"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... broken by strains of music from a wayside cafe, or rather the remains of a cafe, for the windows had been demolished and wreckage was strewn about the door, but the piano within had survived the ravages. Though it was sadly out of tune, the officer, seated on a beer keg, was evoking a noise from its battered keys, and to its accompaniment some soldiers were ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... are capable of doing. The Governor's remarks were received with applause. After the addresses the audience were served with refreshments, previous to which the Rector read the following lines, which were sung to the tune of Old Hundred, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... tremendous noise of music in the market-place, and another procession was formed, which marched off round the town, and at last stopped before the door of a house. Here they remained for a long time. There was a great deal of cheering, and the band played tune after tune, finishing up with the Belgian National Anthem. And what do you think it was all about? A boy whose parents lived in the house had gained a prize at school. That was all; but it was an excuse for a procession, music, and ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... at school, and afterwards desiring me in my turn to relate to him all manner of things about Germany. He repeats his amo, amas, amavi, in the same singing tone as our common school-boys. As I happened once when he was by, to hum a lively tune, he stared at me with surprise, and then reminded me it was Sunday; and so, that I might not forfeit his good opinion by any appearance of levity, I gave him to understand that, in the hurry of my journey, I had forgotten the day. ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... added:—"God grant that their punishment be not so long delayed as to involve a great and innocent family, who, though they share not the guilt, will most likely participate in the atonement." Sir George Saville followed, and in his speech likened the crown and parliament to dancers in a minuet, to a tune composed by the cabinet—the crown led off one way, the parliament to the opposite corner; and they then joined hands, when the dance ended as it began. He also compared ministers to the Spartan, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... gait of the measure, somewhat formal and slow, as befits an invocation; and now mark how the same feet shall be made to quicken their pace at the bidding of the tune:— ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... 'tis a thing that lives In the light of many a shrine; And the gem of its own pure feelings gives Too oft on brows that are false to shine; It has many a cloud of care and woe To shadow o'er its springs, And the One above alone may know The changing tune ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made. Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune, Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon. The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... it was broken soon by a lively whistle, shrilling out a rollicking tune; the next moment a boy came running into the room. Curly, rosy, dirty, ragged, laughing, panting, little Benjamin stood still and looked round on all ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... Clock-maker might make a Set of Chimes to be a part of a Clock, and yet, when the watch part or striking part are taken away, and the hindrances of its motion remov'd, this chiming part may go as accurately, and strike its tune as exactly, as if it were still a part of the compounded Automaton. So, though the original cause, or seminal principle from which this minute Plant on Rose leaves did spring; were, before the corruption caus'd by the ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... of God, dear child. We are out of tune when God finds us. He puts us in tune with our great keynote Jesus, and then we are like an Aeolian harp. The west and the east winds make music through it, and the shrieking storm the sweetest music of all. But remember, ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... "And even if she is my dad's scholarship girl there's a heap of fun in the ridiculous situation. I'll find Judy and tell her the whole thing. Too good to keep; too funny to spoil," and the blue serge skirt that fanned the boxwood a moment later never swished a swish. Jane did not give it tune ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... carol singing," said Monty sententiously, "is that everybody's generally so beastly out of tune. They don't seem able to keep the pitch without ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... both cracked—you and Judith—or am I dreaming? I have read your letters a score of times, and I think I understand them less than I did. Here are sweet bells jangled out of tune with a vengeance, and Heaven only knows what all the row ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... quite unconsciously, tapping out a popular and cheap little air that she had been strumming at the piano the evening before, having bought it down town that same afternoon. It had struck Orville's fancy, and she had played it over and over for him. Her right forefinger was playing the entire tune, and something in the back of her head was following it accurately, though the separate thinking process was going on just the same. Her eyes were bright, and wide, and hot. Suddenly she became conscious of ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... bricks fallin' off 'n a slated rufe. The genius of Ammerikin liberty, in the shape of the carnivorous eagle, soarin' aloft on diluted pillions, seems to mutter E Pluribus Unum—we are one of 'em! Hail Columby happy land! Sing Yankee Doodle that fine tune—cry havock! and let looset ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... you have, Richard. I went up to the Hall to beg for the fragments off the rich man's table. Lady Bountiful, who was bountiful in nought but reviling, was the person whom I met. Bridewell and the stocks was the tune, and the big dog sang the chorus at my heels. But I'll be more than even with her. If I have the heart to feel an injury, she shall find that I've a head to help my heart to its ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... modest, and softly breathe them in the ears of the lowly! Ye towering pines, and humble shrubs, ye fragrant flowers, and, more than all, ye broad and stately oaks, bind your heads, and wave your branches, and adore! Ye warbling fountains, warbling tune his praise! Praise him, ye beasts, in different strains! And let the birds, that soar on lofty wings, and scale the path of heaven, bear, in their various melody, the notes of adoration to the skies! Mortals, ye favoured sons of the eternal father, be it yours ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... edition is selling, for the sake of Messrs. Smith & Elder. I rather feared it would remain on hand, and occasion loss. Wuthering Heights it appears is selling too, and consequently Mr. Newby is getting into marvellously good tune with his authors.—I remain, my ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... pouring rain George whistled up the village street, whistled up the stairs, whistled into the sitting—room. Then stopped his tune. The buoyant notes of triumph dwindled to a tuneless squeak, to a noiseless breathing—Bill Wyvern, seated at a table, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... of all the twenty-four—when the soul slips half out of sheath, and hovers in the cool; when the spirit is most in tune with what, soon or late, happens to all spirits; hour when a man cares least whether or no he be alive, as we understand the word.... "None of us goes such a brave way off—there's room for all, dead or alive." Though it was almost unbearably colourless, and quiet, there was warmth ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... contained a tin funeral wreath that had been displayed that winter in the window of the village undertaker—Kid had bought it cheap, owing to fly specks that would not rub off. The wreath was hoisted on the end of a shinny stick and marched through the corridor to the tune of "John Brown's Body," while Mademoiselle ineffectually wrung her hands and ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... the difference from generation to generation with but slight variations, may be, so to speak, in the way the molecules and atoms of our bodies take hold of hands and perform their mystic dances in the inner temple of life. But one would like to know who or what pipes the tune and directs the figures of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... and resolute answer of the parents, had shifted about in their places; but, although they were on the point of leaving the house, had remained behind, sadly out of harmony; when the son came in, and happily with a word set all in tune again. So the relations addressed the parents, and said, "Pray defer to-night's affair;" and laid the son's apologies at their feet. As for the parents, who would not have disinherited their son even had he not ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... the senseless thing, Oppress'd and faint with toiling in the stream!" Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream; Meanwhile, her lily fingers task to twine His uncrispt ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Means run away with the purchase fall. Move to the tune of the fifer. The first move when a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... tail of his eye, and looks glummer than ever, just because I'm a woman—as if I could help that. I have gone good lengths to set his mind at ease. I have stuck my pen behind my ear, I have made him a bow instead of a curtsey, I have whistled—not a tune I can't pipe up that—nay, if you won't tell my lady, I don't mind telling you that I have said 'Confound it!' and 'Zounds!' I can't get any farther. For all that, Mr. Horner won't forget I am a lady, and so I am not half the use I might be, and if it were not to please my ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... breakfast was ended, he perceived Marie rush to the window, and then hastily, and with a dainty coyness withdraw her head from the pane. Simultaneously he heard a sprightly tune whistled, as if by some glad, young heart that knew no care. Looking now, he saw a tall, well-formed young whiteman, a gun on his back, and a dog at his heels, walking along the little meadow-path toward ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... sea, they set sail for "the rendezvous of the fleet," which had been fixed for Springers' Key "another of the Samballoes Isles." Perhaps the English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege of the guests, aboard ship, to the old anchor tune, with its mournful ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... wondered why darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak the omission by saying that they resembled eleven o'clock in the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... "now you are prophesying to another tune, and one is as bad as the other. Give it up; you are no prophet. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... possession of a violin and the moment it is yours, may play upon it. It is yours. If you are in the mood to play, it must be ready for you. If it is not, then tune it, and it will be.[G] But a human being cannot be treated so in any human relationship. It needs mutual patience and mutual respect to ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... that old familiar air Sweet as the bugle call, 'All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall.'" Ah, wondrous was the old tune's spell. As on the soldiers sang; Man after man fell into line, And loud ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... home the philanthropist saw even more evidences of Christmas gaiety along the streets than before. He stepped out briskly, in spite of his sixty-eight years; he even hummed a little tune. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... far-reaching that you only knew of it by that little wind. It was early March by the calendar, but the wind was blowing out of the gates of April. A platoon commander, feeling that mild wind blowing, forgot his map and began to whistle a tune that suddenly came to him out of the past with the wind. Out of the past it blew and out of the South, a merry vernal tune of a Southern people. Perhaps only one of those that noticed the tune had ever heard it before. An officer sitting near had heard it sung; it ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... when school-tune arrived, there was Sheen with his face in the condition described, and Stanning hastened to spread abroad this sequel to the story of Sheen's failings in the town battle. By the end of preparation it had got about the school that Sheen had cheeked Attell, that Attell had hit Sheen, ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... of defending his friends, came vigorously to the defense of the playwright, to whom he was devoted and whose first nights he seldom missed. In the discussion which followed Charmian saw more clearly how peculiarly in tune her mother's ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... perfect, a final and immutable harmony. There is, according to this view, one simple chord and one only, which the great organ of society is adapted to play; and the business of the legislator is merely to tune the instrument so that it shall play it correctly. Thus, if Plato could have had his way, his great common chord, his harmony of producers, soldiers and philosophers, would still have been droning monotonously down the ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... wound her affection, than its meanness alienates her respect; and one so strong to bear injury might well be equally strong to remember it. Therewithal she knows full well that, in so delicate an instrument as married life, if one string be out of tune the whole is ajar, and will yield no music: for her, therefore, all things must be right, else none are so. And she is both too clear of mind and too upright of heart to put herself where she cannot be precisely what the laws of propriety and decorum require ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... account of the origin of this song:—Jessy Lewars had a call one morning from Burns. He offered, if she would play him any tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, that he would do his best to gratify her wish. She sat down at the piano, and played over and over the air of an old song, beginning ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... ring. After finishing their sketches the children would enjoy comparing them with the illustration of Der Wolf und die Sieben Geislein in Das Deutsche Bilderbuech, and perhaps they might try making a second sketch. This same tale would afford the children a chance to compose a simple tune and a simple song, such as the well-taught kindergarten child to-day knows. Such are songs which express a single theme and a single mood; as, The Muffin Man and To the Great Brown House; or There was a Small Boy with a Toot and Dapple Gray in St. ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... that tune. Man is born with an innate knowledge of the strain of "Yankee Doodle." No one can remember when he first learned it. The reason is because he never learned it at all. It ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... hand, or walk differently, or begin to sing with it. In one way or another the music will make us do something—that shows its power. I have seen in many European towns a group of children about the organ-man,[2] dancing or singing as he played and enjoying every tune to the utmost. This taught me that music of every kind has its lover, and that with a little pains and a little patience the love for music belongs to all alike, and may be increased if other things ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... than was good for my broken leg, he gave me such a hint, that I was compelled to direct him to the cupboard, wherein I kept the liquor-stand; and unluckily enough, as I had not for some time been in drinking tune, all three of the bottles were brimful; and, as I am a Christian man, he drank in spite of all I could say—I could not leave the couch to get at him—two of them to the dregs; and, after frightening me almost to death, fell flat upon the floor, and lay there fast asleep when Tim ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... For the tune was floating in his memory as he had heard it sung that morning by the fresh young voices, and out came the joyous notes under ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... my thought I held, And yet all thro' it The wires all England over shrill'd, And I never knew it! In a high muse I nurst my news All the forenoon, While England braced her limbs and thews To a marching tune. ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... you have spoken the word, I begin to feel that it is so; but I have been feeding myself with wonder this long time past: really, it's quite true," quoth I, as I saw her smile, O so prettily! But just then from some tower high up in the air came the sound of silvery chimes playing a sweet clear tune, that sounded to my unaccustomed ears like the song of the first blackbird in the spring, and called a rush of memories to my mind, some of bad times, some of good, but all sweetened ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... flexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through the composition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps double motion, like the earth,—running the primary circuit of the tune, and still revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, when you are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... proved, the Empire had not yet reached its final stage. Now that the Dominions helped to pay the piper, henceforth they would insist on a share in calling the tune. That the decision as to peace and war must no longer rest solely with the government of Great Britain, however wisely that power had been used in this instance, became the conviction of the many instead of the few. It was still matter for serious debate ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... former view. Even in Bloomingdale, this sort of thing would be coldly received. Genius must ever walk alone. Spike would have to get along without hope of meeting a kindred spirit, another fellow-being in tune with ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... wars, the first diet in gentlemen's houses that was brought to table at Christmas was a boar's head with a lemon in his mouth. At Queen's College, Oxford, the custom is retained; the bearer of it brings it into the hall singing to an old tune, an old Latin rhyme, Caput Apri ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... is rightly regarded by many people as being little better than an instrument of torture. One reason for this aversion is that, in the great majority of cases, the household instrument is not kept in tune. Probably it is not too much to say that the man who would invent a sound cottage piano which would remain in tune would do more for the improvement of the national taste in music than the largest and finest orchestra ever assembled. The constantly ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... hear me. Do you know why I have treated you so badly? Do you know why I have taught your wife to regard me as a rival? Why I have blackmailed you to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds? Do you know why I have done all this and more? I will tell you. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 5, 1892 • Various
... her that she was pale. 'Don't forget to——' But she had forgotten what Ethel was not to forget. Her head reeled as it lay firmly on the pillow. The waves were waves of sound now, and they developed into a rhythm, a tune. She had barely time to discover that the tune was the Blue Danube Waltz, and that she was dancing, when the whole world came ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... into the Moorish palace by the music of three blind minstrels who began to tune their guitars as soon as they felt us: see us they could not. Then presently we were in the famous Court of the Lions, where a group of those beasts, at once archaic and puerile in conception, sustained the basin of a fountain in the midst of a graveled court arabesqued ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... that every morning when he finds his standards are down and he feels lazy and indifferent he "hauls himself over the coals," as he calls it, in order to force himself up to a higher standard and put himself in tune for the day. It is the very ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... The tune at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, that began in distant echoes, but after a few minutes' the playing grew firmer and clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness and strength until the atmosphere was satiated with harmony. No more ethereal note ever flew out of a bird's throat ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... local names and things. There was no evening paper in those days, and had there been it was very unlikely it would have penetrated into all the common stairs and crowded tenements. But Allan's songs, of which Jean or Peggy would "ken the tune," and the stories that would delight the bairns, were better worth the penny than news from distant London, which was altogether foreign and unknown to that ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... less will croak and croak As he ever caws and caws, Till the starry dance he broke, Till the sphery paean pause, And the universal chime Falter out of tune and time. ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... side of it. For in the East the hermits seem to have degenerated, by the time of the Mahomedan conquest, into mere self-torturing fakeers, like those who may be seen to this day in Hindostan. The salt lost its savour, and in due tune it was trampled under foot; and the armies of the Moslem swept out of the East a superstition which had ended by enervating instead of ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... arrived; five minutes later the two friends were mounted upon their luggage in it, and rattling off toward the station, the Colonel endeavoring to sing "Homeward Bound," a song whose words he knew, but whose tune, as he rendered it, was a ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... chance, we reflect that any specific problems raised by Bill in that manifesto will by this time have settled themselves. And his random speculations upon household management and human destiny will probably have taken a new slant by now, so that to answer his letter in its own tune will not be congruent with his present fevers. We had better bide a wee until we really have something of ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... show my nose in that house, I should go out quicker than I came in. All this, and more, my least distant relative could tell a poor devil to his face; could ring for his man, and give him his brutal instructions on the spot; and then relent to the tune of this telegram! I have no phrase for my amazement. I literally could not believe my eyes. Yet their evidence was more and more conclusive: a very epistle could not have been more characteristic of its sender. Meanly elliptical, ludicrously precise, saving half-pence ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... soon change her tune on the gateway, master, where the nights are cold and the day is hot for those who have neither cloaks for their backs nor water for their stomachs. Come on, Blue Eyes, but first give me that necklet of pearls, which may serve to buy a bit of bread or a drink of wine," ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... be without strife? Forward!" were pre-eminently becoming, though he never strove with any one and never did go forward. It did not even sound mawkish when he fell to discoursing of ideals. Every anniversary of the university, on St. Tatiana's Day, he got drunk, chanted Gaudeamus out of tune, and his beaming and perspiring countenance seemed to say: "See, I'm drunk; I'm keeping it up!" ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the old Northern Races should have held a strong attraction for Borrow is not to be wondered at. His restless nature and his roving habits were well in tune with the spirit of the old Heroic Ballads; whilst his taste for all that was mythical or vagabond (vagabond in the literal, and not in the conventional, sense of the word) would prompt him to welcome with no common ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... half a year of white snow, and sleigh-drives every day, and bells ringing all the time! I tried to make out a tune, but they only seemed to say, 'Up-hill, up-hill! down-hill, down-hill!' all the way. Nurse, please tell me what ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... began to whistle—not a tune, but something of an imitation of a blackbird; and as I was envying him his coolness in danger I heard a scratching noise and saw a line of light. Then there was another scratch and a series of little sparkles. Another scratch, and a blue flame as the brimstone ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... paused, his eyes fixed anxiously upon our Indian allies, De Croix began to hum a popular tune of the day, riding meanwhile, hat in hand, with one foot out of the stirrup to beat the time. Then Jordan caught up the refrain, and sang a verse. I saw one or two of the older Indians glance around at him ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... singular after-sound—an exceedingly soft yet vibrant overtone—accompanied it. The syllables set something quivering within him, something that sang, running of its own accord into a melody to which his rising pulses beat time and tune. ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... hillside to flow smoothly like a belt of beautiful ribbon through the pasture land below. The love which comes for these things, Cicely, is a strange, haunting thing. You cannot escape from it. It is a sort of bondage. The winds seem to tune themselves to your thoughts, the sunlight laughs away your depression. Listen! Do you hear the sheep-bells from behind the hill there? Isn't that music? Then the twilight and the darkness! If you are on the ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... fellow-culprits, my eager eye soon discovered the object of its search. He was sitting with folded arms, perched on a carpenter's bench, and with the most wo-begone countenance imaginable, whistling a favorite air, and beating time against the side of the bench with his long, pendulous legs. I can hear the tune yet, "Nix my Dolly;" and who that has ever seen "Jack ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... themselves under the surveillance of a number of "discreet persons." The leader chosen to conduct the services, would in some cases read a passage from the Scriptures and "line a hymn," which the slaves took up in their turn and sang in a tune of their own suitable to the meter. In case they had present no one who could read, or the law forbade such an exercise, some exhorter among the slaves would be given an opportunity to address the people, basing his remarks as far ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... tabors, beaten without any attempt at a tune, but with unremitting monotony, then the baying of many hounds more distant. There was a bustle. Many Sheikhs slowly rose; their followers rushed about; some looked at their musket locks, some poised their pikes and spears, some unsheathed ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... confuse too soon, What he has known with what may be, He reads a planet out of tune For cause of his ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... to leave these pretty Shades, The Gods and Nature have design'd for Love: Oh, my Amintas, wou'd I were what I seem, And thou some humble Villager hard by, That knew no other pleasure than to love, To feed thy little Herd, to tune a Pipe, To which the Nymphs should listen all the Day; We'd taste the Waters of these Crystal Springs, With more delight than all delicious Wines; And being weary, on a Bed of Moss, Having no other Canopy but Trees, We'd lay us down, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... than the succeeding part of the day, I was in a capacity of being kept for some time in the spirit as it were out of the body, and of attending carefully to the affection which was sung. The singing of heaven is an affection of the mind, sent forth through the mouth as a tune: for the tone of the voice in speaking, separate from the discourse of the speaking, and grounded in the affection of love, is what gives life to the speech. In that state I perceived that it was the affection of the delights of conjugial love, which was made musical by wives in heaven: ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... time: more of their quaint punchinello chinoiserie, you say. Three weeks after, you find that it was a clear voice from the supermundane, a high revelation. The Chinese poet saunters along playing a common little tune on his Pan-pipes. Singing robes?— None in the world; just what he goes to work in. Grand Manner?— 'Sir,' says he, 'the contemptible present singer never heard of it; wait for that till the coming of a Superior Man.'—'Well,' you say, 'at ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... table was arranged festively. The betrothed sat together, and Otto had the place of honor—he sat on the other side of Sophie. The preacher had written a song to the tune of "Be thou our social guardian-goddess;" this was sung. Otto's voice sounded beautifully and strong; he rang his glass with the betrothed pair, and the Kammerjunker said that now Mr. Thostrup must speedily seek out a ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... once heard something of Crosbie having behaved very ill to some one before he married Lady Alexandra De Courcy. He stopped his horse also, falling a little behind Lily, so that he might not be supposed to have seen her tears, and began to hum a tune. Emily also, though not wickedly clever, understood something of it. "If Bernard says anything to make you angry, I will scold him," she said. Then the two girls rode on together in front, while Bernard ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... victorious," a line which always bothers Johnny. However, he got right through it at last, after harking back no more than twice, and I sat down to my work again. Generally speaking, "God Save the King" ends a show; it would be disloyal to play any other tune after that. Johnny quite saw this ... and so began to play ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... joined in the hymns. Rail, the baker's assistant, who had once been a steady attendant at Revivalist meetings, led off with a Moody and Sankey hymn, and the crew followed, bawling at the top pitch of their lungs, with now and then some suggestion of a tune. The little stuffy cabin rang with the noise. It burst upwards through the companion-way, loud and earnest and plaintive, and the winds caught it and carried it over the water, a thin and appealing cry. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... this, though very much a rub like For Ministers, convinced the public; And Priam, who liked to hear its brays To any tune but "the Marseillaise," Summoned a Privy Council, where 'Twas shortly settled to confer On Helenus a sole command Of Specials.—He headed ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... the clock there: the time was between a quarter and ten minutes to one. At the entrance of Down Street he turned aside again, and began to lead me a zigzag dance through the quiet thoroughfare: and I followed, still to the tune ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... greatest interest, too, in the romance of Phoebe and Jem, for the course of true love did not run at all smooth for this young couple. Jack wrote a ballad about her, and Egeria made a tune to it, and sang it to the tinkling, old-fashioned piano ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... trunk on his shoulders, and the tailor seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who could not see what he was doing, had the whole tree to carry, and the little man on it as well. And the little man was very cheerful and merry, and whistled the tune: "There were three tailors riding by," as if carrying the tree was mere child's play. The giant, when he had struggled on under his heavy load a part of the way, was ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... somewhat advanced in years, had taken a seat behind the reading-desk, and opening the large Bible that lay upon it, selected a chapter, and now invited the attention of the audience to its contents. Upon its conclusion he gave out a hymn, the tune of which was announced by another person, who immediately on naming it pulled out a pitch-pipe from his pocket and making a slight sound, furnished the starting note. The singing proceeded principally from a certain part of the room, as if by some understanding the singers ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... I'm a poor, mis'rable critter. Kind o' out o' tune with everybody I know. Alwus quarrelled with my own folks, an' now I ain't got any home. Someday I'm goin' t' die in the poorhouse er on the ground under these woods. But I tell ye'—here he spoke in a voice that grew loud with feeling—'mebbe ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... feel confident that, with your kind assistance, I may accomplish it. But, Barnstaple, the beginning is everything. If I only had the first chapter as a start, I think I could get on. It is the modus that I want—the style. A first chapter would be a key-note for the remainder of the tune, with all the variations. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... quite forsaken her, or at best floated idly across her dreams. What held her to fortitude had been the drone and intermittent hoot of a steam-organ many streets away. It belonged to a roundabout, and regularly tuned up towards evening; so distant that Tilda could not distinguish one tune from another; only the thud of its bass mingled with the buzz of a fly on the window and with the hard breathing ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits to which my reason had been a bubble were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chaunted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile, and I heavily walked up-stairs unsaying every word I had said in ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Fat's had wrought. Woe me (he cryes) but now aliue, now dead, But now inuincible, now captiue brought: In this, vniust are Fat's, and Death declared, That mighty ones, no more than meane are spared. You powers of heauen, rayne honour on his hearse, And tune the Cherubins to sing his fame, Let Infants in the last age him rehearse, And let no more, honour be Honor's name: Let him that will obtaine immortall vearse, Conquer the stile of Grinuile to the same, For till that fire shall all the world consume, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... if they could manage to rent or borrow one. There were several who sang, and one who played the flute and caused all the others to tear their hair. There was a boy fresh from the country, who declared that he had run away from home because the family sang hymns all day Sunday, and never sang in tune. ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... Shade. Ain't that pretty? I know that tune," said Johnnie, and she began to hum softly under her breath, her girlish heart ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... my own. If you know these ballads, you will find that they mirror perfectly your every mood. If you are weary and down-hearted, behold, a verse starts to your memory trembling with the very sigh you have heaved. If you are merry, a stanza is dancing to the tune of your own mirth. If you love, be you ever so much a Romeo, here is the finest language for your using. If you hate, here are words which are daggers. If you like battle, here for two hundred years have trumpets been blowing and banners flapping. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... won't; and it was very good of you," said Drusie warmly; and Hal, feeling that he had behaved very generously, went on his way whistling a cheerful tune. ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... The prince drove in his own carriage, and I in a wretched little droshky, hired for an immense sum for this solemn occasion. I am not going to describe that ball. Everything about it was just as it always is. There was a band, with trumpets extraordinarily out of tune, in the gallery; there were country gentlemen, greatly flustered, with their inevitable families, mauve ices, viscous lemonade; servants in boots trodden down at heel and knitted cotton gloves; provincial lions with spasmodically contorted faces, and so on and so on. And all this little world ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... vast flocks of them assemble at this time in the fields, and some doubtless travel southwards and westwards in search of warmer quarters. The other evening a large flock of lapwings, or common plover, gave a very fine display—a sort of serpentine dance to the tune of the setting sun, all for my edification. They could not quite make up their minds to settle on a brown ploughed field. No sooner had they touched the ground than they would rise again with shrill cries, flash here and flash there, faster and faster, but all in perfect time and all in perfect ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... reached me to-night, just in the nick of tune, and I enclose a letter which I was just about to send to the Editor of the London 'Standard.' Please send it to that or any other paper you like, barring the 'Times,' 'Saturday Review,' or 'Pall Mall Gazette.' I wrote another letter to the 'Times,' ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... you look!" she said scornfully, stirring the clear brown liquid and inhaling its savoury odour with intense satisfaction. "I don't see anything to laugh at;" and she began to hum the tune of an old nursery rhyme, as if utterly indifferent to both Dick ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... ill luck. Take this thing, for instance." He held up a sheet of music paper, whereon he had evidently been writing before Larcher's arrival. "A song, supposed to be sentimental. As the idea is somewhat novel, the words happy, and the tune rather quaint, I shall probably get a publisher for it, who will offer me the lowest royalty. What then? Its fame and sale—or whether it shall have any—will depend entirely on what advertising it gets from being sung by professional singers. I have taken the ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... policies, including introducing a 20% value-added tax (VAT) in 1993, and has agreed to an IMF economic-political stabilization plan. In addition to its annual subsidy, the Danish government has bailed out the second largest Faroe bank to the tune of $140 million since ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... six-footer, stood up and bit his tuning-fork to catch the pitch, the people straightened up in their seats and prepared to follow his lead. And after his great resonant voice had rolled out the first few notes of the tune, they caught him up with a vigor and enthusiasm that carried him along, and inspired him to his mightiest efforts. Wonderful singing it was, full toned, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... annum, quia jam virium abunde habeat, nec sit sui dimidia. Omnia sanantem appellantes suo vocabulo, sacrificiis epulisque rite sub arbore praeparatis, duos admovent candidi coloria tauros, quorum cornua tune primum vinciantur. Sacerdos candida veste cultus arborem scandit, falce aurea demetit; candido id excipitur sago. Tum deinde victimas immolant, precantes ut suum donum deus prosperum facial his ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... sea and the stars, And the ghostly bars Of the shoals all bright 'neath the feet of the moon; The night that glistens, And stops and listens To the half-heard beat of an endless tune. ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... vapor hung tremulous over the surface of the waters. The stars quivered. The cocks called to each other from either bank, and sometimes in the depths of the sky they heard the trilling of larks ascending from earth, deceived by the light of the moon. They were silent. Gottfried hummed a tune. Jeremy told strange tales of the lives of the beasts—tales that gained in mystery from the curt and enigmatic manner of their telling. The moon hid herself behind the woods. They skirted the black ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... voice, too, that raised the tune. Then she asked Thomas to read a chapter of the Bible and afterwards to pray. We all knelt down, and Thomas made a strong effort to steady his voice, but he failed utterly; then the dear mother herself lifted the voice of thanksgiving for the victory ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... Doctor Geddes, in a voice of pure astonishment, "I knew you could tinkle out a tune on a piano, but, man, I didn't dream it was in you to sing like this!" And he stared at ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... my Lord of Suffolk comfort me? Came he right now to sing a raven's note Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers, And thinks he that the chirping of a wren, By crying comfort from a hollow breast, Can chase away the first-conceived sound? Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words; Lay not thy hands ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... by one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called themselves "God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant." To the profane, they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a noted humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings always opened to the tune of "The Deil Fly Away with the Exciseman," and that the sacrament was dispensed in the form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked hits at the evangelist, who had been suspected of smuggling in his youth, and had been overtaken (as the phrase went) ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old Wetherby!" said Jimmy, climbing into the rear seat of the sleigh and pulling a comfortable lap robe around his legs. A ripping team of bays, sturdy, and eager to be off, fully occupied the driver's attention. The sleigh bells sang a tune to thrill the blood. The steam from the horses' nostrils blew out in regular spurts, ending in rhythmic and quickly dissipating clouds. Jimmy Gollop enjoyed it all, and was glad he had come. He leaned back and admired the road ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... the old records I could show you them cut in stone, as you can see them in the museums in Cairo, or in London when we return, the bragging, boasting blasphemies of this or that conquering king, all to the same tune—'I came, I saw, I conquered; I slew so many thousands of the people—I took so many thousands into captivity—I built this temple to the gods—I raised this obelisk or that pyramid'—and all by ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... declared the acceptable time. To enjoy the moment, and to make much of the moment while it lasts, is the very keynote of Nature's happiness, and David Helmsley found himself on this particular morning more or less in tune with the general sentiment. Certain sad thoughts oppressed him from time to time, but they were tempered and well-nigh overcome by the secret pleasure he felt within himself at having been given the means wherewith to ensure happiness for those ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... wave of her hand she was gone, and Stuart hurried to his office, whistling the old tune she had just sung. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... kind of religion, a disease; that it means having visions, performing conjuring tricks, leading an idle, dreamy, and selfish life, neglecting one's business, wallowing in vague spiritual emotions, and being "in tune with the infinite." He will discover that it emancipates him from all dogmas—sometimes from all morality— and at the same time that it is very superstitious. One expert tells him that it is simply "Catholic piety," another ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... watch upon their demeanor, and noted with prodigious relief that his wild scheme was succeeding better than he had dared to hope. Without any break in the entertainment he communicated his reassurance to Miss Dwyer by singing, to the tune of "My Country, 'tis of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... the more popular songs, or adapted words to their airs, with the view of interesting her friends, or producing good humour and happiness in the family circle. She had formed the acquaintance of Neil Gow, the celebrated violinist, and composed, at his particular request, the words to his popular tune "Farewell to Whisky,"—the only lyric from her pen which has hitherto been published. In all the collections of Scottish song, it appears as anonymous. In the present work, it is printed from a copy in one ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... courage, confidence, and cheer. Any other atmosphere puts them out of their element, handicapped by abnormal conditions for which they were never fashioned. We were written in a major key, and when we try to change over into minor tones we get sadly out of tune. ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... me, Arnold," she said softly. "After all, Isobel is but a child. What cunning tune can she have played upon your heartstrings that you should espouse her cause with so much fervour? If she were a few years ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shores, Proud Jason starts, confounded in his might, Leads back his peers, and dares no more the fight. But the sly Priestess brings her opiate spell, Soft charms that hush the triple hound of hell, Bids Orpheus tune his all-enchanting lyre, And join to calm the guardian's sleepless ire. Soon from the tepid ground blue vapors rise, And sounds melodious move along the skies; A settling tremor thro his folds extends, His crest contracts, his rainbow ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow |
