepare their spirits for adjustment to the novel conditions. These the successive trains carry into the heart of the land everywhere, these and their ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
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... spinning in the house, and my dog scurried off after the cat as I went in the door. I saw Miss Polly Marsh and her sister, Mrs. Snow, stepping back and forward together spinning yarn at a pair of big wheels. The wheels made such a noise with their whir and creak, and my friends were talking so fast as they twisted and turned the yarn, that they did not hear my footstep, and I stood in the doorway watching them, it was such a quaint and pretty sight. They went together like a pair of horses, and kept step with each other ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
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... stripper girls were tuning up their voices preparatory to the late-afternoon concert, soon to begin. They hummed a few bars of one melody, then of another; and at last, Angela's voice leading, there burst upon the room in full chorus, to the rhythmic whir of the wheels, the melodious music and maudlin stanzas of ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
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... door and listened. Apparently there was not a sound from the other side, except a whir of a motor and a roar which might have been from the furnace. Softly he tried the door. It was ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
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... look at anything that folks like we can understand," the carter continued, by way of passing the time. "On'y foreign tongues used in the days of the Tower of Babel, when no two families spoke alike. They read that sort of thing as fast as a night-hawk will whir. 'Tis all learning there—nothing but learning, except religion. And that's learning too, for I never could understand it. Yes, 'tis a serious-minded place. Not but there's wenches in the streets o' ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
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... Sir? why, my Reason, Sir, is this, Haly the Moore, and Rabbi Isaac, and some thousands more of learned Dutchmen, observe your dull Wall Eye and your Whir—Whirligigoustiphon, to be inseparable. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
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... allowance for his own extreme weariness or for the soporific effect of the alcoholic fumes with which his comrade's breath was redolent. When six o'clock struck at the church of St. Eustache, the young detective's alarm resounded faithfully enough, with a loud and protracted whir. Shrill and sonorous as was the sound, it failed, however, to break the heavy sleep of the two detectives. They would indeed, in all probability, have continued slumbering for several hours longer, if at half-past seven a sturdy fist had not begun to rap loudly at ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
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... and troops of squirrels, with footprints here and there of the grizzly bear, and a drove of wild turkeys, with red heads aloft, rushing over an eminence at our left as we approached, and an occasional whir of a rattlesnake at our feet, sufficiently indicated the kind of denizens by which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
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... itself, and bounced you on the floor, And then shet up, jest like a box, so you couldn't sleep any more. Wa'al, 'Bijah he fixed it all complete, and he sot it at half-past five, But he hadn't mor'n got into it when—dear me! sakes alive! Them wheels began to whiz and whir! I heered a fearful snap! And there was that bedstead, with 'Bijah inside, shet up jest like a trap! I screamed, of course, but 'twan't no use, then I worked that hull long night A-trying to open the pesky thing. At last I got in a fright; I couldn't hear his voice inside, and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
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... wandering unsuspected in the vast stillness of the coast, had seized upon the body of the lascar at the lead. The languid monotony of his sing-song changed to a swift, sharp clamor. The weight flew after a single whir, the line whistled, splash followed splash in haste. The water had shoaled, and the man, instead of the drowsy tale of fathoms, was calling ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
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... terrific whir the propeller flashes round. The sound increases, and then decreases slightly, and increases again. The gadfly moves. Moves more rapidly. Skims along the ground. Rises, rises, rises. Ah, the beautiful river! Every time I have flown ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
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... obligation to "The Listener." He taught me to recognize literary themes in the city, for he brought the same keen insight, the same tender sympathy to bear upon the crowds of the streets that he used in describing the songs of the thrush or the whir of the partridge. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
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... have; there are all kinds at Palm Beach, even yours, and," he added with his easy impudence, "I expect to preserve my notions concerning every one of them. Ho! Look at that sheaf of sky-rockets, Billy! Zip! Whir-r! Bang! Great is Diana of the Ephesians!—bless ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
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... it abnormal," I began, and I was sensible of my wife's thoughts leaving her own injuries for my point of view so swiftly that I could almost hear them whir. ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
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... grass-grown and moss-covered, that led to Middle Patent. So, he ran at right angles until he also reached it, and as now he was close to where it entered the main road, he approached warily. But, he was too late. There was a sound like the whir of a rising partridge, and ahead of him from where it had been hidden, a gray touring-car leaped into the highway. The stranger was at the wheel. Throwing behind it a cloud of dust, the car raced toward Greenwich. Jimmie had time to note ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
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... little kid was not listening. With trembling fingers she was pulling off the wrappings from a small package, and suddenly a warning whir cut short Myrtle's harangue. She lurched forward, and tried to pull Leslie's hands away ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
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... thick foliage of a cedar tree on the opposite bank, a pheasant and his mate were hopping about, uttering their harsh, rude notes; then came a whir and whistle of wings and a quick passing shadow overhead as a flock of black duck sped over the tree tops to some ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
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... unreality hung about the events of the last few days. I felt myself slowly waking as though from a nightmare. The dazzling sunshine was everywhere around us; the whir of reaping machines, the slighter humming of bees, and the song of birds, were in our ears; the perfume of all manner of flowers, and of the new-mown hay, made the air wonderfully sweet. My guest, in a cool grey flannel suit and a Panama ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
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... balls of the Arabs past our ears; 'whir-r-ir' sliced away their scimitars right and left in the air, with the regularity of so many flails at work on a barn-floor; but we did not mind them a bit, for the 'phit—phit—phit!' of the bullets from our Martini rifles pattered amongst the ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
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... remained still. Only the chirp of the crickets and the fretting of the aide-de-camp's horse outside the cottage could be heard. Then, like the grating of a coffee mill in a distant kitchen when one is just waking out of a sound sleep, they heard the faint, smothered whir of machinery, a sharper metallic ring of steel against steel followed by a gigantic detonation which shook the ground upon which the cottage stood and overthrew every glass upon the table. With a roar like the fall of a skyscraper the first shell hurled itself into the night. Half ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
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... what it had been, and of all the weary years of battling for this. It had been such a hard fight, and now at last it was won. To me the whole battle with the slum had summed itself up in the struggle with this dark spot. The whir of the lawn-mower was as sweet a song in my ear as that which the skylark sang when I was a boy, in Danish fields, and which gray hairs do not make the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
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... did not satisfy Susan and she often thought about it. To enter the mill, to stand quietly and look about, was the best kind of entertainment, for she was fascinated by the whir of the looms, by the nimble fingers of the weavers, and by the general air of efficiency. Admiringly she watched Sally Ann Hyatt, the tall capable weaver from Vermont. When the yarn on the beam was tangled or there was something wrong with the ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
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... of them, but they did not attack human beings. You might sit on a bank in the fields with endless insects passing without being irritated; but everywhere out of doors you must listen for the peculiar low whir of the stoat-fly, who will fill his long grey body with your blood in a very few minutes. This is the tsetse ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
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... bids me spin, that my heart may not be sad. Spin and sing for my brother's sake, and the spinning makes me glad. Spin, sing with humming whir, the wheel goes round and round. For my brother's sake, the charm I'll break, Prince Hero shall be found. Spin, sing, the golden thread, Gleams in the sun's bright ray, The humming wheel my grief can heal, For love ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
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... the artificial bird was singing its best, and the emperor lay in bed listening to it, something inside the bird sounded "whizz." Then a spring cracked. "Whir-r-r-r" went all the wheels, running round, and then the music stopped. The emperor immediately sprang out of bed, and called for his physician; but what could he do? Then they sent for a watchmaker; and, after a great deal of talking and examination, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
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... the boy produced a small pasteboard box which he opened guardedly, mindful of the numberless bright little eyes that were watching every move. All about him now sounded the whir and flutter of wings, the cooing of doves, the saucy twitter of the sparrows. Sir Lancelot, alert and eager, occupied one arm of the wheel chair. Another bushy-tailed little fellow, less venturesome, sat back on his haunches five feet away. A ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
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... Never a whir of wing, no bee Stirred o'er the shameful slain; Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in, Stooped, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
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... black darkness ahead came a long-drawn, weird, clanging noise, growing louder and louder till it swept over their heads and into the distance, hushed, as it were, by the whir and whistle of the heavy pinions ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
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... tents of Home. I did not doubt that Alixe was alive or that I should find her. There was assurance in this benignant night. In that thought, dreaming that her cheek lay close to mine, her arm around my neck, I fell asleep. I waked to bear the squirrels stirring in the trees, the whir of the partridge, and the first unvarying note of the oriole. Turning on my dry, leafy bed, I looked down, and saw in the dark haze of dawn the beavers at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
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... seemed to be a bunch of dry leaves and grass coiled swiftly, with the rattling whir that goes straight to the fear center of the human heart. In a flash Anna's hands were full of rocks. The first article in every California mountain child's education is to destroy every rattlesnake that comes in sight. Anna dodged the first strike of the snake, and before he could get nearer ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
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... him in me lap an' say whir he's hurted for meself," said Mrs. O'Malligan briskly and forthwith laid her energetic hand upon the little fellow. At her well meant but rough handling, the child cried out, turning white ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
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... a curious confirmation of my theory. Once more I was lying under my favorite apple-tree, half reading and half watching the Sound, lulled into a dream by the whir of insects and the spices called up from the earth by the hot sun. As I bent over the page, I suddenly had the startling impression that someone was leaning over my shoulder and reading with me, and that a girl's long hair was falling over ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
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... ceaseless booming of the thunder that shook the houseslike an earthquake, the futile popping of revolvers, the whining shells overhead, the cries and groans, the Spanish oaths, and the heavy breathing of my men about me, and always just in front of us, the breathless whir ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
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... rearranged in kaleidoscopic combinations, and transported from port to port, from town to town, from sea to sea. One can look nowhere without seeing this ceaseless activity progressing. Everywhere there is a whir of wheels, a plash of waves, a din of assembly, as ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
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... London-reared Inna; the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them, which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there in dark places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the delight of a morning's nutting must come to an end—so ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
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... cab drove through the Seven Dials, and there the public-houses were disgorging at every corner their poor ruins of men and women. Shouts, curses, quarreling, and laughter struck upon the ear above the whir of the wheels. Unshaven men and unwashed women, squalid children running here and there among the oyster and orange stalls, thieves, idlers, vagabonds of all conditions, not a few honest people withal, and among them the dark figures ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
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... body and spirit, incapable of thinking two thoughts in sequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, in his skull. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
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... with suicidal intensity ran after them barefooted when they made off with a broken thread, spliced it, and then escaped from them to their stations again. In other rooms, where there was a stunning whir of spindles, girls and women were at work; they looked after Lyra and her nephew from under cotton-frowsed bangs; they all seemed to know her, and returned her easy, kindly greetings with an effect of liking. From time to time, at Lyra's bidding, the young fellow ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
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... fair-sized ocean steamship, it looked, on that little lake dotted with pleasure craft, like a leviathan. Men were busy in the cars, fore and aft. The mooring ropes were cast off as the vessel gained an offing, and ballast being thrown out she began to rise slowly. The propellers began to whir, and the great craft swung around breasting the breeze and moved slowly up the lake. The crowd cheered. Count von Zeppelin, tense with excitement, alert for every sign of weakness watched his monster creation with mingled pride and apprehension. Two points were set at rest in the first two minutes—the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
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... truly deemed that the woman should have been earlier at home cooking the supper. Dusk had deepened to darkness long before the meal smoked upon the board. The spinning-wheel had begun to whir for her evening stint when other hill-folks had betaken themselves to bed. Basil puffed his pipe before the fire; the flicker and flare pervaded every nook of the bright little house. Strings of red-pepper-pods flaunted ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
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... the Raven flying out of the oak-tree into the west. This, too, was what the old witchwife had foretold. "Whir-r-r" went the two black wings, and then it seemed as if the Raven melted into the night. Now, this was strange enough, but what followed was ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
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... was bending over some footprints beside a small field-piece that, dismounted and rusted, lay half buried in ashes, a sudden whir-r-r caused him to spring back as though he had received an electric shock. Only his quickness saved him from the living death held in the fangs of a rattlesnake that had evidently just crawled from ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
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... of crickets) Kiri, hatari, cho, cho, Kiri, hatari, cho, cho. The cricket sews on at his old rags, With all the new grass in the field; sho, Churr, isho, like the whir of ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
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... fro he twisted, turned, raced, and checked the combination, caressing it, humouring it, wheedling it, inexorably questioning it in the dumb language his fingers spoke so deftly. And in his ear the click and whir and thump of shifting wards and tumblers murmured articulate response in the terms of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
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... was ended, and the road went overboard in a long, steep cascade. She pushed out the clutch and coasted. The whir of the engine stopped. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
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... size went up with a whir. Big he was, in comparison with his kind, as the monster steer in the side-show, the Cardiff ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
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... cries came from who could tell where—the tall swale-grass on the river edge, erect now again after the April floods, or the brown broom-corn nearer the road, or from the sky above? We could hear the squirrels' mocking chatter in the tree-tops, the whir of the kingfishers along the willow-fringed water—the indefinable chorus of Nature's myriad small children, all glad that spring was come. But above these our ears took in the ceaseless clang of the drums, and the sound of hundreds of armed men's feet, tramping in unison ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
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... or a bit of rag flying from a twig; all these but poorly marked the paths which were seldom pressed by the foot of a human being. Weeks might elapse, or months even, when no soul passed that way. Perhaps the whir of a partridge's wing as he flew from one feeding ground to another on the tundra was the only sound disturbing the still air for hours; or when a red fox, made sprightly by hunger, left as few ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
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... Ben Bow by the bridle, the old horse reared, plunged violently, snapped his halter, and broke away. The boy, at the same instant, was hurled to the ground. The ringing of hoofs and whir of wheels made strange sensations in his ears. He thought what a fool he was to be knocked down by ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
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... majestic greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
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... solitary spot was shut in by yellow corn fields. In the tree-tops above him the turtle-doves were cooing now and then a faint note, and through the branches of the trees by the "Freemen's Tribunal" the wild hawk-moths were beginning to whir with their red-green wings. Gradually the ground in the forest also began to show signs of life. A hedgehog crept sleepily through the underbrush; a little weasel dragged his supple body forth from a crevice in the rocks no broader than a quill. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
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... it? We all went down. A great volume of sound! We were inside a bell! My whole head buzzed to music and a roar; the whir of a thousand vibrations; the inside of sound. I fell face downwards; the room ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
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... speaking in French with a strong Flemish accent. He was, he said, a mechanic, whose duty it was to care for the bells and the machinery. He had an assistant who went on duty at six o'clock. He served watches of eight hours. There came a "whir" from a fan above, and a tinkle from a small bell somewhere near at hand. He said that the half hour would strike in three minutes. Had I ever been in a bell tower when the chimes played? Yes? Then M'sieur ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
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... raised the blind on the window. Overhead the moon showed like a spot of bright saffron. A sort of misty haze seemed to cling around the bushes and trees. The out-houses stood out white, like buildings in a mysterious city. Somewhere there was the metallic whir of a grasshopper, and in the distance a loon boomed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
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... of England emerges; and the Monument with its bristling head of golden hair; the dray horses crossing London Bridge show grey and strawberry and iron-coloured. There is a whir of wings as the suburban trains rush into the terminus. And the light mounts over the faces of all the tall blind houses, slides through a chink and paints the lustrous bellying crimson curtains; the green wine-glasses; the coffee- cups; and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
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... contemplation was cut short by the far-off whir of the trolley, sounding clearly through the still morning. Miss Lyndesay walked quickly along the curving road to the Common where she was to receive her guests. Reaching the long narrow green, where a few cows nibbled placidly as in the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
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... which contained one black cow, one black calf, some hens, some ducks, two black-and-white pigs, a mother, and eleven children. Where they all slept was a puzzle, as only one bed was visible. The hens went whir-r-r-up, and perched on the bedstead, when the lady smiled and wished me Good Evening. She looked strong and in good going order. The Achilese say Good Evening all day long. A young girl was grinning in the next doorway, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
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... I have ventured on thy strident streets, Mid whir of traffic in the vibrant hour When Commerce with its clashing cymbal greets The mighty Mammon in his pomp of power.... And in the quiet dusk of eventide, As wearied toilers quit the marts of Trade, Have I been of their pageant—or allied With Passion's ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
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... twined and hung among its branches, and all along its ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly, in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whir ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
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... at Drake Hill both as to men and women folk. The fields were full of ebony backs and plying arms of toil at sunrise, and the hum and whir of loom and spinning-wheels were to be heard in the negro cabins and the great house as soon as ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
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