"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the flight of birds! The falcon soars above the clouds, and remains in the air for many hours without any sign of exertion. The swallow, the lark, and other species, sail long distances with little effort. Others, like the sparrow and the humming-bird, have a fluttering flight. Some, as the owl, fly without any noise; and some, like the ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... was humming and ticking like a watch with insect-noises: otherwise the deadly silence held. There were red-winged grasshoppers and great green-gray locust-looking crickets which ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... shelter over the ore platform at the mill. This year the snow was late, but there was no counting on that. And I blinked as I went out of the white November sunshine into Macartney's new tunnel, and the candlelight of his humming stope. One glance around told me Dudley was right, and the man knew his business; and it was the same over at the mill. It seemed to me superintendent was a mild name for Macartney, and general manager would ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... my own thoughts. I could thereafter only listen, breathless, straining my senses to catch some natural sound, however faint. Far away in the dim distance, in some blue pasture, a cow was lowing, and the recurring sound passed me like the humming flight of an insect, then fainter still, like an imagined sound, until it ceased. A withered leaf fell from the tree-top; I heard it fluttering downwards, touching other leaves in its fall until the silent grass ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... the table. Jacob was helping himself to jam; the postman was talking to Rebecca in the kitchen; there was a bee humming at the yellow flower which nodded at the open window. They were all alive, that is to say, while poor Mr. Floyd was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... it was St. Patrick's Day," she said to herself. "Nobody could possibly mistake me now for a Unionist. I'm labelled 'Home Rule' as plainly as can be." Then, hastily pinning on her hat before the mirror, she ran downstairs, humming under her breath: ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... to joke him out of his delusion; till Granice, mistrustful of their motives, began to dread the reappearance of Dr. Stell, and set a guard on his lips. But the words he kept back engendered others and still others in his brain. His inner self became a humming factory of arguments, and he spent long hours reciting and writing down elaborate statements of his crime, which he constantly retouched and developed. Then gradually his activity languished under the lack of an audience, the sense of being buried beneath deepening drifts ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... made a jest of every thing, even of the misfortunes which pinched him the sharpest, when told of the desertion of his comrades, amused himself by humming the words of a ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... nuts,' he explained when he returned. 'She says she's coming in to dessert.' He sat down, humming the old tune to himself, and till Miss Vidal Benzaguen entered, he held us speechless with tales of the ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgements, such ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... large as trees on land were massed bushes of living flowers—animals rather than plants—of various colors and glowing softly in the obscurity of the ocean depth. Fish flies flew from branch to branch like a swarm of humming-birds, while swarms of marine creatures rose at our feet like ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... o'clock the town was humming with the news of the midnight duel, and there were but two opinions about it: one, that Luigi's pluck in the field was most praiseworthy and Angela's flight most scandalous; the other, that Angelo's courage in flying the field for conscience' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to be heard on board save the footsteps of the solitary watchman who slowly paced the deck, and now and then beguiled the tedium of his vigil by humming a ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... as he watched the warlike preparations, and, glancing across to where near Haughmond Abbey floated the rebel standard, he found himself humming one of the rough old war tunes ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... men the shipmaster, indeed, who had spoken to Hester Prynne was so smitten with Pearl's aspect, that he attempted to lay hands upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss. Finding it as impossible to touch her as to catch a humming-bird in the air, he took from his hat the gold chain that was twisted about it, and threw it to the child. Pearl immediately twined it around her neck and waist with such happy skill, that, once seen there, it became a part of her, and it ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Ruby-throated humming-birds, with breasts of burnished gold, fluttered about the garden on the terrace in front of me in dainty flight, or else poised themselves in mid-air opposite the sweet-smelling blossoms of the frangipanni, their little ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as taut as a bowstring and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea gully, and the Hispaniola would go humming down the tide. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discouraged; she made a personal remark next: "Excuse me—but you do look wretchedly pale." I thought she seemed to enjoy the defect in my complexion; I really believe it raised me in her estimation. "We shall get on better in time," she said; "I am beginning to like you." She walked out humming a tune. Don't you agree with me? ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the pollen from one flower to another, and that many, especially those with tubular or zygomorphic (bilateral) flowers are perfectly incapable of self-fertilization. In a few cases snails have been known to be the conveyers of pollen, and the humming-birds are known in some cases, as for instance the trumpet-creeper (Fig. 121, A), to take the place ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... bank at Crocky's to-night, which he fancied he should, he would send him two or three thousand pounds; at the same time he shook him heartily by the hand, and descended the staircase of the spunging-house, humming Vive ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... some sort of mischief. But what mischief? Watching and waiting, but no longer confining my attention to the parlour, I presently espied her stealing along the passageway I have mentioned, carrying a long cloak which she rolled up and hid behind the open door. Then she came back humming a gay little song which didn't deceive me for a moment. 'Good!' thought I, 'she and that cloak will soon join company.' And they did. As we were playing the Harebell mazurka I again caught sight of her ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... had committed a crime," cried she in disdain, and then, catching her skirts up, she broke into a step dance, humming ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... consciousness of her beauty, and she also lacked something else which Maria had. Lily meant no more to him—that is, her beauty meant no more to him—than a symmetrical cherry-tree in the south yard, which was a marvel of scented beauty, humming with bees every spring. He had seen that tree ever since he could remember. He always looked upon it with pleasure when it was in blossom, yet it was not to him what a new tree, standing forth unexpectedly with its complement of ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... we were busy building our nest—which is very pretty, almost as dainty as that of our neighbor the Humming Bird—she flew away to quite a distance to find some soft lining-stuff on which to lay her eggs. I had been fetching and carrying all day the lichens to put round the nest, which was hidden among the thick leaves on the bough of a tree, and was resting ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... His eye was open to beauty, and his ear to music. He found these, not in rare conditions, but wheresoever he went. He thought the best of music was in single strains; and he found poetic suggestion in the humming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... had to do something, she hummed. She didn't hum very well, and her program was limited to the first two lines of "How Firm a Foundation," but she carried it off very well and often got the players to humming it along with her. She could also drum rather well with her fingers on the back of the chair of one of the players while looking over his shoulder. "How Firm a Foundation" didn't lend itself very well to drumming; so she had a little patrol that she worked ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... starve for it, Allan? The whole cycle of life goes humming around us, hour by hour. It is here, there, everywhere. I will bring a little of it into my work, or ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an echo, in the far distance, sometimes screaming with the rage of a hurt animal close at hand. Groups of soldiers ran swiftly past me, quite silent, their heads bent. Somewhere on the high road I could hear motor-cars spluttering and humming. At irregular intervals Red Cross men would arrive with wounded, would ask in a whisper that was inhuman and isolating whether there were room on my carts. Then the body would be lifted up; there would be muttered directions, the wounded man would cry, then the other wounded would also ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... hour—certainly not less than forty minutes—before the train could be restarted. Mr. Molesworth looked at his watch. Forty minutes to explore the road: forty minutes' holiday! He laughed, pocketed the watch again, and took the road briskly, humming a song. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the substance of his conversation with the rector, and now curled up on the low wooden seat, his small legs crossed underneath him, he was gazing dreamily out into the sweet-scented garden. The bees were droning, and the gnats humming amongst the tall hollyhocks and crimson and white roses close by; the birds were already twittering their last 'good-nights' to one another, and a soft, peaceful spell seemed to be falling on ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra—as we soon learned. It was wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... hark, Bluebird, listen! Was that a bugle note far up the bend, Where the murk waters flush and the white bars glisten, Or dove cooing dove into love notes that blend? And Wood Thrush, sweet, tell me,—that throbbing and humming, Is it march at the double quick or wild bees that hum? And that rumble that shakes like an earthquake coming— Tell me, O Hermit ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... industrial towns, where one sees how entirely the German nation is organized for war. Into these towns an enormous number of men have been drafted from the country to work in factories, which are humming day and night with activity to keep up the supply of all things necessary ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Kingfisher, says Dixon, remains throughout the year, but numbers perish when the native streams are frozen. There is, perhaps, not a bird in all the ranks of the feathered gems of equatorial regions, be it ever so fair, the Humming-bird excepted, that can boast a garb so lovely as this little creature of the northland. Naturalists assert that the sun has something to do with the brilliant colors of the birds and insects of the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... miles to windward in the midst of the lagoon. The noise of the Trade ran very boisterous in all parts of the island; the nearer palm-trees crashed and whistled in the gusts, those farther off contributed a humming bass like the roar of cities; and yet, to any man less absorbed, there must have risen at times over this turmoil of the winds the sharper note of the human voice from the settlement. There all was activity. Attwater, stripped to his trousers, and lending a strong ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... scouring-rush,) and the rich coarse vegetation of the veratrum, or American hellebore. In moist copses the ferns and osmundas begin to uncurl in April, opening their soft coils of spongy verdure, coated with woolly down, from which the humming-bird steals the lining ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... atmosphere,—being frequently seen, at twilight and in cloudy weather, soaring above the house-tops in quest of insects. The Whippoorwill finds his subsistence chiefly in the woods, and takes a part of it from the branches of trees, while poising himself on the wing, like a Humming-Bird. I believe he is never seen circling aloft like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... heart sick and home sick. He stretched himself on his back and looked straight up at the blinking stars. But he was not thinking of them nor of anything but a certain spring day when the bees were humming in the clematis; when a girl was saying good bye to him. He could see her as she unclasped from her neck the locket which she fastened about his own. It was an old fashioned golden locket bearing miniatures of her father and mother with their names and the date of their marriage. It was her most ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... Humming an old plantation melody the negro reached his concealed magneto, then stood up for a brief moment, staring seaward in the direction from which he had just come. His garments dripped water; his whole appearance was bedraggled, yet ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... grey snow-swept gloom, a curious Comus—not at all like Greeks, for we had neither torches in our hands nor rose-wreaths to suspend upon a lady's door-posts. And yet I could not refrain, at this supreme moment of jollity, in the zero temperature, amid my Grisons friends, from humming to myself verses ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... rain began to fall, and has continued to pour down steadily ever since. The night is gloomy. Adjutant Wilson, in the next tent, is endeavoring to lift himself from the slough of despond by humming a ditty of true love; but the effort ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... of other days, and then lay listening to the humming noise made by the mosquitoes—wondered whether Rachel Linton was asleep or awake—whether, if she was awake, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... the shadows of its age-old trees, grave with a certain solemnity, touched upon with tragedy, attuned to a sorrowful patience? For a moment the room and the man who made its core were blurred to Arden's vision. He walked to the window and stood there, twirling his mustachios, finally humming to himself the lines of ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... her, on departing: "You are going to see me again before long," Mercy was quite excited about it. She never asked a question of Doctor Davison, or of anybody else, about the strange surgeon, or his opinion of her case; but Ruth often heard her humming an odd little song (she often made up little tunes and put words to them herself) of which Ruth did not catch the burden for some days. When Mercy was singing it she mumbled the words, or dropped her voice to a whisper whenever anybody came near. But one morning Ruth was bringing ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... to time Andy would call the attention of his aeroplane chum to some striking feature of the landscape far below. The little Kinkaid motor was humming merrily, without ever missing a stroke, and Frank, having the utmost confidence in its steadiness now, after so many trial spins, could take a few seconds at a ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... of birds which were caged in the upper part of the building were set free by some charitably inclined person at the first alarm of fire, and at intervals they flew out. There were many valuable tropical birds, parrots, cockatoos, mockingbirds, humming-birds, etc., as well as some vultures and eagles, and one condor. Great excitement existed among the swaying crowds in the streets below as they took wing. There were confined in the same room a few serpents, which also obtained their ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... I watch thy coming, As evening shadows stretch o'er moor and dell; When the wild bee hath ceased her busy humming, And silence hangs on all things like ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... study, quite at his ease, humming a tune and casting sharp, appraising glances about him as though the thought of ownership were already in his mind. The door beyond the hall closed ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... paper and the bar with a few empty bottles behind it. He tried to count the bottles; "one, two, three..." but he was staring in the lustreless grey eyes of Bill Huggis, who lay back in his chair, blowing smoke out of his nose, now and then reaching for the cognac bottle, all the while humming faintly, under his breath: ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... goes," added the Major, "but if we heard that the society editor of the Fliegende Blaetter and half a dozen pencil strafers were touring the German front line, we'd send 'em over something that would start 'em humming a hymn of hate. If they knew I was joy riding a party of correspondents around the diggin's to-night, they might give you something to write about and cost me a platoon or two. You're ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... the kitchen, when the door was opened, had condensed on the roof and walls in the form of rime several inches thick, and Stubberud was now clearing this off with a long broom. Everything was going to be shipshape for Midwinter Eve; I could see that. We went in. Dinner was on, humming and boiling. The kitchen floor was scrubbed clean, and the linoleum with which it was covered shone gaily. It was the same in the living-room; everything was cleaned. The linoleum on the floor and the American ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the little rollicking air that she had played at her first tea-party, had set them all to dancing and humming as on ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... She was humming, in happy unconsciousness of her state; and I was chagrined by the necessity of disclosing it: but resolutely continued, for it must ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... in the coming of the rose-red Spring, Never in the passing of the wine-red Fall, May you hear the humming of the white bee's wing Murmur o'er the meadow, ere the ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... will be tempting him who foyls him still, And never cease, though to his shame the more; Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time, About the wine-press where sweet moust is powr'd, Beat off; returns as oft with humming sound; Or surging waves against a solid rock, Though all to shivers dash't, the assault renew, Vain battry, and in froth or bubbles end: 20 So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse Met ever; and to shameful silence brought, Yet gives not o're ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... might again provide him with some genuine excitement. It could be simply his imagination working overtime, but it wasn't going to do any harm to find out. Mind humming with pleased though still highly skeptical speculations, Barney went back to the boat station and inquired when the party ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... sake as an atonement for my sins. Now, I go! Cumberledge—your notebook. Subjective sensations, swimming in the head, light flashes before the eyes, soothing torpor, some touch of coldness, constriction of the temples, humming in the ears, a ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the threshold of a larger hall beyond. On its right-hand doorpost was affixed a cylinder of metal repoussee with an oval piece of glass on that something like a human eye. And the big invisible bees went on humming as industriously and as sleepily ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... christened them at once as the locality suggested, one for Captain Mayne, the other for Professor Owen. Near the shore, birds also seemed more abundant. A pair of kelp-geese and a steamer duck were brought in, and one of the officers reported humming-birds flitting across the brook from which the Hassler's tanks ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... and I along, we pulled over to the island. In the thirty intervening years it must have changed greatly, for many buildings were now on it; but his memory evidently was busy and serving him well. He walked round meditatively, uttering a low, humming whistle, his hands in his pockets, his secretary and myself following. At last he reached a point where he stopped and mused for some moments, after which he went quietly and silently to the boat. Not a word passed ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Love songs or words of pleading, Strong in his might! Helmet and armour wearing, Hies he to deeds of daring, Forth to the battle faring, Back to the fight. Sing now of ranks contending, Sing of loud voices blending, Sing of great warriors sending Death to their foes! Sing of war missiles humming, Strike into martial drumming, Sing of great victory coming, As forth he goes. Back to the battle faring, Back into deeds of daring, Back ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the next morning into the little garden to a fresh silver day, his long face looking more austere than ever in that cold light, his eyelids a little heavy. He carried one of the swords. Turnbull was in the little house behind him, demolishing the end of an early breakfast and humming a tune to himself, which could be heard through the open window. A moment or two later he leapt to his feet and came out into the sunlight, still munching toast, his own sword stuck under ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... from object to object, asking questions, not waiting for answers, seeing everything, commenting on everything while the two young men stood side by side on the hearth rug and watched her. She was like a humming-bird afraid to light. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... thy goodness, that hath hindered thee from telling me of all that thou hast done for my garden, even to those fair and sweet everlasting flowers, the like of which I never saw before, which thou hast set in the east border, and where even now I hear the bees humming ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... been in such an awful rush," Tom admitted slowly. "Anyway, we fellows should have gotten out of here and left it to the marshals to have it all their own way. I'm afraid there is going to be a big fight to-night, and these old woods may be full of humming bullets. And I'm worried about Dick, too, going off as guide to the marshals. There were only eight of the marshals, and, even with four of our fellows, they still have to face nearly twenty of the moonshiners—-and I'll wager that the moonshiners are ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... heavy nor light—and here I sit long and long, envelop'd in the deep musical drone of these bees, flitting, balancing, darting to and fro about me by hundreds—big fellows with light yellow jackets, great glistening swelling bodies, stumpy heads and gauzy wings—humming their perpetual rich mellow boom. (Is there not a hint in it for a musical composition, of which it should be the back-ground? some bumble-bee symphony?) How it all nourishes, lulls me, in the way most needed; the open air, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... of what might be, and his eyes glowed bright and wide, and his mouth grew alternately grim and tender. And, that night, long after he lay asleep, Hermione's golden head was bowed above her work, but, more than once she stayed her humming sewing-machine to look at one white hand with eyes shy and wistful—the hand that had held ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... might die. In this state of mind, he met the Elephant and had a talk with him. He noticed that the great beast cocked up his ears all the time, as if he were listening for something, and he asked him why he did so. Just then a gnat came humming by, and the Elephant said, "Do you see that wretched little buzzing insect? I'm terribly afraid of its getting into my ear: if it once gets in, I'm dead and done for." The Lion's spirits rose at once when he heard this: ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... quavered Jerry; "while I was out on the bay this early morning, my lad, what all the town is humming about, goes to my home and takes everything—everything of any vally ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... queer humming noise in her head. She was incapable of calm thought. She realized now that the friend she had left in London was here in the guise of a bitter enemy. The veranda was full of people waiting for the post. The snow had banished them from links ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... of this, I went forward with as much lightheartedness as could be managed, humming a song to myself, and carefully putting aside thoughts of warmth and supper, while the dusk increased and the great forest vegetation seemed to grow ranker and closer at ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... hall, the floor of which was thickly sprinkled with sawdust; but, without pausing, Lord Claud mounted a staircase in the corner, and led Tom into a large upper room, the walls of which were adorned by rapiers with buttons at the end, where a man was sitting polishing the foils and humming a tune to himself. He rose instantly upon seeing Lord Claud, and ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... afternoon, Paris sat in the shade of a tree at the foot of Mount Ida, while his flocks were pasturing upon the hillside before him. The bees were humming lazily among the flowers; the cicadas were chirping among the leaves above his head; and now and then a bird twittered softly among the bushes behind him. All else was still, as if enjoying to the full the delicious calm ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... morning when he went into her office at the Works, he found the place humming with business. As he entered he met a foreman, just taking his departure with, so to speak, his tail between his legs. The man was scarlet to his forehead under the lash of his employer's tongue. It ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... bars, and perhaps the King himself tilting in the melee, while all the ladies were throned in their galleries like banks of flowers, what a magnificent spectacle! The half-empty streets below still humming with groups of gazers not able to squeeze among the throngs about the bars, but waiting the return of the splendid procession: and more and more banners and tapestries and guards of honour shining through the wide open gates of the port all the way down to Holyrood. There ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... as well known as Ephesus or York; but not one of us can tell, without humming and hawing, who it was that rebuilt the Ephesian wonder of the world, or that repaired the time- honored Minster. Equally in literature, not the weight of service done, or the power exerted, is sometimes considered chiefly—either ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Trevor, who possessed a sweet mellow voice, and was cheering himself, as he stood at the helm, by humming a hymn, or something like one, for the words were not distinguishable in ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... and smiled toward the sea, whence rose the strange melody, away from the dark shadows where lay the noise of horses galloping, galloping on. With an effort he roused himself, bent forward, and looked steadily down the pathway, softly humming the "Song ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... another lever—there was a dull snap as a relay in the power room responded—the lights wavered—dimmed—then the generator was once more humming smoothly—working on the atmosphere of Venus! In a moment the power units were again operating, and now as they sucked a plentitude of power from the surrounding air, they produced a force that made the men cling to their holds with almost frantic force. Around them the ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... her dish towels by that time, for she wasn't much of a housekeeper, I'll say that, though as pretty as a picture, and I never looked up. She walked round the hut, humming to herself to show how calm she was, but I noticed that when her broom fell over ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... placed the note in her pocket, and accompanied him down the stairs, chatting rather gaily. At the bottom of the first flight Camillo bid her good-bye and ran down the stairs that led to the street, while the card-reader, rejoicing in her large fee, turned back to the garret, humming a barcarolle. Camillo found the tilbury waiting for him; the street was now clear. He entered and the driver whipped his horse into a ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... calculations the rhythmic cadences began to reassert themselves. He stood still, as if rooted to the spot, with fixed gaze. After a while his hands involuntarily found their way to the table drawer, from which he pulled out a much-used copy-book. He dropped into a chair with the same fixed look, humming softly to himself and every now and again shaking back his wavy hair, began writing line after line, sometimes ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... have sins upon one's conscience!" sighed the venturer. "Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts." And he fell to humming ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... at another tub of flowers where a humming-bird moth was gathering honey and jabbed his stick sharply at it, taking care that the stick did not ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... however, seemed in no way to be afraid of the bold and resolute outlaw who stood in front of him, and when Robin demanded his purse he smiled and said it would be better to fight for that article and the better man should have it. Whereupon he went to the side of the road, still humming his snatch of a tune, and to the amazement of Robin and Little John, laid hold of a young oak tree and tore it up by the roots, with apparently but little exertion of his strength. Then, trimming off the branches, he ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... brought the score of the operetta to Gray Gables last night and we tried it over on the piano. The music is beautiful. It is so tuneful it lingers. I've been humming snatches of it ever since he played it for me. The 'Rebellious Princess' has some wonderful songs. That clever young man, Eric Darrow, composed the libretto and thought out the plot. It's about a princess ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... always come up at the foot!" growled Austina, whose canvas looked like a map of a humming-bird's flight done in charcoal. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... winds from the sea had lulled, and for once the house was utterly quiet—so quiet that the stillness became oppressive. Meanwhile the young girl sat in her bower of luxury, softly humming a favorite air, and very happy in thoughts of her approaching marriage. While deep in her smiling reverie, a stealthy footstep ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... you've just about got us sized up correct." He went on hammering, and humming under his breath, and thinking that, while admiration is all right in its time and place, it ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... henna-dyed hair, and miniature brown men, like blowing flower-petals in scarlet, yellow, and blue, who had swarmed up the street after the Roumis, stopped at the portals of the mosque and the sacred tomb. But there was a humming in the air like the song of bees, which floated rhythmically out from the zaouia, the school in the mosque where many boys squatted cross-legged before the aged Taleb who taught the Koran; bowing, swaying towards him, droning out the words of the Prophet, some half asleep, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... drums and horns arose, and the laughing, chattering crowd seemed to dissolve as suddenly from the vicinity of the prison hut, leaving it plunged in an atmosphere of silence, save for the monotonous banging of the drums, the blare of the horns, and a low, humming murmur which might be that of a multitude of people conversing ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... made one feel as though he were the blind man in a game of blind-man's-buff, where every one tapped him in passing, leaving him puzzled and ignorant as to whither they had gone and from what point they would come next. The bullets sounded like rustling silk, or like humming-birds on a warm summer's day, or like the wind as it is imitated on the stage of a theatre. Any one who has stood behind the scenes when a storm is progressing on the stage, knows the little wheel wound with silk that brushes against another piece of silk, and ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... of some promised land, Molly adjusted her crutch, and over the sandy road trudged, with truculent face, to her new home, humming to herself "dah-is-a-time-a-comin, den da ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... a more violent vibration. There was a humming, throbbing, hissing sound. Suddenly the boys, and all within the projectile, felt it swaying. A moment later it began to shoot through ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... I have here almost an avenue of fine lemon-trees, in cases; humming-birds, which are a marvel and enchantment to me; and fire-flies, which are exquisite ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... tiring indeed. Nevertheless, as I got into my jacket and put on my hat in the suffocation of the cloak-room I was still under an exhilarating spell. I belonged, for time never so little, to the giant machine of which the fifth floor of Parsons' is only an infinitesimal humming, singing part. I had earned seven cents! Seven cents of the $4,000,000 paid to Lynn shoe employees were mine. I had bought the right to one piece of bread by the toil of my unskilled labour. As I fastened my tippet of common black fur and drew on my woolen gloves, the odour from ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... a lot of rabbits were in a hole together and making a humming noise, which, I believed, was a whispering they were having together, and I wanted to hear what they said, but that Ugly made such a barking I could not. I woke up, and, sure enough, Ugly was very noisy in the room below, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... embroidery upon the winter snow. Her course is a clear, strong line, sometimes quite wayward, but generally very direct, steering for the densest, most impenetrable places,—leading you over logs and through brush, alert and expectant, till, suddenly, she bursts up a few yards from you, and goes humming through the trees,—the complete triumph of endurance and vigor. Hardy native bird, may your tracks never be fewer, or your visits to ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... veritable merry-go-round of religious and social activities. Yes, it was beginning to move, indeed, it was almost beginning to hum—another few months and it would fairly whizz, as Eli Moggridge had foreseen; and the sound of the humming and the speed of the whizzing would grow louder and louder and faster and faster, till not merely Zion Place and Zion Alley and Zion Passage and Zion Street heard it and were caught up in the infectious dance, but the very High Street itself should ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... behind? On account of the bewildering echoes he could not tell. To settle the question he kneeled down, and placed his ear against one of rails of the west bound track. It was cold and silent. Then he tried the east bound track in the same way. This rail seemed to tingle with life, and a faint, humming sound came from it. It was a perfect railroad telephone, and it informed the listener as plainly as words could have told him, that a train was ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... not see him, she did not hear him. The silence was profound. The only sound to be heard was the humming of the bees circling around the tall marshmallows. And on the terrace there was nothing to be seen but a little yellow dog, stretched at full length on the bare ground, seeking the coolness of the shade. He raised ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... where other people are. I don't feel the joy of the little animals playing, the freedom of the flight of birds, the ghostly plucking of the growing grass, the sweet stab of the mating lust of the wild-horned apigator, the humming of bees working to build a hive, and the sleepy stupid arrogance of the giant cabbage-eating deuxnez. I can feel nothing without the Skin I have worn ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer
... gently on the shoulder, and humming a music-hall ballad cheerfully, started off into the garden. He had only gone a few steps when his mother called to him. He stopped. She ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... range, Goliath marvels at this strange Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength. David's clear eye measures the length; With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee, Poises a moment thoughtfully, And hurls with a long vengeful swing. The pebble, humming from the sling Like a wild bee, flies a sure line For the forehead of the Philistine; Then ... but there comes a brazen clink, And quicker than a man can think Goliath's shield parries each cast. Clang! clang! and clang! was David's ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... Sabbath ever been the day it had been to him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven. Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the hat show callous cruelty In decoration costing countless deaths; Carrying corpses for its ornaments; Wreath of dead humming-birds, dismembered gulls, The mother heron's breastknot, stiffened wings; Torn fragments of a ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... shields, the dull thud of blows, the wild shouts of the warriors and cries of the wounded, mingled together in a loud vibrating murmur. To Earl Sigvaldi, who lay with his ships apart at the far end of the bay, it sounded like the humming of bees about a hive. Not only at the prows, but also behind at the sterns of Olaf's compact host, did the Danes attempt to board. The Norsemen, indeed, were completely surrounded by their foemen. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... finally procure a guide that day and made a long march on foot along scorching sandy roads, weak and tired as we were, guided only by a half-witted boy, humming and chewing wisps of straw. Then I began to realize what suffering means. My father did not speak, nor would he endure any complaints from me. I bore up against it bravely, as bravely as I could, but I began to ponder much ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... that in singing softly the mouth be well opened. The tendency will be to close it when required to sing lightly, but the tone, then, will be nothing but a humming noise. It may as well be said here that a great deal of future trouble and labor may be avoided, if, from the first, pupils are taught to keep the mouth fairly well opened, and the lips sufficiently apart to permit ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... had been planned on paper in the inner room of the offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never carried out. Blackbeard would quell the mutiny of his old self within him and go soberly down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of "Spanish Ladies," perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the markets how a coup ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... half in shadow, rose above the huge ring like so many terraced flower-beds, dazzling with the gold lace of uniforms and the bright tints of women's dresses softened by white mantillas. Over all was a fluttering of fans, like thousands of hovering butterflies; and a hum floated up loud as the humming of a million bees, to the blue dome of sky, where English and Spanish flags ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... modest confidence restored, when in the doorway sounded a virile voice, gaily humming, and they became aware of a tall young man, red-headed, anything but handsome, flushed and perspiring from the sunny road; his open jacket showed a blue cotton shirt without waistcoat, in his hand was a shabby straw hat, and thick dust covered his boots. One would have judged ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... "Begging Tradesmen." A few things, tied to a blue handkerchief, rested on one side of his head; and a parcel of ballads, his whole stock-in-trade, lay on the other. Before the fire, warming his back, stood a short, thick-set man, humming the air of a vulgar ditty; his hands were thrust into the pockets of a velvet shooting-jacket, ornamented with large ivory buttons, such as are commonly worn by cabmen and other tap-room blackguards. His countenance was by far too dark ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... of the room so that there was a clear space left in the centre. He then took off his boots and his coat, and standing on his toes he commenced to gyrate with extraordinary rapidity. In a few moments his movements became steady and swift, and a sound came from him like the humming of a swift saw; this sound grew deeper and deeper, and at last continuous, so that the room was filled with a thrilling noise. In a quarter of an hour the movement began to noticeably slacken. In another three minutes it was quite slow. In two more minutes he grew visible ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... gloves). Did you notice the tune I was playing when you came in? (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... glue. Why, my dear boy, I am only living from hand to mouth. This looks, of course, all very bright and beautiful to you, and a wonderful contrast to hazy, foggy, cold old England—Heaven bless it! But fire-flies, and humming-birds, and golden sunshine, and gaily-painted blossoms are not victuals and drink, Harry; and, besides, when you set to and earn your victuals and drink, you don't know but what they will all be taken away from you. We've no laws here, my lad, worth ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... and the deep lines of matchlock men were hidden from view. After this the city thrilled and murmured worse than ever, humming like an angry hive. But the Wolfsberg kept its counsel. Not yet had deliverance arrived for the captives within ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... their dance about the mountain, the Coyote stole the fire, and ran with it down the slope of the burning mountain. When the Fire Spirits saw what he had done they streamed out after him, red and angry, with a humming sound like a swarm of bees. But the Coyote was still ahead; the sparks of the brand streamed out along his flanks, as he carried it in his mouth; and he stretched his ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... and the only comfort was that if nobody saw anything George Corvick was quite as much out of it as I. This comfort however was not sufficient, after the ladies had dispersed, to carry me in the proper manner—I mean in a spotted jacket and humming an air—into the smoking-room. I took my way in some dejection to bed; but in the passage I encountered Mr. Vereker, who had been up once more to change, coming out of his room. HE was humming an air ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... mob-jammed town, and emerged into the Park, where, likewise, we met a great many merry-makers, but with freer space for their gambols than in the streets. We soon found ourselves the targets for a cannonade with oranges (most of them in a decayed condition), which went humming past our ears from the vantage-ground of neighboring hillocks, sometimes hitting our sacred persons with an inelastic thump. This was one of the privileged freedoms of the time, and was nowise to be resented, except by returning the salute. Many persons ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... before,— And the pounding was not soft, But might well appall The boldest heart. Cool and calm, Trumpet in hand, Up in the cock-loft, Where 't was the hottest of all, Our brave old Commodore Took his stand, And played his part, Humming over some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... "We're just humming along!" he shouted, as he noticed how the tree-tops seemed to be constantly shifting, owing to the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... tongue that talks, these lungs that shout, These thews that hustle us about, This brain that fills the skull with schemes, And its humming hive ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... landmarks were slipping behind them. Tucson was out of sight, had they thought to look for it. And all this while the sturdy motor was humming its song of force triumphant. Subsequently it stuttered faintly in expressing itself. Triumph was there, but it was not so joyously sure of itself. Bland glided, cocking an anxious ear to listen while he slowed the motor. It was there, the stutter—more pronounced ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... listened for some time to his friend humming "The Love Song of Har Dyal" again! and not until Frank was silent did he doze off. An hour later he woke up suddenly, bathed in perspiration and devoured by mosquitoes; for the punkahs were still—the coolie had gone to sleep. He called to the man and aroused him, then ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... them for nourishment. Vittoria's horizon was within five feet of her. She saw neither splendid earth nor ancient heaven; nothing save a breach to be stepped over in defiance of foes and (what was harder to brave) of friends. Some wayward activity of old associations set her humming a quaint English tune, by which she was brought to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... melody from the instruments, but the boys' voices, humming lightly as they enter, gradually evolve a little dance song. There are no words but the lilt up and down of the boys' ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... undeviating straight line. Just opposite the farm were the last outlying huts of the village, and from there onwards it lay untenanted. But before many minutes were passed, the quiet of the autumn noon began to be overscored by distant humming, faint at first, and then quickly growing louder, and he saw far away a little brown speck coming swiftly towards him. It turned out to be a dispatch-rider, mounted on a motor-bicycle, who with a hoot of his horn roared westward through the village. Immediately ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... He left the house, humming a little tune. On the second step he paused, as he was in the habit of doing, and surveyed the Precincts—the houses with their shining knockers, their old-fashioned bow-windows and overhanging portals, the Cathedral Green, and the towering front of the Cathedral itself. He was, ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole |
