"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as Humayun commenced firing, the sangars in our front began humming like a beehive and presently shot after shot came dropping among us; the enemy evidently had plenty of ammunition, and for some minutes things were quite lively; but, finding we made no response, they calmed down gradually, and peace ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... macadamized highways that would make the "sand-papered roads" around Boston seem almost unfit for cycling in comparison, and that lead through picturesque villages and noble parks; occasionally catching a glimpse of a splendid old manor among venerable trees, that makes one unconsciously begin humming:- "The ancient homes of England, How beautiful they stand Amidst the tall ancestral trees O'er all the pleasant land." "Oh, you'll get much better roads than this in the southern counties," is the reply; though, fresh from American roads, one ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... she said, rising with magnificent disdain. "Come again with a decent instrument—and perhaps"— Then, lightly humming in a pure contralto, "I've been photographed like this—I've been photographed like that," she summoned the slave to conduct him back, and vanished through a canvas screen, which nevertheless seemed to the dazed Chevalier to be the stony front of ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... the form that crept nearer and nearer to him, a little later. And he was still chuckling to himself when he heard a terrible humming. Then all at once he felt himself seized and held in a ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... such perfect reliance on his own peculiar gastronomic abilities, that he did not in the least shrink from again testing them. Leaving Michael Rust's presence with an alacrity which bordered upon haste, he descended into the refectory with somewhat of a jaunty air, humming a tune, and keeping time to it by an occasional flourish of the fingers. Having seated himself, his first act was to shut his eyes, thrust his feet at full length under the table; plunge both hands to the very bottom ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Sturnella magna neglecta. Horned lark. Otocoris alpestris leucolaema. Yellow warbler. Dendroica aestiva. Western wood-pewee. Contopus richardsonii. Humming-bird. Trochilus colubris. Long-tailed chat. ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... there had been storm mutterings within the awful cave of Old Grim Barnes had never before had a depressing effect upon her hero. He had always sallied forth with airy tread, humming a tune or laughing with his eyes. What could have happened at this fateful meeting? Perhaps he had been disinherited. Rapture of raptures, he had confessed his love for some howling beauty of humble station, had been cut ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... pick it all out," declared Phronsie in a tone of determination. And wiping off the tears on the back of her fat little hand, she set to work, humming ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... of an hour or so, tactfully circumvented Peter into offering him the loan of a car since he had to go into New York, and intimated that he would drop back and in at the Rackstraws' dance as soon as possible, after many apologies for daring to leave at all. Then he went slowly upstairs, humming loudly as he did so. Elinor ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... interval. "Two thousand years being a second to the soul could not cause its extinction. . . . Resting by the tumulus, the spirit of the man who had been interred there was to me really alive, and very close. This was quite natural and simple as the grass waving in the wind, the bees humming, and the lark's songs. Only by the strongest effort of the mind could I understand the idea of extinction; that was supernatural, requiring a miracle; the immortality of the soul natural, like the earth. Listening to the sighing of the grass I felt ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... were within arrow flight, and the bolts from the crossbowmen pattered upon the English ship. These short thick devil's darts were everywhere humming like great wasps through the air, crashing against the bulwarks, beating upon the deck, ringing loudly on the armor of the knights, or with a soft muffled thud sinking to the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it," said Sebastian absently. He was humming to himself. "Listen to this!" he said eagerly. He hummed a few bars. "That's Buxtehude's—isn't it great!" His face went tumpty-tumpty with the notes, and the blue eyes shone. "But this is the one I like best—listen!" He turned over the pages rapidly. "Here ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... arbor, stretched a wide field with a fringe of woods at its distant edge, gay with the colors of autumn. The sky was bright and blue, and fair white clouds moved slowly over its surface; the air was sunny and warm, with bumble-bees humming about some late-flowering shrubs; and, high in the air, floated two great turkey-buzzards, with a beauty of motion surpassed by no other flying thing, with never a movement of their wide-spread wings, except to ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... seat of thy glory A child of night, misfortune, and the Escurial! What if, when I were seated there, the past, Plunging its yellow hands into my soul, With hideous claws unearthed some ancestor: Some Rudolph or some Philip? Ah! I dread Lest at the humming of Imperial bees The monster sleeping in me ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... instant Arlee hesitated, while her imagination fluttered about the thought like humming-birds about sweets. Already she was thinking of the story she could have to tell to her fellow travelers here and to the people at home. It was a chance, she repeated to herself, in a thousand, and the familiar details ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... refreshments, and, after a while, left him to repose. On again repairing to the garden, every object assumed its wonted appearance. The fragrance of the orange and the jasmine was no longer lost to me. The humming birds, which swarmed round the flowering cytisus and the beautiful water-fall, once more delighted the eye and the ear. I took my usual bath, as the sun was sinking below the mountain; and, finding the Hermit still soundly ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Not she, bless your soul! She would never have thought of such a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. We were going to pull down the old house, anyhow. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... my confession, I felt easier in mind as I lay huddled under the seat, though it seemed to me that Mr. Jope took matters lightly. For the squadron ahead had resumed the singing of Tom Bowling and he sat humming a bar or two here and there with evident pleasure, and paused only to bow out of window and acknowledge the cheers of ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... two of the girls glanced round at Kathleen in amazement. She did not say anything further but left the room. When she got into the passage she hummed a little air. The teacher who had summoned her had gone on in front. Kathleen followed her at a respectful distance, and still humming "The wearing of the Green," she knocked at Miss ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... the new strength that filled her, under a pear-tree, in a pleasant patch of shadow, eating with relish from Hester's morning tray. Ann knelt not far from her in the sun, not too hot at this hour for a hardy worker, and soon her low humming rose like a bee's note from under ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... he is the fool of ideas, and leads a heavenly life. But if his eye is set on the things to be done, and not on the truth that is still-taught, and for the sake of which the things are to be done, then the voice grows faint, and at last is but a humming in ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... surrenders either fortresses or ships; who, like Thorycion,[427] the wretched collector of tolls, sends prohibited goods from Aegina to Epidaurus, such as oar-leathers, sailcloth and pitch, and who secures a subsidy for a hostile fleet,[428] or soils the statues of Hecat,[429] while he is humming some dithyramb. Away from here, the orator who nibbles at the salary of the poets, because he has been scouted in the ancient solemnities of Dionysus; to all such I say, and I repeat, and I say it again for the third time, "Make way for the choruses ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... something more at hand. A flutter scarcely recognizable, as of the wings of awaking delight, would stir her little heart with a sensation of physical presence and motion; she would find herself giving an involuntary skip as she walked along, and now and then humming a bit of a psalm tune. A hidden well was throbbing in the child's bosom. Its waters had been frozen by the winter; and the spring, which sets all things springing, had made it flow and swell afresh, soon to break bubbling forth. But her ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... She laughed, patted Lucia's full-blown cheek. "Not quite yet." And she went on in to tea, humming to herself gayly; she did not understand her own ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, The Carnival's coming, Oh Thomas Moore, Masking and humming, Fifing and drumming, Guitarring and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... beautiful gray dress, with the deep black lace flounces, which she wore at my Lord Comandine's on the night of the private theatricals, would have done any man good. To hear her sing any of my little ballads, "Knowest Thou the Willow-tree?" for instance, or "The Rose upon my Balcony," or "The Humming of the Honey-bee," (far superior in MY judgment, and in that of SOME GOOD JUDGES likewise, to that humbug Clarence Bulbul's ballads,)—to hear her, I say, sing these, was to be in a sort of small Elysium. Dear, dear little Fanny Dixon! she was like a little chirping bird ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... He was almost humming the words, and it dawned upon him that the other reminded him of the trade wind, of the Northeast Trade, steady, and cool, and strong. He was equable, he was to be relied upon, and withal there was a certain bafflement ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the hatch. But the cockpit of the Follow Me remained empty and the entrance to the cabin was closed. Wink, his revolver ready, had returned to his post and watched grimly while the Adventurer, her engine fairly humming, slowly wore down the distance that separated her from ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... tribes by which they are inhabited. Our residence on the island of Wakenaam had been truly a tropical one. During the night, the tree frogs, crickets, razor-grinders, reptiles, and insects of every kind, kept up a continued concert. At sunrise, when the flowers unfolded themselves, the humming birds, with the metallic lustre glittering on their wings, passed rapidly from blossom to blossom. The bright yellow and black mocking-birds flew from their pendant nests, accompanied by their neighbours, the wild bees, which construct their earthen hives on the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... no one in the little salon, no one upstairs; Madame Pyat was away for the day, nursing a daughter-in-law. In all the house and garden there was not a sound or sign of life but the cat asleep on the stone step of the kitchen, and the bees humming ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... temple. One might expect to see Buddha squatting on the embroidered counterpane—the work of half a lifetime. When the curtains were drawn back, a huge moth flew out of the darkness, and spun and wheeled round the room with an awful humming noise, and to the superstitious mind might have suggested a human soul embodied in this phantasmal greyness, with power of sound in such ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... riding serenely by the side of the great ship, looking for all the world like a humming bird under the wings of an ostrich, and uttered a little ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... humming a plaintive air; Saveliitch, sound asleep, swayed from side to side; our kibitka was gliding rapidly over the winter road. I saw in the distance a village well known to my eyes, with its palisade and church spire on the steep bank of the river Iaik. ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... "Higher! Lift!" whispered the boatswain, fiercely.—"He won't go," stammered one of the men, shakily, and both appeared ready to drop everything. Mr. Baker waited, burying his face in the book, and shuffling his feet nervously. All the men looked profoundly disturbed; from their midst a faint humming noise spread out—growing louder.... "Jimmy!" cried Belfast in a wailing tone, and there was a second ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... no desire to exchange the noisy, wholesome family life of the Martels for the silent, somber grandeur of the Bartletts. His affections had taken root in the shabby little brown house that always seemed to be humming gaily to itself. When the piano was not being played, the violin or guitar was. There were bursts of laughter, snatches of song, and young people going and coming through doors that never ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... apt pupil to Timothy's friendly instructions when he had come home from college and passed on his acquirements in the art terpsichorean. The lessons had taken place in the central, biggest space in the barn, as she had said, with Timothy humming an accompaniment until breathless, and then she taking up the tune in her turn. This little taste of the joys of dancing had made her long for more. She failed to see how anything that made for such pure and unadulterated ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... I snapped as I hurried to the instrument. "Dival, take those reports." I gestured towards the two attention signals that were glowing and softly humming and thrust my head into the shelter of the television instrument's ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Horrible!" she cried as she sank into the nearest chair, and clapped her hands to her ears. But she could not shut it out. Still she heard the humming of the whip and the cruel sound of the falling blows. Mechanically she counted them, unconsciously almost, and at twenty she heard them cease. Was it over? Was he dead, this poor unfortunate? Moved by a curiosity that was greater than her loathing, she rose and ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... through the bolted door that communicated with the adjoining bed-chamber, the business of a sleuth seemed to comprise going to bed. Lanyard, shaving and dressing, could distinctly hear a tuneless voice contentedly humming "Sally in our Alley," a rendition punctuated by one heavy thump and then another and then by a heartfelt sigh of relief—as Roddy kicked off his boots—and followed by the tapping of a pipe against grate-bars, the squeal of a window lowered for ventilation, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... laughs I had at the care he took of his lily-white hands, and the jokes we cracked upon his girl-like manners, voice, and conversation. The boatswain, who was in his watch, assured me that he rarely gave an order without humming it out to a tune of some ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... human race. When the great god Tezcatlipoca decreed that the waters should retire, Tezpi sent a vulture from the bark. The bird, feeding on the carcasses with which the earth was laden, did not return. Tezpi sent out other birds, of which the humming-bird only came back with a leafy branch in its beak. Then Tezpi, seeing that the country began to vegetate, left his bark on ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... can, then sits up and begs," sang Cora helping herself to that portion of the fare, and keeping time with the humming toast. ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... lesser and earthly sweetness, and the blessed light of the sun will dim and all but extinguish the deceitful gleams that tempt us into the swamps where we shall be drowned. Turn away, then, from these things; cleave to Jesus Christ; and though in ourselves we may be as weak as a humming-bird before a snake, or a rabbit before a tiger, He will give us strength, and the light of His face shining down upon us will fix our eyes and make us insensible to the fascinations of the sorcerers. So we shall not need to dread the question, 'Who hath bewitched you?' but ourselves challenge ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... drawing-room in search of Mr Gwynne, humming a little Scotch air, the refrain of which is 'and troth I'll wed ye a,' a thing he has often wished he ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Humming a bar of a Genoese barcarole, Muriel ran up stairs to join her governess; but Salome turned and followed the master of the house to the ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... coming, hear the humming Of the bumble bees; Life is waking, buds are breaking, Love ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren
... right here. The tank is kept supplied by two tubes which lead into it, and each of which joins a small pump operated by a fan which is right here on each side of the fuselage where the onrush of wind will keep it humming as ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... tub for her Monday morning siesta. She was humming a strange tune over the cascade like another Minnehaha. And from the behavior of the dining-room chandelier and the plates on the sideboard she was ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... appetite. She seemed acutely sensitive to the perceptions of the moment. The shade of the cedars was cool. And out on the desert she could see the dark smoky veils of heat lifting. The breeze carried a dry odor of sand and grass. She heard bees humming by. And all around the great isolated monuments stood up, red tops against the blue sky. It was a silent, dreaming, impressive place, where she ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... humming As clear as the wood wind rings; And here were the air-boats coming And here ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... pronounced with drowsy solemnity; "Solomon was wise; and Jack's wise. Jack goes to sleep, when the liquor's done. Take away the bottle, before the overseer comes in. If any man says I am not sober, that man lies. The Rhine wine has a way of humming in one's head. That's all, Mr. Overseer—that's all. Do I see the sun rising, up there in the skylight? I wish you good-night; ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... same time commencing to pull the feathers out of one myself. The poor doctor looked as though he was wishing he had made a specialty of dementia, and stood like a goose, looking at the chicken. Charlie soon became very restless—went inside the tent, and then came out, humming all the time. Finally he gave in, and coming over to us, fairly snatched the birds from me and said, "Me flixee him," and carried the whole bunch back of his tent where we could not see him. Since that evening Charlie has been the most delighted one in camp when ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... laughed and went on. The house seemed strangely quiet to him, though he could hear Winnie humming in the kitchen and appetizing odors promised a dinner on time. In the upstairs hall, Rosemary tip-toed to meet him, her eyes ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... Mass in the small, ugly chapel down beyant near Ballybrosna. Some people, it is true, said that she was "just a fairy of a crathur, and too little for anythin'," and she was, no doubt, diminutive in size. Nor had she any brilliancy of colouring to make amends in a humming-bird's fashion for the insignificance of her proportions, resembling rather, with her dark eyes and hair, one of those filmy white blossoms which look the paler and frailer for their knots of ebon ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... workmen, the rumble of the artillery as it was placed in position, the measured tread of the battalions as they shifted their places or marched off under Thornton,—all these and the thousand other sounds of warlike preparation were softened and blended by the distance into one continuous humming murmur, which struck on the ears of the American sentries with ominous foreboding for the morrow. By midnight Jackson had risen and was getting every thing in readiness to hurl back the blow that he rightly judged ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... at your feet. The ricochets are in the majority, for with the vast number of intervening walls and trees and the sloping Chinese roofs which pen us in on all sides, the nickel, iron and lead of Mannlicher and Mauser rifles and Tower muskets are soon converted into mere discordant humming-birds, whose greatest inconvenience is their sound. Never have I heard such a humming as these ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... dreamily at the humming-birds hovering over the honeysuckle; "and if we should, everything would be different. Bless dear old Bell's heart! What a lovely summer she must be having! I wonder what ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... yet been done?" Newman repeated the words, unconscious of their comical effect. He had lost the sense of what the marquis was saying; M. de Bellegarde's superior style was a mere humming in his ears. All that he understood, in his deep and simple indignation, was that the matter was not a violent joke, and that the people before him were perfectly serious. "Do you suppose I can take this?" ...
— The American • Henry James
... as he sat on the bench in our garden and fanned himself with his hat, "now that you have got the old town geared up and jogging along smoothly with your almost boylike energy, let's forget all about 'em and get ready a really humming Scout-Campfire ceremonial for the second night of commencement. I have got one gruesome idea I will be ready to tell you about to-morrow. We needn't let in Roxy or the Dumpling or the other Kittens until it is all fixed, for they will be frozen ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... tiny switch that brought his filament points trembling together under the atmospheric pressure so far underground. A tiny spark danced and throbbed through the tiny glass tube before him, beginning to buzz as it started the circuit of increasing coils, and soon humming and vibrating as the helium and vacuum tubes swelled it to full power. Spark after spark, increased almost beyond imagination, followed one after another. The Miner ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... French battery commander, yesterday. He was cantering a showy chestnut mare over the turf, humming a tune aloud. He looked very fit and very much in love with the world. I asked him what he meant by it. He replied that he couldn't help it; everybody was combining to make him happy; his C.O. had fallen down a gun-pit and broken a leg; he had won two hundred francs from his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair. There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven, And a god among the stars; and I will go Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak And humming a tune ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... light something similar to the light of the glow-worm, only more red and brilliant, danced around me like sparks from a smith's anvil when he is beating a bar of red-hot iron. These creatures flutter about with a humming noise, and frequently settle in large swarms upon branches of trees, giving them the semblance of so many pieces of timber taken newly out of a fire. When viewed by daylight they are in no way remarkable for their elegance, resembling in the shape of the body a long beetle which ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... had come the night when he had hardly forborne to throw the whole thing into the fire; and the next morning he had begun the planning of the new Romilly. It had been on that morning that Mrs. Barrett, overhearing him humming a brief phrase that the dripping of a tap the night before had suggested, had informed him that he was singing some air he had never in his life heard before, called "The ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... know, or if you do not know I hope you will learn, that it is always those who are busiest at their work that can be merriest in their hours of leisure. Nothing gives us such an appetite for enjoyment as hearty work. So Amy tripped on, humming a cheerful hymn, while poor Kitty kept on saying over and over again the words of her hymn, and vainly trying to stop her ears from hearing and her eyes from seeing all the pleasant sights and sounds around her. But the birds were so busy singing, and ...
— Amy Harrison - or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew • Amy Harrison
... some confirmation of this strange instinct his eyes fell on the small blue envelope which had been placed on the mantelpiece by his servant. It was addressed to himself. Fortunately, whilst he was opening it, Brigit's attention was still riveted on the old song which she was humming over at the piano. She spoke to him three times before ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... her in the pride of young womanhood, lovely and fitted to be loved, the sharer of my confidence, and one capable of entering into all my plans of life. How often that day did the murmuring of a brook or the humming of a bee become blended in my imagination with the song, the laugh, the call, or the prayers of that beloved sister whose spirit had ascended to heaven, and who was no more to mingle in my ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... had a "hockey stick" play round her ankles in recess, because she got above a fellow in the class. I guess she never had him twitch off her best cap, and toss it in a mud-puddle. I guess she never had to give her humming-top to quiet the baby, and had the paint all sucked off. I guess she never saved up all her coppers a whole winter to buy a trumpet, and then was told she must not blow it, because it ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... blind-man's-buff, where every one tapped him in passing, leaving him puzzled and ignorant as to whither they had gone and from what point they would come next. The bullets sounded like rustling silk, or like humming-birds on a warm summer's day, or like the wind as it is imitated on the stage of a theatre. Any one who has stood behind the scenes when a storm is progressing on the stage, knows the little wheel wound with silk that brushes against ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... promiscuously at all the great men of history, including, in our own country, Washington and Jefferson as well as Burr. In England, when Gladstone was more than seventy years of age, he once stopped to ask a question of a woman in the street. Within twenty-four hours the London clubs were humming with a sort of demoniac glee over the story that this aged and austere old gentleman was not above ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... fervency in midwinter. If the snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm he will complacently sit down allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bombshell,—a picture of native ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... manner, a strange thing occurred. Her sister seemed to have been attacked by a sudden fit of madness. She had caught up a light shawl, which she extended from hand to hand, as if she were dancing with some one, and then she proceeded to execute a slow waltz in this circumscribed space, humming the improvised music in a mystical and rhythmical manner. And what were these dark utterances that the inspired one gave forth, as she glanced from time to time at ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... self-inflicted, did Patty good, and humming a lively tune, she busied herself with arranging some fans and frills in boxes to ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... M is a semivowel and a liquid, capable of an audible, humming sound through the nose, when the mouth is closed. It is heard in map, murmur, mammon. In the old words, compt, accompt, comptroller, (for count, account, controller,) the m is sounded as n. M before ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the letter that was to rejoice the heart of Gian Maria. He chose a favourable moment to despatch it, as he had despatched the former ones, tied about the quarrel of an arbalest, and he saw Gian Maria's signal—for which the letter had provided—that the plan would be adopted. Humming a gay measure, jubilant at the prospect of seeing himself so amply avenged, Gonzaga passed down and out into the castle gardens to join the ladies in their merry-making over a ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... parting wave of the hand he left the room, and Villiers heard him humming a tune softly to himself as he ascended the stairs to his own apartments, where, ever since he arrived, he had made it his custom to do two or three hours' steady writing every morning. For a moment or so after he ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... purpose; but her wish to converse went no further. As soon as her simple queries were answered—and answered they all were, in the fullest and kindest manner—she withdrew to her scat, and continued to work on a coarse garment that she was making for her father, sometimes humming a low melancholy ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... like this great, busy, restless, humming city, though the only home I have to offer you, I am truly sorry to say, is in a boarding-house, comfortable though it is. Remembering Aunt Ellen's beautiful home in California, which I visited fifteen years ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... we have already said, Komel lacked not for tenderness of feeling. Her heart was gentle and susceptible; but dashing now the tears from her eyes, she assumed a forced calmness, and strove to reason with herself as she said, quietly, "We shall meet again in heaven!" Humming some wild air of her native land, the slave then tried to lose herself in some trifling occupation, that she might partially ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... humming top which she had been examining, she stalked out of the room, and banged the door behind her. Horace, who was extremely fond of his sister, followed, and succeeded in making peace. Muriel was mollified when he played chess with her all the evening, and forgave him for what she considered ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... hastily, humming a tune in happy excitement. Her whole being was charged with happiness—for the ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... a voice, I know not whence, Thrills clearly through mine inward sense, Saying, "See where she sits at home, While thou in search of her dost roam! All summer long her ancient wheel Whirls humming by the open door, Or, when the hickory's social zeal Sets the wide chimney in a roar, Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth, It modulates the household mirth With that sweet, serious undertone Of Duty, music all her own; Still, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the piano and her slim, nervous hands wandered soundlessly a moment above the keys. Then a wailing minor melody grew beneath them—unsatisfied, asking, with now and then an ecstasy of joyous chords that only died again into the querying despair of the original theme. She broke off abruptly, humming the words ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... as she saw his eyes brighten at the sights all round him. "Yes, indeed! I've a small collection myself, but nothing like this! I study about birds every chance I get. Oh, see the humming birds! Aren't ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... in his mother's mouth than ever, Ranny drew in his lips for a whistle; but instead of whistling he said, "Poor old Humming-bird." ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... in one of the poorest streets of London, Pierre, a faithful French boy, sat humming by the bedside of his sick mother. There was no bread in the closet, and for the whole day he had not tasted food. Yet he sat humming to keep up his spirits. Still at times he thought of his loneliness and hunger, and he could scarcely keep the tears from his eyes; for he knew that ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... shoulders of the man as he stooped over on the other side of the fire to throw on more wood. Presently she knew he had thrown himself down with his head on the saddle, but she could hear him still humming softly something that sounded like a lullaby. When the firelight flared up ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... one of the poorer streets of London, little Pierre, a fatherless French boy, sat humming by the bedside of his sick mother. There was no bread in the house; and he had not tasted food all day. Yet he sat humming to keep ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... on the table with one's fingers, making various clicking, whistling, or humming sounds, massaging one's face, scratching one's chin with the cards, or waving the card one is going to play aloft in the air in Smart Alec fashion as though shouting, "I know what you are going to lead! And my card is ready!" All ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... scattered his wits, and Martin lay in the scuppers, blinking at the dancing lights before his eyes. In his ears was a great humming. Then, after a moment, the humming broke into parts and became a babel ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... leapt from her bed and looked out upon a sunny summer's day, humming with busy life, fragrant with scent of flowers, thrilling ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... desks in here, and typers humming, as Vacuum Tube Transport office workers, mobilized for this special service, processed volunteers for the company forces. Harried noncoms and junior-grade officers buzzed everywhere, failing miserably to bring order to the chaos. To the right was a door with a medical cross newly ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... little while Charmian came in, still humming the air of her song, and not troubling even to glance in ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... hand, and with a few more light parting words took his graceful presence out of the room, and went down the stairs humming a tune as ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... ye quaff with me, my lads, And it's will ye quaff with me? It is a draught of nut-brown ale I offer unto ye. All humming in the tankard, lads, It cheers the heart forlorn; Oh! here's a friend to everyone, 'Tis ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... drowsy parlour, the humming afternoon coming in at the door, 'the blue fly' singing on the hot pane, dreaming all kinds of gauzy-winged dreams, while my body absorbed ham sandwiches and some excellent ale. Of course I did not ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... shout at the same time, and I would if I could trust this pullet in the skillet to either you or Dabney whilst I did it. The Lord wouldn't listen to no shoutin' from a cook whose chicken was frying black while she did her praisin'," and as she spoke Mammy began a low humming, swaying from table to stove with a rhythm in the swing of her fat body that had a certain dignified beauty to it. It was crude emotion, and I knew it, but I felt it work in my own body as I let the significance of what she had told me about the lessening amount of whiskey ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... places where everybody meets everybody, and where lazy hours can be conveniently lounged away, the exhibitions in some sort supply in the afternoon what the Opera and parties do in the evenings. Nearly all through the summer-day, they are crowded with a softly-rustling, humming, buzzing crowd, coming and going perhaps, taking little heed of the nominal attraction, but sauntering from room to room, or ensconcing themselves in colonies or clusters of chairs, and lounging vacantly in cool lobbies. At energetic sight-seers, who are labouring away, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... from the wings, soon to give place, when the curtain rises, to the brilliant light from the theatre, Cardailhac in black coat and white cravat, his hat cocked over one ear, casts a last glance over the arrangement of the scenery, hastens the workmen, compliments the ingenue, humming a tune the while, radiant and superb. To see him, no one would ever suspect the terrible anxieties by which his mind is beset. As he was involved with all the others in the Nabob's downfall, in which his ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the ball. But the Frenchmen snatched that honour from us, for as I was descending from the poop to the quarter-deck after having hoisted the ensign, I saw a jet of flame and a cloud of smoke burst from the stranger's port side, and immediately afterwards a heavy shot flew humming high over our mastheads. Almost immediately afterward three of our starboard main-deck guns spoke simultaneously, and, as the smoke from them swept away ahead of us, I heard the captain of the aftermost ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... Ben was there, Humming a song upon the old black settle, "Or leave a kiss within the cup And I'll not ask for wine," But meanwhile, he drank malmsey. [Footnote: ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... render the Turkish trenches untenable. Twice, whilst their six precious mortars have been firing, I have stood for half an hour with Birdie, watching and drinking in encouragement. About one bomb a minute was the rate of fire and as it buzzed over our own trenches like a monstrous humming bird all the naked Anzacs laughed. Then, such an explosion and a sort of long drawn out ei-ei-ei-ei cry of horror from the Turks. It was fine,—a real corpse-reviving performance and now the W.O. have let the stock run out, because ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... shone coldly from the skylight of the building died out, so abruptly that the change seemed almost audible; and simultaneously she heard her husband's careless step in the long glazed passage, half conservatory, half corridor, which led from her domain to his. He came in, softly humming an air from a comic opera, and then paused, peering into the darkness for an instant before he distinguished his wife's shape in dusky relief against ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... field-glasses from the case at his belt and focused them upon the sky. The enemy came, a graceful V-shaped flight of monstrous geese, throbbing and humming, and the wandering patrols above changed direction ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... derelictions of the souls they are appointed to guard. Helen did not observe them; giddy and selfish, she derived amusement from that which was luring her soul further away from God; and, while May wept over her peril, she thought only of the transient and fleeting enjoyments of the present. Gayly humming the Tarantula, she ran down to the kitchen, where she got breakfast, or, rather claimed the reputation of getting it, by assisting May, who was really the practical cause of its ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... on the Tennessee; hark, Bluebird, listen! Was that a bugle note far up the bend, Where the murk waters flush and the white bars glisten, Or dove cooing dove into love notes that blend? And Wood Thrush, sweet, tell me,—that throbbing and humming, Is it march at the double quick or wild bees that hum? And that rumble that shakes like an earthquake coming— Tell me, O Hermit Thrush, ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... back: the humming clatter of the engine ceased; and the aeroplane swooped down as gracefully as a bird, alighting gently on ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... brow, and Pleasure rolls his eye, While Innocence, from out the budding lip Darts her young smiles along his rounded cheek. Grief hath not dimm'd the brightness of his form, Love and Affection o'er him spread their wings, And Nature, like a nurse, attends him with Her sweetest looks. The humming bee will bound From out the flower, nor sting his baby hand; The birds sing to him from the sunny tree; And suppliantly the fierce-eyed mastiff fawn Beneath his feet, to court the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... moment of delay while with fingers that slightly trembled, Mr. Schwab selected an amazing green cap and lit his cigar; and then the car swept forward, singing and humming happily, and scattering the autumn leaves. The young lady leaned toward him with a book in a leather cover. She placed her finger on a twisting red line that trickled through ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis |
