"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cow-puncher (who was Weary) swinging on to his rangy cow-Horse and galloping away after the chuck-wagon just disappearing in the wake of the dust-flinging remuda. Back somewhere in the dusk of the audience, a man began to hum the tune that went with the words, and the heart of Luck Lindsay gave an exultant bound. He had used lines from "The Old Chisholm Trail" and other old-time range songs for his sub-titles, to keep the range ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... rifle upon it. The entire party were in the best of spirits, and nature responded to our happiness in its kindest mood. Laughter sounded pleasantly at intervals from the busy groups, each working at some self-appointed industry. The hum of cheerful conversation mingled with the murmurs of the brook; and now and then the snatch of some sweet song would break from tuneful lips, brief, spirited, melodious as a bobolink's, dashing upward from the clover-heads. ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Maker? How sweet the solemn silence! where the freed spirit, freed from external influences, can hold communion with its heavenly Father. So felt Martin. The very birds seemed to him to be singing carols; and the insects to join, with their hum, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... looking in his mother's face, Would join in converse upon holy things With her, or, lost in thought, would seem to watch The orange-belted wild bees when they stilled Their hum, to press with honey-searching trunk The juicy grape; or drag their waxed legs Half buried in some leafy cool recess Found in a rose; or else swing heavily Upon the bending woodbine's fragrant mouth, And rob the flower ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... vast multitude, he need not, Asmodeus-like, have unroofed the houses to read the history of human life or the passions of the human heart, for life and passion had gone forth that night from many a tranquil abode to revel in publicity. One so standing above the wild hum of tumultuous enjoyment would in silent thought have marveled at the strange drama performing as it were at his feet,—the sad and fearful mixture of the shadows and lights of life and death, the market-place, and close at hand the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... country such storms soon passed. It wetted them to the bone, no doubt, but within three-quarters of an hour it had blown over and become calm. Immediately the rain had ceased, the air began to hum with many wings, and forth came "a kind of flies of that country, called mosquitoes, like our gnats," which bit them spitefully as they lay in the bottoms of the boats. It was much too hot to lie beneath a blanket, and the men did not know how to kindle a "smudge" of smouldering ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... that of the prying stars overhead. In the distant vista, might be seen a part of the crowded promenade, where music held its court; whilst at intervals, a voice's swell or guitar's tinkle would be borne on the ear. There was the hum of men, too—the laugh of the idlers without the sanctum, as they indulged in the delights of the mischievous fire-ball—and the sudden whizz, followed by an upward glare of light, as a rocket shot into the air. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was rocked and sung to sleep with it by mother, by father, and by servants, and it was one of the first things she herself learned. There was music in the race, and this bright little one had her full share of it, and soon could hum her parent's triumphal march, the talisman of her family, ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... lord, am fancy's slave. Like the low murmurs of the Indian shell Ta'en from its coral bed beneath the wave, Which, unforgetful of the ocean's swell, Retains within its mystic urn the hum Heard in the sea-grots where the Nereids dwell— Old thoughts still haunt me—unawares they come Between me and my rest, nor can I make Those aged visitors of sorrow dumb. Oh, yet awhile, my feeble soul, awake! ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... subject, for a moment I lost sight of untidy Gothic facades and gaunt unfinished church walls; and as I walked, I was in the Close of Salisbury on a perfumed summer afternoon. The drowsy scent of lime-flowers and mignonette, the cawing of elm-cradled rooks, the hum of bees above, the velvet touch of smooth-shorn grass, and the breathless shadow of motionless green boughs made up one potent and absorbing mood of the charmed senses. Far overhead soared the calm grey spire into the infinite air, and the perfection of accomplished beauty slept beneath in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... man named Hum, of the race of Feridun, dwelt hard by. He was remarkable for his strength and bravery, but had peacefully taken up his abode upon the neighboring mountain, and was passing a religious life without any communication with the busy world. His dwelling was a little way above the cave of Afrasiyab. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... environs. Ignorant of this, and not apprehensive of any danger, I had strayed to a considerable distance among the trees, against one of which I stood leaning, and contemplating the banks of the Seine, the Palais Bourbon, and other surrounding objects. All was silent, except the distant hum of the city, and the rattling of carriages, which ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Japanese wax-tree. Still further up, the hills are covered with dark, moss-grown gravestones, bearing curious characters engraven upon them, and marking the sleeping-places of bygone generations. The unbroken quiet of this city of the dead contrasts vividly with the hum of busy life which comes up to us from the town with its population of a hundred thousand souls. As to the products of this locality, they are mostly figured porcelain, embroidered silks, japanned goods, ebony and tortoise-shell finely carved and manufactured into toy ornaments. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... spring opened, all remained quiet. Then began the busy hum of preparation, and great things for our town foreshadowed themselves. A hundred men went to work on the site chosen for a new mill, digging, blasting, and hauling; while carpenters and masons were busy in and around the old mansion, with a view to its thorough ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... in, and still the silken ball pursued its course. So long as lights were burning in the towns and villages which it passed in rapid succession, the solitary voyagers looked down on the scene with delight; sometimes they could even catch the hum of the yet busy multitude, or the bark of a watch-dog; but midnight came, and the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... dodge quickly about with cheerful hum. Where they go, these busy buzzy flies, when the cold calls them away for their winter vac. is a mystery. Can they hibernate? for they show themselves again at the first ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... talents, and their tastes the same; Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, And smit with love of poesy and prate. The pond'rous books two gentle readers bring; The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring. The clam'rous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum, Till all, tun'd equal, send a gen'ral hum. Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on; Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose, At ev'ry line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow; Thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... with satchel on back, and "shining morning face." What a sudden burst of sound was emitted—what harmonious discord—what a commixture of all the tones in the vocal gamut, from the shrill treble to the deep under-hum! A chord was touched which vibrated in unison; boyish days and school recollections crowded upon me; pleasures long vanished; feelings long stifled; and friendships—aye, everlasting friendships—cut asunder by the sharp ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... beetles so abundant as they were on this spot. Some dozen species of good-sized golden Buprestidae, green rose-chafers (Lomaptera), and long-horned weevils (Anthribidae), were so abundant that they rose up in swarms as I walked along, filling the air with a loud buzzing hum. Along with these, several fine Longicorns were almost equally common, forming such au assemblage as for once to realize that idea of tropical luxuriance which one obtains by looking over the drawers ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Sound.—The beat of rain against the window panes, the crack of a whip, a church bell, the hum of bees, the whistle of a railway, the clinking of tea-spoons and saucers, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Hall, presumably. It will be quite dark in Neville's Court long before midnight, only the pillars opposite will always be white, and the fountains. A curious effect the gate has, like lace upon pale green. Even in the window you hear the plates; a hum of talk, too, from the diners; the Hall lit up, and the swing-doors opening and shutting with a soft thud. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... propose fresh arrangements for the morrow. Sunday was not a day of rest to them; from early morning they were all engaged in different directions in prosecuting their search, and not until the curtain of night was spread over the town, and the hum of traffic and din of bustle had ceased, did they return to ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... low voice, and as it were, mumbled through the different documents concerning the new peer, and the Lord Chancellor had proclaimed his admission in the midst of what is called, in the reports, "general inattention." Every one was talking. There buzzed through the House that cheerful hum of voices during which assemblies pass things which will not bear the light, and at which they wonder when they find out what they have done, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Hallowe'en. But it must be remembered that the Bon dance during the first nights is in the nature of a lament for the dead. There is something haunting in the strange little refrain, though it is difficult to hum or whistle it. Perhaps the whole festival is too intimately racial to be fully understood by a stranger. By the end of the festival, on the night of merrymaking in honour of the village guardian spirit, things were livelier. Some of the lads had evidently had sake ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... generally to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have derived ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... of the cicada, the grasshopper, and tree frog make an incessant hum, and produce by their monotony a pleasing melancholy.... Every half-hour different balsamic odours fill the air, and other flowers alternately unfold their leaves to the night.... While the silent vegetable world, illuminated by scores of fireflies as by a thousand moving stars, charms the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... and falling, on the short waves by the San Dominick's side; and then, glancing about the decks where he stood, saw the oakum-pickers still gravely plying their fingers; and heard the low, buzzing whistle and industrious hum of the hatchet-polishers, still bestirring themselves over their endless occupation; and more than all, as he saw the benign aspect of nature, taking her innocent repose in the evening; the screened sun in the quiet camp of the west shining out like ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... glad to hear one," said Charlotte: "at least, I think very much depends upon ourselves; I know it is so with me. When anything annoys me, and disturbs my temper, I hasten into the garden, hum a couple of country dances, and it is all right with me directly." "That is what I meant," I replied; "ill-humour resembles indolence: it is natural to us; but if once we have courage to exert ourselves, we find our work run fresh from our hands, and we experience ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... The boy "Betty" was already asleep, while the Lady Sarah and "the Panorama" divided a fourpenny pie most faithfully between them. A reeking atmosphere of spirit (but not of water) testified to the general conviviality. A hum of conversation was borne in upon them from the greater cellar—at odd times a rough oath of protest or the mad complainings of a drunkard. For the most part, however, the night promised to be uneventful. Alban had never seen the Lady Sarah more gracious, and as for "the Panorama" he had no doubt ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... whose eyes were swelled up with sleepiness. "It's all misty and thick, and the window-sill's wet, and the roses outside look drenched. Heigh, ho, ha, hum!" he yawned. "I shall go to bed for half an hour ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... "These hum-drum teachings tire me, I'm disgusted with reciting And repeating, day by day, what I knew well enough before." Then quickening briskly her startled steed with the riding-whip, She darted onward through the forest, reaching first ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... three men were sitting clothed in white, just as if it was summer, and for about thirty feet all round winter had been banished. The moss was dry and the plants green, while the grass seemed all alive with the hum of bees and cockchafers. But above the noise the son of Long Hans could hear the whistling of the wind and the crackling of the branches as they fell beneath the weight ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... rack Had forced the moon upon her back; The wind piped up a naval ditty; And the lamps winked through all the city. Before that house, where lights were shining, Corpulent feeders, grossly dining, And jolly clamour, hum and rattle, Fairly outvoiced the tempest's battle. As still his moistened lip he fingered, The envious policeman lingered; While far the infernal tempest sped, And shook the country folks in bed, And tore the trees and tossed the ships, ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with egotistic woes, far too many for the brief moment in which he would be closeted with the great one, who held the invisible keys of relief, who penetrated this mystery of human maladjustment. It was a busy, toiling, active, subdued place, where the tinkle of the telephone bell, the hum of electric annunciators, as one member of the staff signalled to another, vibrated in the tense atmosphere. Into this hive poured the suffering, mounting from the street, load after load, in the swiftly ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... I hope that in five years' time you will be supporting me and my family. Your sister-in-law will be speechless with jealousy. I congratulate you. Hum—The Blank and Dash Avenues Company? Well, you won't have to send John very far with your copies of the pleadings. Pope was appointed attorney for the company last week, in place of old Slyther, who resigned, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... plainly heard, came the sound of Mary's voice singing the old English song, "Robin Adair"; and as the notes reached his ear, James Ellis smiled, held his head on one side, swayed it to the melody, and began softly to hum over the ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... little, brought Philip Curtis to tell so much as he knew of the story of Peter God. Philip's voice was tuned with the winds and the forests. It rose above the low and monotonous hum about them. People at the two or three adjoining tables might have heard his story, if they had listened. Within the immaculateness of his evening dress, Barrows shivered, fearing that Curtis' voice might attract undue attention to them. But other people ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... women, when Lorimer put in a tardy appearance, the day after the Fresh Air Fund concert. A dozen little tables littered with cards were pushed together in one corner, and the tinkling of china and the hum of conversation betrayed the fact that whist had given place to a more congenial method of passing the time. Modern womanhood plays whist almost without ceasing; but it should be noted that she frowns ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... afternoon's lessons were got over in Eden Valley Academy. The hum of disturbance reached even the juniors, skulking peacefully under little Mr. Stephen, the assistant. Only Miss Huntingdon, in the Infant Department, remained quiet and neat as a dove new-preened among her murmuring throng of ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... There was a hum of amazement and horror from the spectators, but the senator appeared not to notice it. He whirled around upon the tips of his toes, kicked right and left in a graceful manner, and startled a bald-headed man in the front row by casting a languishing ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... windows, two doors opposite each other, one door always kept open winter and summer. A huge fire-place is in one end of the room. If you would have a view of humanity in its simplicity, visit one of these mountain homes. You will find everything of the most primitive kind. The hum of the spinning-wheel and the heavy thud of the loom will greet your ears. In one room you will very often see several beds, while the rest of the furniture will consist of a few wooden chairs, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... up the circular incline in the peak of the tower! We heard the hum of it; and when we went up there, the first thing we saw was a mirror tuned in readiness for us to view the garden we had just left. This strange Tarrano, giving Georg the visible proof that he would keep his word and not harm Elza. We could ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... before you tonight to report that the state of our union is strong. Now, America is working again. The promise of our future is limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the hum of our prosperity to lull us into complacency. How we fare as a nation far into the 21st century depends upon what we do as ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant as it ascended ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... day. He lighted his pipe and composed himself beside the camp-fire to smoke and rest awhile before going to bed. The silence of the wilderness enfolded lake and shore; yet presently it came to be a silence accentuated by near and distant sounds, faint, wild, lonely—the low hum of falling water, the splash of tiny waves on the shore, the song of insects, and the dismal hoot ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... your honest face. I was whiles thinking you must have given us the go-by. Fegs, but it's a braw day and a sight guid for sair een to see you, lad. You will have heard how we gave Johnnie Cope his kail through his reek." He broke off to hum:— ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... out of his difficulties: he could ask advice. He could lay the whole matter frankly before some dispassionate person, whose judgment should determine his course. Why had he not thought of it before! Mr. Denner's face brightened; he walked gayly along, and began to hum ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... flew down the stairs, and passed like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky figures. How she did it I could never understand, for the two heavy bolts had both been drawn, but the next moment the door stood wide open; and a hum of voices, cheery with the anticipation of a period of perfect bliss, was borne in upon the cool ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... box, with benches and a stove in it. Never-the-less, it is the thing signified more than its outward seeming that catches and holds the eye upon the country school-house as you drive past it. You count yourself fortunate if, mingled with the creaking of the buggy-springs, you hear the hum of recitation; yet more fortunate if it is recess time, and you can see the children out at play, the little girls holding to one another's dress-tails as they ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... rugged cliffs and hollow glens; The wild beasts slumber in their dens, The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade and hang their ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... me far afield, away from men and things. So, for a moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. You wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not in an up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the game always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the greens of the grasses and leaves and the yellows and blues of the field flowers. It was warm, a spring day, with none of the discomfort of summer heat. Jubilant, Roger spun around in circles, inhaling the fragrance of the field, listening to the hum of insect life stirring back to awareness after a season of inactivity. Then he was running and tumbling, barefoot, his shirt open, feeling the soft grass give way underfoot and the soil was good and rich ...
— Pleasant Journey • Richard F. Thieme
... the former had more intelligence—at least, I am sure they had more vivacity in their countenances than I had seen during my northern tour: their senses seemed awake to business and pleasure. I was therefore gratified by hearing once more the busy hum of industrious men in the day, and the exhilarating sounds of joy in the evening; for, as the weather was still fine, the women and children were amusing themselves at their doors, or walking under the trees, which in many places were planted ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... clouds. The night was like the ocean, its extent seemingly increased by the gloom, a dark abyss wherein you divined that a world lay hid. From the unseen city blew a mighty yet gentle wind. There was still a hum; sounds ascended faint yet clear to Helene's ears—the sharp rattle of an omnibus rolling along the quay, the whistle of a train crossing the bridge of the Point-du-Jour; and the Seine, swollen by the recent storms, and pulsing with the life of a breathing ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... Nor would a man, although very discerning, have recognized noble Sarpedon, since he was totally involved, from his head to the soles of his feet, with weapons, and blood, and dust. But they still crowded round the corse, as when flies in the stall hum around the pails full of milk, during the spring season, when the milk makes moist the vessel. So they still crowded round the body: nor did Jove ever turn his bright eyes from the violent conflict; but he ever beheld them, and meditated many evil things ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... exhausting the universality of things. Much less had he seen the whole apparatus of human intelligence so constructed from its own certain and eternal principles that all things should appear mutually concatenated among themselves from first to last without any hiatus! "Metaphysicians hum to themselves only, Natural Philosophers chaunt their own praises, Astronomers lead on their dances for themselves, Ethical Thinkers set up laws for themselves, Politicians lay foundations for themselves, Mathematicians triumph for themselves, and for themselves Theologians reign." What ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... right arms to us shall bring The victory and the spoils; And Montezuma's halls shall ring, When there we end our toils.' ON, then, ye brave' like tigers rage, That you may win your crown, Mowing both infancy and age In ruthless carnage down. Where flows the tide of life and light, Amid the city's hum, There let the cry, at dead of night, Be heard, 'They come, they come!' Mid scenes of sweet domestic bliss, Pour shells of livid fire, While red-hot balls among them hiss, To make the work entire And when the scream ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... could have brought more of them," Ken said. "We'll have to rout around to-morrow and buy an oil-stove or something and a couple of chairs to sit on. Ah hum! Let's turn in, Phil. We've a tight room and a fire, anyhow. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... must of necessity be the lady who is in love with me. See, how she surveys my person! certainly one wit knows another by instinct. By that old gentleman, it should be the lady Laura too. Hum! Benito, thou art ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... foliage of the trees that encircled the Fairy Ring, where, but an hour before, her footsteps had lingered with her friend. All around seemed buried in the most profound stillness; not the bay of a dog, nor the hum of an insect, disturbed the repose that slept on every plant and flower, and covered the earth as with a garment. Suddenly a nightingale flew past the window, and resting its breast on the bough of an old thorn, poured forth a delicious strain of melody. Constance leaned her throbbing ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... morning in Sydney harbor. The wharves were crowded with shipping from all parts of the world which were already filled with workmen busily engaged in unloading the cargoes. The hum of the thousands in the city beginning their daily work, rose into the air and spread far over ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... and ugliness at the same time—when some good fairy always came along, who, by a magic touch of her wand, made both the sisters far more lovely than the elder had been. Beauty was always the burden of the tale; people who were not beautiful met with no adventures, and seemed to lead a hum-drum sort of life; therefore, I insensibly learned to regard this wonderful possession as something very much to be desired. I believe I was quite a pretty child, with dark bright eyes, red lips, and a pair of very rosy cheeks. ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the hydrophones. Sure enough, his ears could make out the faint hum of the jetmarine's atomic turbines. Tom directed Hank toward the sound, then ordered him to switch on the Sea ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... heads of more people. People were entering all the time and leaving all the time. Scores of waitresses, in pale green and white, moved to and fro like an alien and mercenary population. The heat, the stir, the hum, and the clatter were terrific. And from on high descended thin, strident music in a ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... heavily. The Siegesthor loomed blackly great against the lights of the city beyond. It was no longer quiet about them, but the hum and buzz of all the bees swarming home was in the air, on the pavement, ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... women—at six o'clock in the morning and worked until six at night. I never worked so hard, nor did so much. All day long there was a fire of jokes and jolly gibes, interspersed with song, while beneath all ran a gentle hum of confidential interchange of thought. The man who owned the field was there to direct our efforts and urge us on in well-doing by merry raillery, threat, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Wilkins conducted us for some distance along the river bank; we jumped into a boat and rowed perhaps half a mile, landing by the side of a little shop-like building, where we heard the hum of voices and the commotion of many busy persons. We entered and found ourselves in a long, low room, having wide tables ranged along the walls; here, working rapidly, were rows of chatty country girls, who, as they worked, laughed and talked, and now and then ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... shut out troubled thoughts, he stooped and, throwing his big, long arms about the hemp, lifted it to his shoulder. "Come, Captain," he called to his companion, and stalked heavily away. As he went, he began to hum ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... took them up without deigning to look at the person who had accosted him, and turning them over in his hand, "One, two, three, hum; there is half-a-dozen. What do ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... things here yet," reported Mrs. Jenkins. "Gus come hum too late last night to take the preacher's surplus and Miss King's lace waist. You was so tired I didn't tell you, 'cause I know'd you'd be sot on goin' with them ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... being the best-dressed man in town. Suddenly Sir Charles paused, his coup d'archet half-executed, the final beauty of his neck-cloth half-achieved, while he listened with surprise and indignation upon his large, comely, fresh-complexioned face. Below, the decorous hum of Jermyn Street had been broken by the sharp, staccato, metallic ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Standing at the door she heard the hum of a sewing-machine. It made her heart sink, so clearly did it ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... a soft cork and hum it thoroughly; when it ceases to blaze, powder the coal very fine on a plate. Mix a table-spoonful of this powder with a little milk or water, or any thing agreeable to the palate; repeat the dose till the disorder ceases, ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... filed out of their apartment, and as they retired to consider their verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removed from the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was an immediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approached the table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmatively and left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant sound of whispering voices died down after a few minutes and then began the long tedious ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... bustling about the royal palace or in the palaces of the nobles of Lutha. The buzz and hum of excited conversation filled the whole town. That the choice of the king met the approval of his subjects was more than evident. Upon every lip was praise and love of the Princess Emma von der Tann. The future of Lutha seemed assured with a king who could fight joined in ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... read the dial for her (there were some miles which stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changed its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of a giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands would not move, and when, oh, when would they ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... receipt for gas bills and water rates or fit out a general store. Under one roof it held the resources of a city. Henry was startled by its immensity, and as he followed Witherspoon through labyrinths of bright gauzes and avenues of somber goods, he perceived that a change in the tone of the hum announced the approach of the master. And it appeared that, no matter what a girl might be doing, she began hurriedly to do something else the moment she spied Witherspoon coming toward her. The quick signs of ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... ecstatic life, the river had paused in the valley to rest, dreaming, perchance, of the long cool shadows in the uplands, the far altar-fires of daybreak. There were pleasant things to do in the valley, to lie at full length, basking in the sun, to hum a bit of the old music, to touch gently the harp-strings of the marsh grass and rushes, dimpling with pleasure at the faint answer, to reflect every passing mood of cloud and sky, even to hold the little clouds as a mother ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who passed his days amidst "the busy hum of men," and the poet who mused in cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in Shenstone. Mr. Campbell, with a brother's feeling, has (since the present article was composed) sympathised with the endowments and the pursuits of this poet; but ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... said, "it was simply a chaos of noise and confusion. Of what was going on I knew nothing. The din was appalling. The roar of the shells, the hum of grape and canister, the whistle of bullets, the shouts of men, formed a mighty roar that seemed to render thinking impossible. Showers of leaves fell incessantly, great boughs of trees were shorn away, and trees themselves ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... that this had been the principal business of the two since leaving the States, though the statement is not strictly correct. The hum of conversation went on for hours; the night gradually wore away, but still the two men sat talking in low tones, and looking at the roll of paper spread out between them, and which was covered with numerous curious drawings. The theme must have been an absorbing one, ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... moment they heard the hum of voices, and in a moment more came upon the pickers. They were all hard at work, talking and laughing as they picked. They sat on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their sides, and some stood by the bin throwing the hops they picked straight ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... rate, it was clear that she was going to make a struggle for her life, and to do vicious damage, it might be, before she yielded it up. The watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this. Their wagers, and the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round the ring of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... low hum of comment. Then he turned on the man who had told him of the priest and his novice. "Thou sayest the king hath a reward for this priest ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... if he were being prepared for some inhuman biological experiment. A cage of terminals was fitted to his head and a thousand small electrodes adjusted to contact with his skull. The faint hum of equipment supported the small surge of apprehension ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... was so false and severe as to be very depressing to her spirits. And, never having been inured to hard labor or parental censure, these double tribulations were almost crushing; and to help her courage she kept up the low, almost inaudible hum of the sweet tunes she had so loved to sing among her chosen people, and, thus abstracted, toiled ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... brought the sun, with the activity and hum of the morning, had made no great change in the relative positions of things within and without the bay. The people of le Feu-Follet had breakfasted, had got everything on board their little craft in its proper place, and were moody, observant, and silent. One of the lessons that Ithuel had succeeded ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... had mastered the situation. He wrote home a detailed account of his doings, and complicated matters by using phrases that were not commonly heard or understood in quiet villages far away from the hum of seaports. The family were sent into consternation by the description of his climbing experiences, and an extra petition for his safe-keeping was offered up when the time for family devotions came. No more was heard of him for many months. His experiences had become more real and fuller ere the ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... inhospitable host standing in the opening of the second-story window, a quaint figure framed in green branches, the ladder behind him, and on his face a kind of impenetrable dignity, as he shook his head and said, "Tom ain't ter hum; ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... hitherto prevailed ashore was pierced by a shrill whistle, in response to which the whole face of the bush bordering the open space at once began to spit flame, while the air around us hummed and whined to the passage of a perfect storm of bullets and slugs, among which could be detected the hum of round shot, apparently nine-pounders, the gig weathered the storm unscathed; but upon glancing back I saw that the other boats had been less fortunate, there being a gap or two here and there where ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... he did but hum a burly bass to the tune of the "Little wee wife." But, being called away, he turned to me before closing the door behind him, and asked me very keenly, as though he had been restraining his impatience for some space: "And how about ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... there were comings and goings, and junketings, all perfectly proper, by the way, which caused the men to say sharp things and the women to be spiteful. Only Mrs. Eppingwell did not hear. The distant hum of wagging tongues rose faintly, but she was prone to believe good of people and to close her ears to evil; so she ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... cried, "I have been longing mightily for you. You have come to take me on a canoe trip to the countries beyond—to Lituya and Yakutat bays and Prince William Sound; have you not? My weariness of this hum-drum, work-a-day life has grown so heavy it is like to crush me. I'm ready to break away and go with ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... appears,[236] And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, 20 With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas[237]—and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 30 Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... expanded, her whole person quivered with pleasure. The Abbe Troubert opened a window to get a better light on the folio volume he was reading. Birotteau stood as if a thunderbolt had stricken him. Mademoiselle Gamard made his ears hum when she enunciated in a voice as clear as a cornet ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of the forest. Over all the fair scene, the flashing water, the velvet marshes, the smiling fields, the fringe of dark and mysterious woodland, hung a Virginia heaven, a cloudless blue, soft, pure, intense. The air was full of subdued sound—the distant hum of voices from the fields of maize and tobacco, the faint clink of iron from the smithy, the wash and lap of the water, the drone of bees from the hives beneath the eaves of the house. Great bronze butterflies fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... mi wi mi 2 bar ar e(a) ra(a) ar a o ar ir 3 pe lohe oe lai lai loi la la lei 4 puon pun(pon) phun pon saw thaw sia so so 5 pfuong pan phan hpawn(fan) san than san san san 6 tol tal to laiya(lia) (hin)riw thro thrau ynro threi 7 kul pul phu a-laiya (hin)iew (hum)thloi ynthla ynniaw ynthlei (alia) 8 ti ta ta s'te(su'te) phra humpya humphyo phra humpyir 9 kash tim tim s'ti(su'ti) (khyn)dai hunsulai hunshia khyndo khyndai 10 kan kel ken(ko) kao (shi)phew ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... perpetually throwing over the cargo to save the ship, but what a motion you gave her when you made her ride the waves—a motion as rhythmic as the dance of a goddess! Wayworth took long London walks and thought of these things—London poured into his ears the mighty hum of its suggestion. His imagination glowed and melted down material, his intentions multiplied and made the air a golden haze. He saw not only the thing he should do, but the next and the next and the next; the future opened before ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... hum now, I s'pose, ain't ye?" he asked with a note in his voice of cheery assurance that perhaps he did not feel, tilting back and forth in his old-fashioned rocking chair, as I had so often seen him do, with closed eyes and open mouth, his face steeled against expression. And the slow jog, ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... was hit. In the darkness the Germans were unable to aim carefully. The boys heard the hum of bullets around them, but they did not falter. There was no second volley, for the lads had disappeared in the darkness, and the Germans were not minded to spend ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... terrific pleasure began to hum in my head, my knees gradually gave way beneath me, until I was on my knees before the two women. My hands were unconsciously extended as if to fend them off, and each of them seized a hand, pulled me to the round bench at the back of the control cabin. They stroked ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... at intervals formed a girdle of flame round the base of the mountain, so that when darkness fell, Maunganamu appeared to rise out of a great brasier, and to hide its head in the thick darkness. Five hundred feet below they could hear the hum and the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... up in thousands, to their everlasting honor. By their response they showed the spirit of the nation, roused at last to a sense of horrible danger. Throughout the land there were martial sounds—the hum of camps, the tramp of men, the clang of horses' hoofs, the rattle of war department wagons. Before people had time to rub their eyes and become wide awake, an army had landed in France, eager to help gallant little Belgium, and stop the rush ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... hear their brutal jests, directed not only against himself, but against those dear to him—his mother and sister. While this pained him, he began to wonder that they should be so much the subject of the conversation. He could not tell what was said of them, but in the hum of voices their names repeatedly reached his ear. He had lain about an hour on the banqueta, when the door opened, and the two officers, Vizcarra and Roblado, stepped within the cell. They were accompanied ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... a low moaning sound, like the hum of a wild bee; it seemed to come out of the earth. After a little it grew louder and sharper; then it ended in a yelp and ceased altogether. After a short interval it began afresh, this time still clearer; then came the yelp, loud, sharp, and ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... "Ah, Glyndon!—hum!—welcome! What! thou art twice my rival! But Jean Nicot bears no malice. Virtue is my dream,—my country, my mistress. Serve my country, citizen; and I forgive thee the preference of beauty. Ca ira! ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one," remarked Holmes; "but I don't think it struck him in that light when he first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is his statement, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... owes its secret to the Bessemer steel rail. The fishplate instead of the frog, and the steel rail in place of the good old snakehead! "The song of the rail" died out to a low continuous hum when Carnegie began making steel rails and showed the section-hands how to bolt them ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... quiet, peaceful, comfortable feeling in my heart. I was returning from a tryst, I had no need to hurry; I was not sleepy, and I was conscious of youth and health in every sigh, every step I took, rousing a dull echo in the monotonous hum of the night. I don't know what I was feeling then, but I remember I was happy, ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... She fancied that she could almost hear the blossoms dropping on the grass; there was a faint stir of leaves as a stray breeze came wandering by, and another sound mingled with that stir—a far-away hum—hum—growing louder every moment! ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... to feed with and to be fed; the dangerous dowagers and the desperate mothers; the widows, wild as early partridges; the budding virgins, mild as a summer cloud and soft as an opera hat! Think of the drony bores, with their dull hum; think of the chivalric guardsmen, with their horses to sell and their bills to discount; think of Willis, think of Crockford, think of White's, think of Brooks', and you may form a faint idea how the young Duke had to ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... a moment and from the roof-top spoke a few words to the people in the street below. They answered him with shouts of applause mingled with a hum of murmured anger underneath. The Chemist went back to his friends, his face set ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees expanded their buds, when, in the still April mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings. He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his taste ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... tops are formed of short pieces of bamboo with a wooden peg put through them, and the hole cut in the side makes them have a fine hum as the air rushes ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... sound was the barely audible hum of his wrist watch and the dismal splatter of raindrops on the cobbled street outside. There was no sound to feed his fear, yet he knew then, without a flicker of doubt, that they were going to ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... more remembers his Mother now, then an eight yeare old horse. The tartnesse of his face, sowres ripe Grapes. When he walks, he moues like an Engine, and the ground shrinkes before his Treading. He is able to pierce a Corslet with his eye: Talkes like a knell, and his hum is a Battery. He sits in his State, as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids bee done, is finisht with his bidding. He wants nothing of a God but Eternity, and a Heauen ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... heart with half so sweet a voice As the bowering arms of the wild-wood larch, Where the clematis and wild woodbine Festoon the flowering eglantine; Where in every flower, shrub, and tree Is heard the hum of the honey-bee, And the linden blossoms are softly stirred, As the fanning wings of the humming-bird Scatter a perfume of pollen dust, That mounts to the kindling soul like must; Where the turtles ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... the weather side, watching the gradual breaking of the day, and the first streaks of the early light. Much has been said of the sunrise at sea; but it will not compare with the sunrise on shore. It lacks the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum of humanity, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills, spires, and house-tops, to give it life and spirit. There is no scenery. But, although the actual rise of the sun at sea is not so beautiful, yet nothing will compare for melancholy ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... feel more at home when we meet." There was a pause of a moment, and then Guy, as he appropriated a cigar from a china stand that tempted him close by, resumed, "this certainly is a strange, unlooked- for incident in your hum-drum life, but it is also a very fortunate one, since she is such a comfort to you and such an acquisition to your home—I fancy, from your description she could scarcely be otherwise. I hope we will all be an agreeable and sociable family ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... soldier-workman, physically unchanged, mentally a little weakened, but more "characterful" and restive, will step out through a demobilisation—heaven send it be swift, even at some risk!—into an industrial world, confused and busy as a beehive, which will hum and throb and flourish for two or three years, and then slowly chill and thin away into, may be, the winter ghost of itself, or at best an autumn hive. There, unless he be convinced, not by words but facts, ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... "Hum!" said St. Aldegonde; "Duke of Brecon, I know, will come, and Hugo and Bertram. My brother Montairy would give his ears to come, but is afraid of his wife; and then there is the monsignore, a most capital fellow, who knows ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... evening, cool for July; no sound was heard save the hum of the summer insects, and Lady Isabel sat in silence with her companion, her rebellious heart beating with a sense of its own happiness. But for the voice of conscience, strong within her; but for the sense of right and wrong; but for the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the Goblin, calmly. "When a cab-horse on a vacation talks about eating you, a Hum Bug is a pretty good thing to take the conceit out of him. They're loaded, you see, and they go booming along as innocently as you please; but if you touch 'em—why, 'There you aren't!' ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... should think it would succeed. He, it should seem, thinks otherwise."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 65. "I could wish you to go."—Ib., p. 71. 3. WILL, &c. The following are nearly of the same character, but not exactly: "The isle is full of noises; sometimes a thousand twanging instruments will hum about mine ears."—Shak. "In their evening sports she would steal ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... come sweeping over from the Lolab Valley. The hollow is so small that it barely contains my tiffin basket, rifle, gun, and self—in fact, my grass-shod and puttied extremities dangle over the rim, whence a steep slope shelves down some 200 feet to a brawling burn, the hum of which, mingling with the fitful sighing of the pines as the breeze sweeps through their sounding boughs, is perpetually in my ears. Across the little torrent, and not more than a hundred yards away, rises a slope, covered with rough grass ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... passenger truly, not averse to stiff rowing, after a stiff walk, "jest for pleasure". But the dusky pilot had met these anomalous white beings before—"spo'tsmen", they called themselves. And a certain sense of humor, as Mr. Heatherbloom sat down to the oars, caused the colored man involuntarily to hum: I'se got a white man a-workin' for me. He had only finished a bar or two, however, when the tune abruptly ceased on his lips. "Dat's too bad," he said. "I guess ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... to a room wrapped in a green trembling twilight. She was alone save for the black cat. The fire crackled, the gas was turned low, and the London murmur beyond the window was like the hum of an organ. There was no one in the room; she felt, as she lay there, an increasing irritation at her weakness. She was afraid too for her future. Did she faint like this at the earliest opportunity people would allow ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Shakespeare makes Falstaff hire red-nosed Bardolph in St. Paul's, and Ben Jonson lays the third act of his Every Man in his Humour in the middle aisle. Bishop Earle, in his "Microcosmography," describes the noise of the crowd of idlers in Paul's "as that of bees, a strange hum mixed of walking tongues and feet, a kind of still roar or loud whisper." He describes the crowd of young curates, copper captains, thieves, and dinnerless adventurers and gossip-mongers. Bishop Corbet, that jolly prelate, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of the bright warm day is purest around the retired path leading to the little dwelling. Here the fragrance of wild flowers rises pleasantly from the waving grass; the lulling, monotonous hum of insect life pervades the light, steady air; the sunbeams, intercepted here and there by the clustering trees, fall in irregular patches of brightness on the shady ground; and, saving the birds which occasionally pass overhead, singing in their flight, no living ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... "Selling a quarter of a million bushels of wheat you do not own and never will! Hum-m-m! Ahem! ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Miss Higham was called frequently to Pall Mall; and, in a brief period, all the outworkers were again busy: Great Titchfield Street found itself so fully occupied that the girls had no time to recall songs learned at the second house of their favourite music hall. Into the hum and activity of this busy hive came, one evening, Madame's husband, making his way to the office where Madame and Miss Higham faced each other at sloping desks. He began to shout; it was clear that on the way from King's Road he had been taking refreshment to encourage determination. When he ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... The hum of the streets was hushed. Few sounds came from without; but the silence that had so long reigned in the mansion, was broken by the gentle tones ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... Quartett began. The daylight had diminished so much that the yellow curtains had to be drawn back. Several other ladies left. A low hum of conversation was audible here and there. The fatigue and inattention which invariably marks the end of a concert began to make itself apparent in the audience. By one of those strange and abrupt manifestations of moral elasticity, Andrea experienced a sudden sense of relief, not to say gaiety. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... seemed to have no windows, and the roar of the New York street outside was gone, or faint as the hum of a hive. The walls were hung with fabrics of wool or silk, in dull greens and reds, and the floor was spread with rugs. With mouth redly ravening at him, and eyes emitting opalescent gleams, lay a great tiger-skin rug, upon which, on ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... came upon an individual of the species they always knew that some white man's dwelling stood nearby. Those who are familiar with the solitudes of our Appalachian forests must often have remarked, in the stillness of a summer day, the hum of a swarm from some forest or domestic hive in its search for a dwelling-place. Those who have followed up the movements of these migrating colonies have had a chance to perceive how long is the search before ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... turned and sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods, with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine. And all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and how conducive to amiable discussion and ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... had left the table, but the rest, lingering over their fresh filled coffee cups, sat around telling tales, and Tex Calder was among them. He was about to push back his chair when the hum of talk ceased as if at a command. The men on the opposite side of the table were staring with fascinated eyes at the door, and then a big voice boomed behind him: "Tex Calder, stan' up. You've come to the end ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... The hum of bush common-places went on. One of the boys fell across the bed and into deep slumber; the other watched on ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... answer the hum and whirr of two high-powered motors chugging in unison stole upon the air and rapidly increased in volume. Ben craned his neck from the ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... unuttered on your lips and hang on my lips and pay respectful attention to whatever I choose to say. I tell you your party is rotten and filled with grafters, and instead of flying into a rage you hum and haw and admit there is a great deal in what I say. And why? Because I'm famous; because I've a lot of money. Not because I'm Martin Eden, a pretty good fellow and not particularly a fool. I could tell you the moon ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... can and can't. I'm willing to attack you personally, but while I live no other shall do so. Wherefore I tell Mr. Brief plainly, and to his face, that if he says you ever sang a comic song he says what is not so. You might hum one, but sing it—never!" ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... beginning of this harangue, saw its tendency, seemed to yield the most serious attention to what he said: breaking in upon it, every now and then, with the interjections, hum! ha! the deuce! and several civil questions, from which the other conceived happy omens of success; till perceiving they had advanced as far as the passage into St. James's, the mischievous youth interrupted him all at once, saying, "I see you are for the end ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Refuses to Start. If there is a humming noise when you try to start the motor, and the outfit does not start, one of the fuses needs replacing. The outfit will hum only on two or three phase current. Never leave the power turned on with any ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... loved Bonaventure, each according to knowledge of him. Nor did their common likings stop with him. The things he had taught Claude to love and seek suddenly became the admiration of Marguerite. Aspirations—aspirations!—began to stir and hum in her young heart, and to pour forth like waking bees in the warm presence of spring. Claude was a new interpretation of life to her; as one caught abed by the first sunrise at sea, her whole spirit leaped, with unmeasured self-reproach, into ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... disturbances of the night the old clergyman had slept little. He now lay down on the couch, and soon sank into a profound slumber. When he awoke he heard the hum of voices. The cave was ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... and I don't know whether I can spare the time to go to Philadelphia or not. I'll have to think it over. An electric airship, eh? He's sort of following along the lines of my inventions. Wants my aid—hum—well, ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... her think of rounders in the hot school garden, singing-classes in the large green room, all the class shouting "Gather roses while ye may," hot afternoons in the shady north room, the sound of turning pages, the hum of the garden beyond the sun-blinds, meetings in the sixth form study.... Lilla, with her black hair and the specks of bright amber in the brown of her ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... way down to the gate, lurched a little heavily across the dip into the road, and, steadying as it came upon the straight, began to hum contentedly ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... an actor give this word "so" its proper emphasis. Shakespeare's meaning is—"lov'd you? Hum!—so I do still," &c. There has been no change in my opinion:—I think as ill of you as I did. Else Hamlet tells an ignoble falsehood, and a useless one, as the last speech to ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Jerry. Looky here, one fine fox, and, would ye believe it, actually a mink, boy! That ere pelt orter bring me a twenty, all right. That's why I'm so tickled, ye see. This shore must be one o' my lucky days. Make yerself to hum. Come to take a snack o' dinner along with ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... silence beside the bare sandy mound. No stone—no mark. Another nameless grave! She had been a child once, with dancing eyes and smiles, loved by some one, surely, and perhaps mourned by some one living. The low hum of Benton's awakening night life was borne faintly on the wind. The sand seeped; the coyotes wailed; and yet there was silence. Twilight lingered. Out on the desert the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... fairies, and the peasants take off their hats and say "God bless them."' When they are gay, they sing. Many of the most beautiful tunes of Ireland 'are only their music, caught up by eavesdroppers.' No prudent peasant would hum The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow near a fairy rath, 'for they are jealous, and do not like to hear their songs on clumsy mortal lips.' Blake once saw a fairy's funeral. But this, as Mr. Yeats points out, must have been an English ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... air had the indescribably sweet smell of ripening grain, clover-blooms, and new hay; for the high stands of wild hay around the ponds and lakes are all being cut this year, and even the timothy along the roads, and there was a mellow undertone of mowing machines everywhere, like the distant hum of a city. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in a stream as we passed, and others lay contentedly on the clover-covered banks. One restless spirit, with a poke on her neck, sniffed at us as we went by, and tossed her head in grim defiance of public opinion and man-made laws. She ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... to a seat in the superb salle a manger. "I'll get out of here to-night," he muttered, and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit. It was in a deference to old habit, and the "qu en dira't on," that he ordered a half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all the scrupulous punctilio ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... now eagerly expectant of the arrival of him whose face we have so long sought The hour is at hand when he joins his military family at an unostentatious and very frugal dinner. In about half an hour there is a sudden cessation in the hum of conversation, the guard is ordered to stand to arms, and in a moment more, amid profound silence, Garibaldi has passed through the antechamber, leaving the place, as it were, pervaded by his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... of the majestic sail swelling with the wind, and still more on perceiving a decided improvement in the pitching of the boat, the spirits of the party rose again, and Braintree actually began to hum ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... blankets, so as to protect her father from the cold, and in answering inquiries, which he seemed to make with a captious and querulous manner. She did not trust herself to look towards the Place, although the hum of the assembled crowd must have drawn her attention in that direction. The fourth person of the group was a handsome and genteel young man, who seemed to share Miss Bertram's anxiety, and her solicitude to soothe and accommodate ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott |
