"Buzz" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great gadfly, as big as a bat, and sent it to buzz in the white cow's ears, and to bite her and sting her so that she could have no rest all day long. Poor Io ran from place to place to get out of its way; but it buzzed and buzzed, and stung and stung, ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... crowns, and an examination in which Raleigh's friend Captain Keymis admitted a private interview between Cobham and Raleigh during Count Aremberg's stay in London, were then read. In the discussion on these documents the court and the prisoner fell to actual wrangling; in the buzz of voices it was hard to tell what was said, until a certain impression was at last made by Coke, who screamed out that Raleigh 'had a Spanish heart and was a spider of hell.' This produced a lull, and thereupon followed an irrelevant dispute as to whether ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... this hour. Excuse me for a moment," and before Handy could say another word Fogg was half-way down the first flight of stairs. The noise of the opening and closing of the street door was heard, and then succeeded a buzz of female voices accompanied by a patter of feet on the stairs. Before Handy had time to prepare to receive visitors, the door opened and Fogg, his face lighted up with the broadest kind of a smile, made his appearance, and ushered in the committee, which consisted ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... like music, Some voices arouse to action and ambition. Some voices fill you with despondency. Some voices irritate like a buzz-saw. Some voices snap like turtles, and some hiss ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to fragments of the talk O'Malley found ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... beside the elevator and on around the end, and then, with an exclamation, he hurried forward; for there was the same idle crowd about the tracks that had been there during the trouble with the section boss—the same buzz of talk, and the idle laughter and shouting. As he ran, his foot struck a timber-end, and he sprawled forward for nearly a rod before recovering his balance; then he stopped and looked along the ground. A ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... and the chafers began to buzz; And the swallows began to chatter: "We have come from abroad with the summer at last. How lazy ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... low-toned conversation carried on by the two young officers, with an occasional creak or rattle from a swinging sail was all that broke the silence of the drowsy vessel; now from everywhere came the buzz of voices and ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... waited. The Man-eater came in late, very tired with his long walk, and flung himself on the bed, placing his sword with its shining blade by his side. Scarcely had he lain down than the mosquitos began to buzz about and bite him, and he rolled from side to side trying to catch them, which he never could do, though they always seemed to be close to his nose. He was so busy over the mosquitos that he did not hear Ciccu steal softly out, or see him catch up the sword. But the horse heard ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... the torture. In the market-place of Loudun in 1643 this terrible sentence was carried into execution, and together with his book, Contra Caelibatum Clericorum, poor Grandier was committed to the flames. When he ascended his funeral pile, a fly was observed to buzz around his head. A monk who was standing near declared that, as Beelzebub was the god of flies, the devil was present with Grandier in his dying hour and wished to bear away his soul to the infernal regions. An account ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... pieces, the anecdotes of the day, which form the common talk among all the idlers of the capital, must furnish them with subjects in working up which little delay can be brooked. These vaudevilles are like the gnats that buzz about in a summer evening; they often sting, but they fly merrily about so long as the sun of opportunity shines upon them. A piece like the Despair of Jocrisse, which, after a lapse of years, may be still occasionally brought out, passes justly among the ephemeral ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... regard it as intrinsic. This tendency to silence, to go out of the rattle and dazzle of the conversation into a quiet apart, is largely, I hold, the consequence of a certain elevation and breadth and tenderness of mind; I am no blowfly to buzz my way through the universe, no rattle that I should be expected to delight my fellow-creatures by the noises I produce. I go about to this social function and that, deporting myself gravely and decently in silence, taking, if possible, a back seat; and, in consequence ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... better believe—I want it quick. I found it, and I'm gwine to give it up; and you have got no right to jeppardy my life, if you are fool enough to resk your own stiff neck. Gim'me that hank'cher! Fantods is played out. I would ruther play leap frog over a buzz-saw than—than—pester and rile Marse Alfred, and have the cunstable ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... from the emptying town A crowd of five thousand all rushing down; They hurry, they scurry, they buzz, they brize, And all to see this witch in a blaze. Deep in the midst of the jubilant throng A harmless woman is hurried along,— She is weary, and wheezing for lack of breath, And o'er all her face is the pallor of death; And she says, as they push her, in grim despair, "Ye needna hurry ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... towards the ground like an untrained honeysuckle—and but for one, in my own house—but of this I cannot speak. It was a lonely life, growing green like the grass around it. Books and dreams were what I lived in—and domestic life only seemed to buzz gently around, like the bees about the grass. And so time passed, and passed—and afterwards, when my illness came and I seemed to stand at the edge of the world with all done, and no prospect (as appeared at one time) of ever passing the threshold of one room again; ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... man entered into a lively little war of words with a yellow-haired young person near the door. Anna picked up an ancient magazine, and began to turn over the pages in a leisurely way. The conversation which her entrance had interrupted began to buzz again all around her. A quarter of an hour passed. Then the inner door opened abruptly. A tall, clean-shaven man came out and walked rapidly through the room, exchanging greetings right and left, but evidently anxious ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... solemn dinner ever I sat at. Not a health drank, scarce a word said until the cloth was taken away. Then the President, filling a glass of wine, with great formality drank to the health of every individual by name around the table. Everybody imitated him and changed glasses and such a buzz of 'health, sir,' and 'health, madam,' and 'thank you, sir,' and 'thank you, madam' never had I heard before.... The ladies sat a good while and the bottles passed about; but there was a dead silence almost. Mrs. Washington at last withdrew with ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... politics with the pestering faculty of an old maid and the persistency of a child. Minds like his prefer to dash themselves against the light; they return again and again and hum about it without ever getting into it, like those big flies which weary our ears as they buzz upon the glass. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... marshes, and a trickling of light green down around each tue, or little mound of earth covered with moss and tiny berry plants. Ptarmigans roam about in solitary pairs, murmuring when any one comes too near their nests; gnats and horseflies buzz through the air; and cows, with tails set straight up, scamper friskily about, trying to escape ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... right-hand corner of the picture. See! I am on board, and I am driving her at one hundred and ten miles." And he followed with his pointer the swift course of the vessel, as it shot down the screen like a great comet, leaving a long tail of smoke behind it. To the overwrought nerves of the audience, the buzz and splutter of the moving-picture machine seemed to increase in volume, and thus lend a semblance of reality to the monster as it ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... release from the day's toil. The workers in the factory, a small army of men and women, boys and girls, poured forth from the doorways of the huge buildings, swarmed up the street, laughing and chattering, and dispersed to their several homes. The buzz and jarring of the machinery have ceased and silence fills the place. Even the offices are deserted, with the exception of one from which issues the steady ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... with the hope of seeing much of her during the Long Vacation. He did see her once at her own reception, but this time her husband wandered about the two rooms. The cosy corner was impossible, and they could only manage to gasp out a few mutual endearments amid the buzz and movement, and to arrange a rendezvous for the end of July. When the day came, he received a heart-broken letter, stating that her husband had borne her away to Goodwood. In a postscript she informed ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... favourite toys, and down which I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... the blast, as the compressed oxygen and acetylene were expelled, carried a fine spray of the disintegrated metal visibly before it. And yet it was not a big hole that it made— scarcely an eighth of an inch wide, but clean and sharp as if a buzz-saw were eating its way through a plank ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared there. And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of the two men ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... Johnson entered her room in response to a peremptory call on the private-telephone, "Inspector Carfon is to honour us with a call during the next few minutes. Give him a chair and a copy of The Sunday at Home, and watch the clues as they peep out of his pockets. Now buzz off." ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... lets loose. Yu' see, one batch o' tourists pulls out right after breakfast for Norris Basin, leavin' things empty and yawnin'. By noon the whole hotel outfit has been slumberin' in its chairs steady for three hours. Maybe yu' might hear a fly buzz, but maybe not. Everything's liable to be restin', barrin' the kid. He's a-watchin' out. Then he sees the dust, and he says 'Stage!' and it touches the folks off like a hot pokeh. The Syndicate manager he ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... was installed in a capital chamber; and if those incarnate demons the musquitoes would have made peace with me, I should have scorned comparisons with the Nabob of the Carnatic. But, oh! immortal gods, how they did hum and bom, and bite and buzz! and how I did fume, and slap, and snatch, and swear, partly in fear, and partly through sheer vexation of spirit, at having no means of vengeance against a foe whose audacity was open and outrageous, whose trumpets were for ever sounding a charge, yet who were withal, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... was more than the ordinary morning commotion of farm life, and the buzz of talk going on at the well and the racing and shouting of a parcel of children all had in it a touch of eagerness and expectancy. While I still was drinking my coffee—in the excellence and delicate service of which I recognized the friendly hand of Mise Fougueiroun—there came a ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... if that fly had a father and a mother? How would he hang his slender gilded wings, And buzz lamenting doings in the air! Poor harmless fly! That, with his pretty buzzing melody, Came here to make us merry! and thou Hast kill'd ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... a buzz in the front of my head as if something was spinning round and round very quickly, and that makes my eyes tired, and there's a sort of feeling as if my head was twice as heavy as it should be. Hang up the glass again. I'll try and ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... out of the hive. Now in a democracy, too, there are drones, but they are more numerous and more dangerous than in the oligarchy; there they are inert and unpractised, here they are full of life and animation; and the keener sort speak and act, while the others buzz about the bema and prevent their opponents from being heard. And there is another class in democratic States, of respectable, thriving individuals, who can be squeezed when the drones have need of their possessions; there ...
— The Republic • Plato
... of impending battle had leaked out among the rest of the body of squires, and a buzz of suppressed excitement hummed through the dormitory that evening. The bachelors, to whom, no doubt, vague rumors had been blown, looked lowering, and talked together in low voices, standing apart in a group. Some of them made a rather marked show of secreting knives in the straw of their beds, ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... The loudest buzz of commercialism is to be heard on the east shores, where fertile valleys and sightly plateaus checkered with farms and gardens stretch away to the foot hills of the Cascade Mountains, comprising five of the most densely ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... his mount ceased to move, and undoing his leathern belt with a jerk, he struck the camel a smart blow on the shoulder. There was the protesting buzz of a large fly and an angry, disabled blundering on the sand, silenced by ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... A reluctant buzz of admiration ran through the crowd. Many of them had come from Paris, but they had never seen such swordsmanship before. Whoever the hunter might be they saw that he was the master swordsman of them all. They addressed low cries of ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... those days such books 'swarm and buzz about one:' 'flap them away,' says Chesterfield, 'they have no sting.' The earl directed the whole force of his mind to oratory, and became the finest speaker of his time. Writing to Sir Horace Mann, about the Hanoverian debate (in 1743, Dec. 15), Walpole praising the speeches of Lords Halifax ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... roof, and were dying in hundreds, in their attempt to escape through the closed windows. There were plenty of apertures in the church through which they could have escaped, if they had had any idea of exploration. But they were content to buzz feebly up and down the panes, till strength failed them, and they dropped down on to the sill among the bodies of their brothers. An old man who was digging in the churchyard told Hugh that the same thing had gone on in the church every ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a bitterly cold night, but there was a long delay before starting. We are rear-guard to-day. Just before leaving an infantry man shot himself while cleaning his rifle. There was a little buzz and stir, and then all was quiet again. He was ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... this fact is becoming generally recognised. You cannot go anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less confused and contradictory talk on this subject—nor can you fail to notice that, in one point at any rate, there is a very decided advance upon like discussions in former days. ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... packed; pastor and people were at their best; and an expectant hush fell over the little audience when Mr. Strong took his seat after reading the weekly announcements. The organ began to play softly, necks were craned to catch a glimpse of the singer, and then a buzz of surprise filled the room. Peace, dressed all in white, and looking like a rosy cherub, had mounted to the organ loft where Faith was playing, and at the proper moment, she began to whistle a beautiful bird melody which ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Czernowitz sat in the other room, talking to Jastro, a buzz of voices came from the hall through the thin pine panels of the door. All day long a sixty-mile gale had twisted the snow of the lane into whirling, fantastic columns and rattled the windows of Franco-Belgian Hall. But now the wind had fallen.... Presently, as his self-made ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in pink, La France roses, place cards from somewhere." He paused to laugh. "Maimie was doing it up brown, but she lacks tact. What does she do but ask for Miss Bentley's picture for the Saturday edition! I tried to stop her, but it was too late. You should have heard the 'phone buzz. 'My niece's picture in the Evening Record!' 'I don't care, mean old thing,' says Maimie, when she hung up. 'Nicer people than she is do it, and are glad to. 'That's all right, my honey,' I told her, 'but there are ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... however, was he seen by his men than there was a loud buzz of voices, and he learned what a change had taken place between them, for instead of being welcomed back with sidelong glances and a half meaning look, the soldiers saluted him with a loud cheer, in which sentries ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... forests in the deepening twilight, one is impressed with a feeling of awe and mystery by the strange, weird shapes outlined against the sky. In the cooler air of evening the animals come from their retreats. The insects and the snakes are then abroad, and if one is on foot the sudden buzz of a rattlesnake is not a pleasant sound ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... arriving occasionally, and never were letters more warmly welcomed. There would be a buzz of excitement while a mail-bag was being sorted, and then a strange quiet would hang over the terraces while every one in his ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... in here, and when I buzz send in Corbett. The poor kiddie!" With which lamentation over the fate he was about to mete out to Miss Adair, Mr. Vandeford dismissed Mr. Meyers and opened the door which led from his sanctum into that which had been so recently assigned to the ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... next the wight, whose drone Bores, sotto voce, you alone With flat colloquial pressure: Debarr'd from general talk, you droop Beneath his buzz, from orient soup, To ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... I somewhat marvel, since there is a compulsory school law in Germany; but perhaps to-day is a holiday; or maybe, after school hours, it is customary for these unhappy youngsters to repair to the road-sides and blister their hands with cracking flints. "Hungry as a buzz-saw" I roll into the sleepy old town of Rothenburg at six o'clock, and, repairing to the principal hotel, order supper. Several flunkeys of different degrees of usefulness come in and bow obsequiously from time to time, as I sit around, expecting supper to appear every minute. At seven ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... down. During the respectful, appreciative buzz of voices that followed the speech, General Montero raised a pair of heavy, drooping eyelids and rolled his eyes with a sort of uneasy dullness from face to face. The military backwoods hero of the party, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... A buzz across the room called the doctor to his personal receiver. It was a message in code from Potomac National Headquarters. We watched the queer-looking characters printing on the tape. Very softly, in a voice hardly above a whisper, Georg ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... shrinking from the crust. "It's a house I seldom go into, though I'm fond of the boys, and Martin Poyser's a good fellow. There's too many women in the house for me: I hate the sound of women's voices; they're always either a-buzz or a-squeak—always either a-buzz or a-squeak. Mrs. Poyser keeps at the top o' the talk like a fife; and as for the young lasses, I'd as soon look at water-grubs. I know what they'll turn to—stinging gnats, stinging gnats. Here, take some ale, my boy: ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... trees, and observed that they were teasing a Hawk about as large as themselves, which was also on the wing. Presently all three had risen above the branches, and were circling higher and higher in a slow spiral. The Crows kept constantly swooping at their enemy, with the same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly the lead. They seldom struck at him with their beaks, but kept lumbering against him, and flapping him with their wings, as if in a fruitless effort to capsize him; while the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... supposing that among all the midges that buzz about a man there happened to be an artist-midge with exceeding sensitiveness of soul, one which was able to recognise a fundamental identity of life between it and the man, one which was able to recognise samenesses of feelings and emotions and aspirations, and by recognition of the samenesses ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... of the Fairview party was not less cordial than had been that of the others, and presently all were seated and a buzz of ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... were the faults of his rival, until no good quality seemed to remain of either. That the public service must suffer was certain, but what were the sufferings of the public service compared with the risks run by a young mosquito — a private secretary — trying to buzz admiration in the ears of each, and unaware that each would impatiently slap at him for belonging to the other? Innocent and unsuspicious beyond what was permitted even in a nursery, the private secretary ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... out, and a buzz of talk and comment ran through the waiting synagogue. Eliphaz had not ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... it is quite amusing. We buzz like bees, in spirit we fly through the whole world, suck honey when we find it, and sting when something displeases us. Such a life is not apt to make great heroes, but queer dicks like us are ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... An' she sais why ain't yo' gone faght fo' th' South ef yo'-all so hot about it, an' Ah sais yo' was eageh to go, but yo' been in the timbeh business, an' one day yo' got rash about yo' saw-mill, an' th' ole buzz-saw jes' natchelly tuk off yo' ahm, so's yo' couldn't go to th' wah. Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah—Ah laid Ah'd brek it grajally—an' Ah suttingly did have that lady a-thinkin' ve'y highly of yo' at th' time of yo' ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... scarcely engaged the attention of the officials when the buzz of a motor, livelier and more nervous than our faithful "thrum, thrum," called to us to turn our heads; and there was Prince Dalmar-Kalm's brilliant car flying up the hill, even as ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... myriads of insects, whose hum and buzz make a good part of the noise and stir of a summer afternoon, are all gone. No whirring wings rush past; there is no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or musical winged bee" to break the stillness; ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... motion is put," said Mr. Maynard, again arising. The Clerk was ready for the emergency, and before Mr. Maynard could complete his sentence, he uttered the imperative and conclusive words, "The Clerk can not recognize as entitled to the floor any gentleman whose name is not on this roll." A buzz of approbation greeted the discreet ruling of the Clerk. The difficult point was passed, and the whole subject of the admission of Southern Representatives was handed over intact, to be deliberately considered after the House should be ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... divertisements. By the time the clock in the steeple strikes twelve the church is well filled. The music of the organist, who has now reached Mendelssohn's Spring Song for the third and last time, is accompanied by a huge buzz of whispers, and there is much craning of necks and long-distance nodding and smiling. Here and there an unusually gorgeous hat is the target of many converging glances, and of as many more or less satirical criticisms. ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... was seated on a bank overhanging the river, which, being shallow at this spot, brawled loudly over its pebbly bed, some parts of which were dry. It was at such a distance from the city, that all the noises common to its streets were united into one buzz or hum, and the whole scene was well adapted to suggest meditations upon private matters, or the affairs of the world in general. Yet Bruin did not seem influenced by any such reflections: if one might venture a ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... Here the company were of both sexes, and of every grade and condition of rank, from the highest noble of the once court, to the humblest peasant of La Vendee. If the sounds of mirth and levity were less frequent, the buzz of conversation was, to the full, as loud as in the lower hall, where, from difference of condition in life, the scenes passing presented stranger and more curious contrasts. In one corner a group of peasants were gathered ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... me down as a wretch, but hear me. I have been ill again, in the first place; then as weak as a rag in consequence, and then with business accumulated on impotent hands; proofs to see to, and the like. You may have heard in the buzz of newspapers of certain presentation swords, subscribed for by twenty thousand Romans, at a franc each, and presented in homage and gratitude to Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel. Castellani[72] of course was the artist, and the whole business had to be huddled up at the end, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... it commenced to whirl around rather rapidly, then the speed increased as the power was let on, until a buzz was heard, which quickly gave way to a singing, hissing sound; now followed a spark, then another and another in quick succession, and the whole rim of the extractor seemed ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... together, and plunged into conversation. Elizabeth was left solitary a moment, behind the tea-things. The buzz of the room, the hearty laugh of the Lord Lieutenant, reached the outer ear. But every deeper sense was strained to catch a voice—a step—that must soon be here. And presently across the room, her eyes met her mother's, ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ole clock a-strikin' Chris'mas-gif now. Come 'long, go ter bed, honey. You needs a res', but I ain' gwine sleep none, 'caze all dis heah news what you been a-tellin' me, hit's gwine ter run roun' in my head all night, same as a buzz-saw." ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... the lady heaved a deep sigh; then, marvelling not a little, for she had thought 'twas known to none, albeit on the day when the man was slain, who was afterwards buried as Tedaldo, there had been some buzz about it, occasioned by some indiscreet words dropped by Tedaldo's gossip and confidant, she made answer:—"I see that there is nought that men keep secret but God reveals it to you; wherefore I shall ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... steadiest nerve, a frightful velocity. But the Trapper was of too cool and courageous temperament to be disturbed even by actual danger. Indeed, the swiftness of their downward career, as the sled with a buzz and a roar swept along over the resounding crust, stirred the old man's blood with a tingle of excitement; while the splendid manner with which Wild Bill was keeping it to the course settled upon filled him with admiration, and was fast making him a convert ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... Blasphemies often buzz'd by the Temptations of the Devil, into the minds of the best Men alive. What a most Execrable Thing was here laid before our Lord Himself: Even, To own the Devil as God! a thing that can't be uttered, without unutterable Horror of Soul. The best man on earth, may have such ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... arrive about nine o'clock, the ladies in large numbers, and the room was soon abreeze with a buzz of conversation and the rustle of gayly- ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Joseph Willet, whom they couldn't find, darted down haphazard on the first young man that caught their fancy, and settled on him instead. However this may be, certain it is that on the very day of Joe's departure they swarmed about the ears of Edward Chester, and did so buzz and flap their wings, and persecute him, that ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... lady no more loved wasps than did her pupils. She retreated as the wasp advanced. The intruder ranged itself on the side of the girls and circled towards their instructress with malevolence in every turn and vicious intent in its buzz. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... tintype taken in which a young lady sits in the alleged grass, while he stands behind her with his hand lightly touching her shoulder as though he might be feeling of the thrilling circumference of a buzz saw. He carries this picture in his pocket for months, and looks at it whenever ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... bird thirty feet from the ground, afraid to move or turn your eyes, lest you miss what you are waiting for, while the sun moves steadily on till his hottest rays pour through some opening directly upon you; while mosquitoes sing about your ears (would that they sang only!), and flies buzz noisily before your face; while birds flit past, and strange notes sound from behind; while rustling in the dead leaves at your feet suggests snakes, and a crawling on your neck proclaims spiders? If you have ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... busy morning, for the night had been full of snipers perched on trees. The faithful three spread aseptics and bandaged and sewed, and generally cheered the stream of callers from the Ninth and Twelfth Regiments, Army of the King of the Belgians. In the early afternoon, the buzz of motors penetrated to the stuffy cellar, and it needed no yelping horn, squeezed by the firm hand of Smith, to bring Hilda to the surface, alert for the expedition. Two motor ambulances were puffing their lungs out, in the roadway. Pale-faced Smith sat in one at the ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... shrieking passionately, like a hundred knife-grinders at work, is no joke; especially when their melodies are mingled with the discordant cries of herons, and bitterns, and cranes, and the ceaseless buzz and hum of insects, like the bagpipe's drone, and the dismal croaking of boat-bills and frogs,—one kind of which latter, by the way, doesn't croak at all, but whistles, ay, better than many a bird! The universal ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... be doing now, sir?" said Phoebe, hearing a noise as it were of a carpenter turning screw-nails, mixed with a low buzz ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... quickest to discern, Had known divine Sarpedon, from his head To his foot-sole with mingled blood and dust Polluted, and o'erwhelm'd with weapons. They Around the body swarm'd. As hovel-flies 780 In spring-time buzz around the brimming pails With milk bedew'd, so they around the dead. Nor Jove averted once his glorious eyes From that dread contest, but with watchful note Marked all, the future death in battle deep 785 Pondering of Patroclus, whether him Hector ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... that?" asked Joe, after a pause, during which he and his chum could hear the low buzz of conversation from the ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... the town, and coffee-houses had been opened in every direction. They sold many things besides coffee, and served a variety of purposes, but primarily they were temples of talk and good-fellowship. The buzz of conversation and the smoke of tobacco alike filled the rooms which were the forerunners of the club-houses of a ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... if a man had the art of the second sight for seeing lies, as they have in Scotland for seeing spirits, how admirably he might entertain himself in this town by observing the different shapes, sizes, and colors of those swarms of lies which buzz about the heads of some people, like flies about a horses' ears in summer; or those legions hovering every afternoon in Exchange alley, enough to darken the air; or over a club of discontented grandees, and thence sent down in cargoes to be ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... of another, and a more successful special train than Adair's. No sooner was the care-free young director safely on his way to meet the delays so painstakingly prearranged for him than the wires began to buzz with a cipher message of warning to Penfield. A precious half-hour was lost in ascertaining that the wire connection to the end-of-track was temporarily out of commission; but during that half-hour Mr. North had held his chin in his hand ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... bow and he aft, rowing fisherman fashion, face forward. The schooner had backed her yards on the fore when she was within a mile of the berg, and we had not far to row. Our four arms made the fat little jolly-boat buzz over the wrinkled surface of the green, cold water. The wreck—if a wreck she could be called—lay with her decks sloping seawards upon an inclined shelf or beach of ice, with a mass of rugged, abrupt stuff behind her, and vast coagulated lumps heaped ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... had ever fallen upon the island seemed to have left some of their heat behind them here. The air was damp and close like the air of a laundry; and the mournful and perpetual buzz of insects filled the silence without ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... A buzz of comment rose from all sides. "Is that all that you made of such a chance as that?"—"Certainly the gods waste their favors on such as Biorn Herjulfsson."—"Is he a coward, or what does he lack?" "He is as dull as ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... hot on the heels of his article. He may not be able to enlighten the public but the associated press dispatch will give the grim facts relating to the end of that editor, who undertook to monkey with the buzz saw of the freedom of the press ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... nothing of Joe's midnight visit, reckoning that it would not be long before the news of his flight got abroad. It was indeed the subject of a great buzz of talk among my schoolfellows, who flocked about me as I walked down Castle Street, demanding to hear the full story from my own lips. I could tell them nothing that they did not know, save only my leave-taking ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... explanations heard. This presumably brilliant assemblage of the financial weight and intelligence of the city appeared as solemn as owls under the pressure of a rumored impending financial crisis. Before Arneel's appearance there was a perfect buzz of minor ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... when he comes forth, the skirts of his blue coat will drop like a pent[388]-house! O, that I could see, and not be seen; how he would spaniel it, and shake himself, when he comes out of the pond! But I'll be gone; for now he'll fight with a fly, if he but buzz[389] ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... a buzz of agreement and an undertone of anger which to an experienced speaker would have been ominous. But Genevieve blundered on: "We only ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... So when the buzz of conversation had stopped she read his verses to the others, holding his arm in the middle of the room, her sweet voice conveying their spirit as well as their words. And Arty stood by her, jubilant, listening ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... for people began to go, sleepy children to be carried off, and whispers grew into a buzz of conversation. In the general confusion Rose looked to see if Steve had remembered his promise to help Phebe slip away before the rush began. No, there he was putting on Kitty's cloak, quite oblivious to any other duty. Turning to ask Archie ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... sand crawls, Hums, a heaving hive, Scrapes and scrawls— Such a buzz and burst! Here just one thing's not alive, One that was at first— ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... door was opened no more than was necessary for the passage of a human body; and there entered at the same moment a louder buzz of talk, and the redoubtable President of the Suicide Club. The President was a man of fifty or upwards; large and rambling in his gait, with shaggy side whiskers, a bald top to his head, and a veiled ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... swords and double-pointed spears. And now not even a clear-sighted man could any longer have known noble Sarpedon, for with darts and blood and dust was he covered wholly from head to foot. And ever men thronged about the dead, as in a steading flies buzz around the full milk-pails, in the season of spring, when the milk drenches the bowls, even so thronged they about the dead. Nor ever did Zeus turn from the strong fight his shining eyes, but ever looked down on them, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... "high twelve" at noon, and then the kind jailer of learning's little prison-house let all her fretful captives go. The clamorous elves rushed through the doorway into the street, like a stream too big for its vent, rejoicing in their new-found freedom and the open face of day. The buzz of the little teaching mill was hushed once more, and the old dame laid her knitting down, and quietly wiped her weak and weary eyes. The daughters of music were brought low with her, but, in the last thin treble of second childhood, she trembled ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... guts stink worse than cowards in the heat of battle. Such whaleboned- doublet rascals, that owe more to laundresses and seamsters for laced linen than all their race from their great grand-father to this their reign, in clothes were ever worth. These excrements of silk worms! Oh that such flies do buzz about the beams of Majesty, like earwigs tickling a King's yielding ear with that court-organ, flattery, when a soldier must not come near the court gates twenty score, but stand for want of clothes, though he win towns, amongst the almsbasket-men! His ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... church, and I have wondered painfully ever since how so many came to be in a little place like Giromagny. There were three priests at the high altar, and nearly one for each chapel, and there was such a buzz of Masses going on, beginning and ending, that I am sure I need not have gone without my breakfast in my hurry to get one. With all this there were few people at Mass so early; nothing but these priests going in and out, and ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... stay where one was, and he agreed; he stayed. In the back room where he was sitting with the ladies of the household, coolness reigned supreme; the windows looked out upon a little garden overgrown with acacias. Multitudes of bees, wasps, and humming beetles kept up a steady, eager buzz in their thick branches, which were studded with golden blossoms; through the half-drawn curtains and the lowered blinds this never-ceasing hum made its way into the room, telling of the sultry heat in the air outside, and making ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... drive him into a violent rage. Felicite was far too supple to thwart him openly; with her light fluttering nature she did not attack obstacles in front. When she wished to obtain something from her husband, or drive him the way she thought best, she would buzz round him in her grasshopper fashion, stinging him on all sides, and returning to the charge a hundred times until he yielded almost unconsciously. He felt, moreover, that she was shrewder than he, and tolerated ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... a brief visit to W——, and quite near her, Judge Harris and her father were in earnest conversation. Astonished at the sudden apparition, her eyes followed him as he bowed to the member of the central group; and as she heard the deep, rich voice above the buzz of small talk she waited to see if he would notice her. Soon Governor G—— gave her his arm for a promenade, and she found herself, ere long, very near Maria, who was approaching with Russell. He was saying something, at which she laughed delightedly; just then his eye fell ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... invalid's chair; still others hurried ahead to confer their patronage upon the Grand Hotel Royal; but the greater part hastened back to their rooms to get something hot and bracing. From one end to the other, the place was a-buzz with wagging tongues. Why should the foreign secretary of the British Empire have chosen Weet-sur-Mer as his abiding place? Merely because he was ill and wished to rest? Bah! To believe that would be to show a mind the most ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... sewing, which this morning she chose to do in her room rather than in her favorite spot in the garden. She closed the shutters on the sunny side and sat down by the window nearest the garden, peculiarly sensible of the soft light and cool spaciousness of an inner world. The occasional buzz of a bee, the flutter of the leaves of the poplar, might have been the voice of the outer world in Southern Spain or Southern Italy, or anywhere else where ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... word was spoken, and in the silence I could hear plainly the noise made by the sailors in laying in their oars, after which there was a pause, and then plainly heard there were the tramp of men, the buzz of voices. About a dozen soldiers halted outside, and four tall, dark, handsome-looking Spanish officers were ushered in by Colonel ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... most lovely of fair forms met my eyes in that of Lady Almeria Carpenter. The countenance which most pleased me was that of the late Mrs. Baddeley.[11] The first Countess of Tyrconnel also appeared with considerable eclat. But the buzz of the room, the unceasing murmur of admiration, attended the Marchioness Townshend. I took my seat on a sofa nearly opposite to that on which she was sitting, and I observed two persons, evidently ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... our subscriptions back in the house, if you'll act treasurer and wheedle Antonio. Fairy Godmothers, Limited! It's a brainy notion. When shall you ask those kids? You bet they'll buzz ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... shock of surprise. There are storks and birds, and beetles and butterflies, and crabs and lobsters, made so cunningly of shells, that only touch convinces you they are not alive. There are bees of shell, poised on flowers of the same material—poised on wire in such a way that they seem to buzz if moved only with the tip of a feather. There is shell-work jewellery indescribable, things that Japanese girls love, enchantments in mother-of-pearl, hair-pins carven in a hundred forms, brooches, necklaces. And there are ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... a conqueror and a king; but with the eyes of a benefactor and a brother he looked on all around. The very memory of war seemed to vanish before his presence, for all there was love and gentleness. Helen drew a quick sigh, and closing her eyes, dropped against the arras. She now heard the buzz of many voices, the rolling peal of acclamations, but she distinguished nothing; her senses were in tumults; and had not Lady Ruthven seen her disorder, she would have fallen motionless to the floor. The good ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Round Krindlesyke, as bees about a thistle! And I'm to set the peelers on my son? If he'd gone with Peter, they'd have tracked his hobnails ... It snowed that night ... The snowflakes buzz like bees About the prickling thistles in my head— Big bumblebees ... I never felt ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... witnesses and bridesmaids, Betsy Beauty and Nessy MacLeod, in large hats, with soaring black feathers, were behind me. I could hear the rustle of their rose-coloured skirts and the indistinct buzz of their whispered conversation, as well as the more audible reproofs of Aunt Bridget, who in a crinkly black silk dress and a bonnet like a half moon, was telling them to be silent and to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine |
