"Whirr" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... walls were intact, many of its staircases were rotten, while its flooring was, as I knew, heavily broken away in spots, making it a dangerous task to walk about its passage-ways, or even to enter the large and solitary rooms which once shook to the whirr and ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... the garden for a few yards, and passing alley after alley, till he came upon the end of one which looked fairly open, and which ran in the direction of the oast-house on the hill, Richard was about to plunge down this, when, all at once, there was a sharp, thin sound, followed by the loud whirr of wings, as an early covey of strongly-pinioned partridges, alarmed by the crack, sprang up, and flew over the tops of the poles, completely hidden ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... fortunate brothers and sisters. When I first saw Ruth there in the midst of the confusion of unpacking, the room in Irving Place with its old chests and samovars, Esther Claff quietly writing in her corner, the telephone bell muffled to an undisturbing whirr, ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... downstairs was part of her consciousness of home, like the musty smell of the stairs, or Becky's young men through whom she had to plough her way when she went for the morning milk, or the odors of Mr. Belcovitch's rum or the whirr of his machines, or the bent, snuffy personality of the Hebrew scholar in the adjoining garret, or the dread of Dutch Debby's dog that was ultimately transformed to friendly expectation. Esther led a double life, just as she spoke two tongues. The knowledge that she was a Jewish child, whose people ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... gambling speculation. To be a noble Master, among noble Workers, will again be the first ambition with some few; to be a rich Master only the second. How the Inventive Genius of England, with the whirr of its bobbins and billy-rollers shoved somewhat into the backgrounds of the brain, will contrive and devise, not cheaper produce exclusively, but fairer distribution of the produce at its present cheapness! By degrees, ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... whirr of wings outside and above, excited flutterings first, and then a general flight of the pigeons who roosted on the roof. Woslosky ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... day which he had selected the club-house was empty, and he had just resigned himself to a solitary game, when, with a whirr and a rattle, a grey racing-car drove up, and from it emerged the same long young man whom, a couple of days earlier, he had seen wriggle out from underneath the same machine. It was Reggie Byng's habit also not to allow anything, even love, to interfere ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... noise like the whirr of enormous wings, and then, looking up, saw a huge dragon just in front of him. He knew it was a dragon from the pictures he had seen and the ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... serpents spread with a great whirr, and flew through the high window and the walls as they had come, and she said to the Vizier, 'What now? Fearest thou? I have spared thee, thou that madest me desolate! and thy slaves are a sacrifice for thee. Now this I ask: Where lies my beloved, the Prince ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... What was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal that Barney was trying? Was it—Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to escape the danger he had scented,—the danger of a lariat flung ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... habits and principles are respectably in bed and for the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant,—the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at Buckingham Palace,—and ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... aghast; but he thought of the cricket's gift at last, and taking it out of his pocket thrust it into the fire, and a cloud as dust showed in the sky and the distant whirr of thousands of wings caused the air to stir, as, dark'ning the day like a fun'ral pall, a flight of crickets appeared at the call. 'What is our task?' asked his friend with a laugh; 'only that? I've ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... was hollow—in reality, two saucer-shaped plates with their concave faces together. They gave off a muffled clink of hollowness when he tapped them. When he shook the armor, there was something extra in the sound, and that impelled him to hold a plate close to his ear. He heard a soft, rhythmic whirr of machinery. ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... flared into the darkness, intensifying it, waking into vivid green a full-foliaged holly; a rain of blows echoed back and forth through the night, a whirr of bewildered wings mingled with it, a frantic piping that was drowned in the clamour even as it burst forth. High overhead the startled wood-pigeons flew out into the free air above the tree-tops, their clamour ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... in his bed listening to the bird which was singing its very best. Suddenly it stopped with a jerk, and bang! something had snapped in its inside, and all its wheels ran down with a whirr, and then there was ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... should I, in such a case! There's nothing feels so like disgrace, Or gives you such a scurvy look— A kick and pail of slush from Cook, Clefsticks, or Kettle, all in one, As standing to a missing gun! It's whirr! and bang! and off you bound, To catch your bird before the ground: But no—a pump and ginger pop As soon would get a bird to drop! So there you stand, quite struck a-heap, Till all your tail is gone to sleep; A sort of stiffness in your nape, Holding your head well ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... cat-birds sang gaily. Robins called; bluejays screeched in the tall, white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the wilder ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... the short half hour was over and the wheels began to whirr again. Though wearied, she would be inconspicuous. This illusion ended when another young man passed along the aisle and poked her indifferently in the ribs with his thumb. She turned about, indignation leaping to her eyes, but he had gone on and only once turned to grin. She found it ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. We felt the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and made the Aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it squarely. We swept on toward the snow-reaches whence the wind-torrent ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... drum of that partridge? He is up there in that thicket of young beeches and hemlocks, on the other side of the road. As you hear the slow, measured drum which he gives at first, and which he hastens into a whirr like distant thunder, does not 'The old Man's Counsel' come fresh to your memory, and almost ringing in your ear? Ah! this is the glory of true poetry, that it clothes the commonest things with a new interest, and forever after they ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... of the house came on a sudden the click of metal and the swift whirr of wheels. Somewhere a clock was in labour—an old, old timepiece, to whom the telling of the hours was a grave matter. A moment later a thin old voice piped out the birth of a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... whirr of the coming train was heard. In a minute more it rushed into the station and stopped. There were no other down passengers except Mr. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... soft whirr, the click of a brake, two footfalls, and the Young Lady in Grey stood holding her machine. She had turned round and come back to him. The warm sunlight now was in her face. "Are you hurt?" she said. She had a pretty, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... an incessant roar of the traffic that rumbled heavily over the wooden pavements. There was a clatter of horses' hoofs, and the blowing of horns; the electric broughams whizzed past with an odd, metallic whirr. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... reach me the lyre, that I may sing a battle-song. . . . Words like flaming stars, that shoot down from the heavens, and burn up the palaces, and illuminate the huts. . . . Words like bright javelins, that whirr up to the seventh heaven and strike the pious hypocrites who have skulked into the Holy of Holies. . . . I am all joy and song, all sword and flame! Perhaps, too, all delirium. . . . One of those sunbeams wrapped ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... in a big easy-chair, Randall McLean heard the crash of the horses' hoofs and the whirr-r-r of the wheels on the gravelly road in front, and demanded of the attendant an ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... and blue in the hollows. The brown bushes by a hidden stone-wall broke the sheen entrancingly; here and there a dry leaf fluttered, but only enough to show how still such winter stillness can be, and a flock of little brown birds rose, with a soft whirr, and settled further on. Mrs. Wadleigh pressed her lips together in a voiceless content, and her eyes took on a new brightness. She had lived quite long enough in the town. Rounding a sweeping bend, and ploughing sturdily along, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... still had his eye on our friend when the shriek and the whirr of the express from the north was heard. Lopez walked quickly up towards the edge of the platform, when the pundit followed him, telling him that this was not his train. Lopez then ran a few yards along the platform, not noticing the man, reaching a spot that was unoccupied;—and ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... defined against the bright sky, and in the damper and more sheltered spots fire-flies were darting about and filling the air with their brilliant flashes, while the shrill cries of frogs and night-birds and whirr of beetles resounded on every side. We were riding on, listening to these varied sounds of animated nature, when we saw some dark objects, which appeared like human beings, lying on the grass ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... the stream. The latter sent forth so remarkable a volume of sound that when first told it was created by insects alone I found my credulity taxed to its utmost limit; and it was not until I was solemnly assured by Mr Austin that such was the case that I quite believed it. It was not unlike the "whirr" of machinery, save that it rose and fell in distinct cadences, and occasionally—as if by preconcerted arrangement on the part of every individual insect in the district—stopped altogether for a few ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Trembled in jewelled fretwork as the sun To lustre touched the tremulous water-drops. Alone, nor whistling as his fellows do In fabling poem and provincial song, The ploughboy shouted to his reeking train; And at the clamor, from a neighboring field Arose, with whirr of wings, a flock of rooks More clamorous; and through the frosted air, Blown wildly here and there without a law, They flew, low-grumbling out loquacious croaks. Red sunset brightened all things; streams ran red Yet coldly; and before the unwholesome ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... well toward the north; that a little gray bird almost as far to the south was singing with great vigor and sweetness; that a rabbit was hopping about in the undergrowth, curious and yet fearful; that an eagle with a faint whirr of wings had alighted on a bough, and was looking at the three; that the eagle thinking they might be dangerous had unfolded his wings again and was flying away; that a deer passing to the west had caught a whiff of them on the wind and was running with all speed in the other direction; ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have ears on the stretch for the footfalls of sorrow that never come, but be deaf to the whirr of the wings of happiness that fill ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... greater part of his hours out of school in tramping over the pretty Connecticut hills, in search of game, or, lying down on the soft grass, would pass hours in gazing on the beautiful landscape, listening to the dull whirr of the partridges in the stubble-field or the dropping of the ripe apples in the orchard. The love of nature was strong in the boy, and his wonderful mistress taught him many of the profoundest lessons of his life. He made poor progress at the school, however, and his father was almost ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... whirling around as it whistles. The change in the sound due to the whirling motion of the whistle might be called a swivelling whistle. See them go, led through the shadow. Hear them, as they disappear behind a rocky point ahead. What is meant by their "whirr"? What has made us forget all about the beauty of the silent morning? What effect did this silence probably have on the poet's judgment of the noise made by the ducks? Now what is described in the ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... arts shall tell. Sitting upon my throne of augury, As is my wont, where every fowl of heaven Find harborage, upon mine ears was borne A jargon strange of twitterings, hoots, and screams; So knew I that each bird at the other tare With bloody talons, for the whirr of wings Could signify naught else. Perturbed in soul, I straight essayed the sacrifice by fire On blazing altars, but the God of Fire Came not in flame, and from the thigh bones dripped And sputtered in the ashes a foul ooze; Gall-bladders cracked and spurted ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... rough whirr like a flushing cock partridge, and goes off on contact with a tremendous bang. It is not as dangerous as ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... another sitting. To restore my reputation with the Burmese boy, I had to claw down some high pigeons from untold heights on their way home to roost. After this, as I was loading, a partridge got up from some stubbly grass in a clearing, with an astonishingly familiar whirr, and went clear away, and I'd barely loaded when a Button quail whipped over some bushes, and it dropped, but in impenetrable thorns! I'd not heard of Burmese partridges, but the flight and whirr were unmistakeable, though the bird was larger than those at home. So we went on, longing ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... windows and doors were wide open letting in a wealth of sunshine, it appeared startlingly lifeless and void. The maids seemed unusually quiet. She heard no movement on the staircase or in the rooms above. Neither gardener nor garden-boy was visible. She would have hailed the whirr of the mowing machine or swish of a broom on the lawn.—Oh! if only her poor dear Nannie were still alive, safe upstairs, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... tears, had twice come and gone. The gorgeous fields of golden grain had for a second time bent their heads beneath the harvest side, and the autumnal tints of every hue and shade had again fallen on the rich foliage of the magnificent old woods of Devon, while the whirr of the pheasant in the preserves, and the popping at the partridges among the turnips, indicated that the shooting season had once more commenced over the ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... of the mortar-firing. It was interesting to sit there and hear the great shells sail through the air five hundred feet above us. It was like the sound of far-off, invisible machinery, turning with a constant motion, not the sharp, shrill whistle of a rifled-bolt, but a whirr and roll, like that which you may sometimes hear above the clouds in a thunder-storm. One shell fell like a millstone into the river. The water did not extinguish the fuse, and a great column was thrown up fifty feet high. Another buried itself deep in the ground before ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... noises of field and earth swelled to a kind of soft thunder: his quickened ears heard a thousand small outcries contributing to the awful energy of the world—faint chimings and whistlings in the grass, and endless flutter, rustle, and whirr. His own body, on which hair and nails grew daily like vegetation, startled and appalled him. Consciousness of self, that miserable ecstasy, was ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... pantry cleaning silver, when the whirr of the electric bell just above his head broke the silence. He put down the spoon he was polishing, discarded his green baize apron, donned his coat, and made his ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... him a little music," went on the young inventor as he adjusted the phonograph, and slipped in a record of a lively dance air. His motions were curiously watched, and when the phonograph started and there was a whirr of the mechanism, some of the giants who had crowded into the king's audience chamber, showed a disposition to run. But a word of command from their ruler ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... through the gloom between himself and the doorway. He screamed. The creature crouched. An added horror came when Roger glanced at the door and saw there the dark, stern face of a tall Indian with arrow poised. It was aimed not at Roger, but at the springing lynx. The whirr of that arrow lived in Roger's mind the rest of his days. The boy himself was almost as limp with fright as the creature that was carried by Nonowit to the main cabin. For this Indian had heard of the new settlement and had travelled miles through the ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... as many more, or ask him what this meant, before indeed, we could speak or stir from the spot, or think what we should do, with a hurried clang and clash, as if brought into motion by furious frenzied hands, a great bell just above our heads began to boom and whirr! It hurled its notes into space, it suddenly filled all the silence. It dashed its harsh sounds down upon the trembling city, till the air heaved, and the houses about us rocked. It made in an instant a ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... of others the man and boy were soon balanced on top of the wooden fence. Whirr! George was conscious of a whistling sound, and a bullet flew by him as it just grazed the tip of ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... With a whirr like the wings of a partridge as it is flushed out of the grass by the huntsman's dog, the small machine shot forward a few feet over the smooth ground, then gracefully arose in the air and started away toward the opposite ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... from the Spaniard—a whirr, a shriek, and a solid shot struck the water, having passed entirely ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... birds were out, and strange cries, wails, and chuckling noises reached his ears, mingled with the whirr and whizz of crickets and the soft pipe and croak of frogs in and about ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose-and-silver evening glow. Farewell, my lord Sun! The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one. How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy. The tide is at his highest height: And it is night. And ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... boss of the gang, and could contract for men of his own. There was larger life in the land of resin and pine-logs. No tune in all broad Scotland was so merry as the whirr of the sawmill, when the little flashing ribbon of light runs before the swift-cutting edge of the saw. It made Sylvanus remember the pale sunshine his feet used to make on the tan-coloured sands of North Berwick, when he walked two summers before with May Chisholm, when it was ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... refused to come with her? It would not do, Madame von Marwitz saw that clearly, for an alienated Karen to be taken to the Lippheims'. Comparisons and disclosures would ensue that would send the loom, with a mighty whirr, weaving rapidly in an opposite direction to that of the plan. Franz, in Germany, must be pacified, and Karen be carried off to some lovely, lonely spot until the husband's suit was safely won. It was not fatal to the plan that Karen should ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... snow had fallen. The river-banks, which yesterday had seemed chiselled out of solid marble, were to-day tunnelled and scarred with tiny rills and watercourses which groped their way feebly riverwards. As he stood in silence meditating, he was startled by the whirr of wings, and looking southward descried the advance-guard of the first flock of ducks. "Ha, the spring has come," he cried; but immediately he checked his ecstasy, for his eyes had again caught sight of the emotionless ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... apartment there came a peculiar click and rumble, followed by a whirr of wheels, as if someone was running out a small motor close by. At the same time, the two friends noticed the unmistakable odor of petrol on ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... air abounds, The whirr of birds is dying out, The swart mechanic's lusty shout Amid ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... was reached, and Pierre set out for the silk mills, where he presented the card that Monsieur Leclerq had given him. Then for a few minutes he waited in a small office where the jar of machinery and the whirr of wheels caused a monotonous ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... cockneys or their trim and dainty country cousins. They come day by day for their meed of crumbs spread for them outside my window, and at this season they eat leisurely and with good appetite, for there are no hungry babies pestering to be fed. Very early in the morning I hear the whirr and rustle of eager wings, and the tap, tap, of little beaks upon the stone. The sound carries me back, for it was the first to greet me when I rose to draw water and gather kindling in my roadmender days; and if I slip back another decade they survey me, ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... general rule for West Africa, and night in it is noisier than the day. After dark it is full of noises; grunts from I know not what, splashes from jumping fish, the peculiar whirr of rushing crabs, and quaint creaking and groaning sounds from the trees; and—above all in eeriness—the strange whine and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... eye grew more flaming and fiery, and the little black wings grew larger and larger; and now the left leg was dashed to and fro with a fearful agitation. Mackaw looked agonised. What a whirr! Francia is on the table! All shriek, the chairs tumble over the ottomans, the Sevre china is in a thousand pieces, the muzzle is torn off and thrown at Miss Graves; Mackaw's wig is dashed in the clotted cream, and devoured on the spot; and the contents ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... exercise and the obligation to talk. Little as he cared for shooting, he had the habit of concentration which makes it natural for a man to throw himself wholly into whatever business he has in hand, and there were moments of the afternoon when a sudden whirr in the undergrowth, a vivider gleam against the hazy browns and greys of the woods, was enough to fill the foreground of his attention. But all the while, behind these voluntarily emphasized sensations, his secret consciousness continued to revolve ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... an almost noiseless throb of her engine and a whirr of her propeller, the aeroplane rolled swiftly over the level starting ground and took the air like a ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... are some who regret this, who associate national greatness with the whirr and buzz of many wheels, the smoke of factories and with large dividends; and others, again, who wish that our simple minds were illuminated by the culture and wisdom of our neighbours. But I raise the standard of idealism, to try everything by it, every custom, every thought before we make it our ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... there sounded a sudden and angry whirr, similar to the noise made by a locust, and which Frank knew only ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... attract ships from a distance. Possessed with this thought, he went up to Telegraph Point, abstracted his mind from all external objects, and fixed it on this idea—but came down as he went. He descended by some steps he had cut zigzag for Helen's use, and as he put his foot on the fifth step—whoo—whirr—whiz—came nine ducks, cooling his head, they whizzed so close; and made right ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Mr. Monk had given him that summer. He did not really care about the rod—he was not even thinking of it. He heard all the sounds of the house as he sat there. He could tell all the clocks, that one booming softly the half hours was in his mother's bedroom, there was a rattle and a whirr and there came the cuckoo-clock on the stairs, there was the fast, cheap careless chatter of the little clock on the schoolroom mantelpiece, there was the whisper of Miss Jones's watch which she had put out on the table to mark the time of Mary's ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... shots, music, songs, laughter, rattle of dice, whirr of wheel and clink of glasses—assailed me discordant. The scores of tents and shacks stretching on irregularly had become pocked with dark spots, where lights had been extinguished, but the street remained ablaze and the desert without winked at ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... upon the window-panes Hath ceased to flap, or traverse with blind whirr The room's dusk corners; and the leaves without Vibrate upon their thin stems with the breeze Flying towards the light. To an Eastern vale That light may now be waning, and across The tall reeds by the Ganges, lotus-paved, Lengthening the shadows ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... nose and eyes been so close to the water, Jack Carleton would have caught the reflection of another face just behind his own—a face which would have driven all thirst away and caused him to bound to his feet, as though he had heard the whirr of a coiled rattlesnake ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... there darted a pale beam of ghostly light, faintly gray, tinged with red and green—the ionized air of the beam. It moved in a swift half circle. In an instant the whirr of the hundreds, thousands of giant propellers was drowned in a terrific roar of air. Great snowflakes fell from the air before them; it was white with the solidified water vapor. Then came a titanic roar and the planet itself seemed to shake! A crash, a snapping and rending as a mighty ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... propped on the muzzle of his gun and his legs still crossed? I rather think not! "Leave, and lose! Take, and gain! But leave or take, it is all one to Nick of the Woods!" And hardly were the words spoken, just there in the empty moonlight, when a whirr in the leaves and flutter in the air announced that the ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... Seven Palms. Flocks of crows are swarming in from their roosting place in the palmyra jungle beside the dry sand river; the cattle are strolling out from behind various enclosures where they share the family shelter; all around is the whirr of bird and insect as the teeming life of the tropics wakes to ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... thrill through the beating heart of the expectant sportsman. A few bears break back amid wild yells from the coolies. One or two odd ones dart out here and there at angles of the covert. Steady! Steady! Here they are, following the lead of yon fine old cock; with a whirr and a rush the bouquet is upon us. The shikari, mad with excitement, presses the second Gatling and the light Howitzer into our hands as he screams: 'Bear to right, sahib!—Bear ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... patching burberrys. The cartographer at his table beneath a shaded acetylene light drew maps and sketched, the magnetician was busy on calculations close by. The cook and messman often made their presence felt and heard. In the outer Hut, the lathe spun round, its whirr and click drowned in the noisy rasp of the grinder and the blast of the big blow-lamp. The last-named, Bickerton, "bus-driver" and air-tractor expert, had converted, with the aid of a few pieces of covering tin, into a forge. A piece of red-hot metal was lifted ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces, and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whirr ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... an amazing acuteness to his inner sense of hearing. Certain people are so made that they can, under certain conditions, and at certain moments, hear the workings of their neighbours' minds, as you and I can hear the whirr of machinery, or the cry of a child in the street. An ordinary man or woman can only hear a mind when lips, teeth, and tongue utter it with living sounds that set the air in vibration. These abnormal people hear, in these abnormal moments, the silent murmurs of the mind making no effort ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... tell you the color of every flower in the garden, just by touching them," explained Pearl. "He knows all the different kinds of birds just by the whirr of their wings. He can tell the color of every dress I ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... noise they made was like to make her head run round. "Splash! splash! Whirr! whirr! Clack! clack!" The water in the pot bubbled over. The spinning-wheel whirred. The shuttle in the loom flew backwards ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... wander forth with fever'd blood, That makes me start at little things, The blackbird screaming from the wood, The sudden whirr ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... a loud whirr of wheels, a buzz of internal mechanism, and all the little figures would stop dead with arms outstretched, whilst the beheaded doll rolled off the board and was lost to view, no doubt preparatory to going through the same gruesome ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the seat in front of her, moved away to the smoking car; and the woman in gray listened to the creak and whirr of the wheel of torturing dread, upon which some malignant fate once more bound her. Bertie had been safe in his mountain fastness, until her ill-starred advertisement coaxed him within reach of the police Briareus. Could she discern the hand of merciful warning ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... when the hedges are full of trailing brambles, loaded with ripe blackberries; when the air is full of the farewell whistles and pipes of birds, clear and short—not the long full- throated warbles of spring; when the whirr of the partridge's wings is heard in the stubble-fields, as the sharp hoof-blows fall on the paved lanes; when here and there a leaf floats and flutters down to the ground, although there is not a single breath of wind. The country surgeon felt the beauty ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of partridges had sprung up at some little distance, and with a wild whirr of their wings were now directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... dwelling. The smell of Miller Loveday's pipe came down Mrs. Garland's chimney of an evening with the greatest regularity. Every time that he poked his fire they knew from the vehemence or deliberateness of the blows the precise state of his mind; and when he wound his clock on Sunday nights the whirr of that monitor reminded the widow to wind hers. This transit of noises was most perfect where Loveday's lobby adjoined Mrs. Garland's pantry; and Anne, who was occupied for some time in the latter apartment, enjoyed the privilege of hearing the visitors arrive and of catching stray sounds and ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... contralto note Of cuckoos hid on either hand, The whirr that shakes the nighthawk's throat When eve's brown awning ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... in his eyes maybe; and put the shoe on him. His poor feet are like ice half the time, but I can't keep 'em covered, all I can do—" And then, half wailing, half humming, Dame Brinker would sit down and fill the low cottage with the whirr of her spinning wheel. ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... halls below rose only the whirr and quiet ticking of the numerous clocks. The blind by the open window behind us flapped out a little into the room as ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... times. It is an awful thing to contemplate that you have rung a bell for the last time. One can get very sentimental over a thing like that. Dear jolly old bells, what an influence they have upon life. How bravely they whirr at the arrival of a dear expected—how madly they riot to the tune Wedding—how sadly they toll when the last of ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... himself in front of the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the bobbin was full. Then he set up another, and whir, whir, whir, thrice round again, and a second bobbin was full; and so he went all night long, until all ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... loved, save only I; their hearts Beat warm with love and joy, beat full thereof: They cannot guess, who play the pleasant parts, My heart is breaking for a little love. While beehives wake and whirr, And rabbit thins his fur, 20 In living spring that ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... bicyclette are so numerous and intricate, but so absolutely ignored. My own lamp seemed to be a grave distraction among the invisible occupants of the roadside meadows, and often much lowing rose up on either side. The hedges would suddenly whirr with countless grasshoppers, although, no doubt, they had been amusing themselves with their monotonous noises for hours. The strange sound seemed to follow me in a most persistent fashion, and then would be merged into the croaking of a vast assemblage of frogs. These sounds, however, ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... will see nothing but ground-flowers and a glimmering contiguity of shade. Solitude sometimes, you know, is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return. Various travels or voyages of discovery may be undertaken, and their grand object attained in little more than an hour. The sudden whirr of a cushat is an incident, or the leaping of a lamb among the broom. In the quiet of nature, matchless seems the music of the milkmaid's song—and of the hearty laugh of the haymakers, crossing the meadow in rows, how sweet the cheerful echo from ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... as it always comes in that snow-washed northern land, with a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods. Hudson and the loyal members of the crew attempted to replenish provisions ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... whirr of their descent seemed to arouse the being so painfully crawling over the hot waste beneath them. He looked up, and then, extending his hands upward in a gesture of bewilderment, he staggered forward and ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... wagon lurched along over the rough hummocks and grass banks, followed the bottom of winding draws, or skirted the margin of wide lagoons, where the golden coreopsis grew up out of the clear water and the wild ducks rose with a whirr of wings. ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... "Typhoon," and "The Shadow Line," superficially stories of the indomitable, that same consuming melancholy, that same pressing sense of the irresistible and inexplicable, is always just beneath the surface. Captain Mac Whirr gets the Nan-Shan to port at last, but it is a victory that stands quite outside the man himself; he is no more than a marker in the unfathomable game; the elemental forces, fighting one another, almost disregard ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... pulled up beside the other horse and threw himself off. Even as he touched the ground a sharp whirr met his ear and he saw the fat, still body and vibrating tail of the snake. He wrenched the pistol from the holster, took the quickest aim of his life and pulled the trigger. After the shot apparently nothing had changed. The whirr of the rattle went ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... the whirr of a covey on wing before the fowler, our crested three of immemorial antiquity and a presumptive immortality, the Ladies Endor, Eldritch, and Cowry, shot up again, hooting across the dormant chief city Old England's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the report of the rifle and the moaning whirr of the bullet over their backs recalled memories of a host of things, and Neewa settled down to that hump-backed, flat-eared flight of his that kept Miki pegging along at a brisk pace for at least a mile. Then Neewa stopped, puffing audibly. Inasmuch as he had had nothing to ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... at the extremity of this long and curious bay. All around us was admirably green. The strong sea-breeze had suddenly fallen, and was succeeded by a perfect calm; the atmosphere, now very warm, was laden with the perfume of flowers. In the valley resounded the ceaseless whirr of the cicalas, answering each other from one shore to another; the mountains reechoed with innumerable sounds; the whole country seemed to vibrate like crystal. On our way we passed among myriads of Japanese junks, gliding softly, wafted by imperceptible breezes on ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... her crimson leather cushions, free-lunged, free-limbed, the White Linen Nurse heard the smothered cry. Clear above the whirr of wheels, the whizz of clogs, the one word sizzled like a red-hot poker across her chattering consciousness. Tingling through the grasp of her fingers on the vibrating wheel, stinging through ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... sea was opened, and lo, the steep crags of the Caucasian mountains rose up, where, with his limbs bound upon the hard rocks by galling fetters of bronze, Prometheus fed with his liver an eagle that ever rushed back to its prey. High above the ship at even they saw it flying with a loud whirr, near the clouds; and yet it shook all the sails with the fanning of those huge wings. For it had not the form of a bird of the air but kept poising its long wing-feathers like polished oars. And not long after they heard the bitter cry of Prometheus as his liver was being torn away; ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... citizen-soldiers, in France, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Western Egypt and German East Africa, and behind them, here in the homeland, are the women, working as their men fight, with a grim and tireless determination. To-day the land hums with munition factories and huge works whose countless wheels whirr day and night, factories that have sprung up where the grass grew so lately. The terrible, yet glorious, days of Mons and the retreat, when her little army, out-gunned and out-manned, held up the rushing might of the German advance so long ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... in the fourteenth century. To find its analogue, we must betake ourselves to the frescoes of Spinello Aretino, a master more decidedly Giottesque than his contemporary Taddeo di Bartolo.[156] A Gabriel, rushing down from heaven to salute Madonna, with all the whirr of arch-angelic pinions and the glory of Paradise around him, is a fine specimen of Spinello's vehemence. The same quality, more tempered, is noticeable in his frescoes of the legend of S. Ephesus at Pisa.[157] Few faces in the paintings of any period are more fascinating than the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... I'll never see Those hills again, a blur of blue and rain Across the old Willamette. I'll not stir A pheasant as I walk, and hear it whirr Above my head, an indolent, trusting thing. When all this silly dream is finished here, The fellows will go home to where there fall Rose-petals over every street, and all The year is like a friendly festival. But ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... your brains,' it said. 'Look out, I'm nearly cool now;' and with a whirr of golden wings it fluttered from the fender to the table. It was so nearly cool that there was only a very faint smell of burning when it had settled ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... his car out among the tall weeds close to the line of scrub willows edging the creek; extinguished his lights, including the tail-lamp; left his engine running; stood listening a moment to the whispering whirr of his motor; then, taking the flash light from his pocket, he climbed over the roadside wall and ran back across ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... the whirr of little wings. He had flushed a covey of quail; but as his mind was at the time set on nobler game, and the chance for a shot not particularly good, he did not attempt to fire; though naturally his gun flew up to his ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... as before, but with the swift-cutting flight of a falcon pouncing down upon its prey. It seemed descending not in a straight line, but in an acute parabolic curve, like a thunderbolt or some aerolite projected toward the surface of the sea. But the bird, with a whirr like the sound of running spindles, was going in a definite direction, the point evidently aimed at being the head of ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Petrovskoe, every one had been used to wash and dress for the meal, and then to repair to the drawing-room as the appointed hour (two o'clock) drew near, and pass the time of waiting in lively conversation. Just as the clock in the servants' hall was beginning to whirr before striking the hour, Foka would enter with noiseless footsteps, and, throwing his napkin over his arm and assuming a dignified, rather severe expression, would say in loud, measured tones: "Luncheon is ready!" Thereupon, with pleased, cheerful faces, we would form a procession—the ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... searchlight's brilliant beam followed relentlessly, and as the two smart little craft cleared from the area of the black smoke cloud, there came the ringing report of a 6-inch gun followed by the familiar whirr of ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... to the same wish not to excite unduly and unnecessarily the envy of others, that no machinery was exhibited from Canada, and that while other nations were making the great building resound and vibrate to the whirr of wheels driven by steam; you did not, even by so much as a picture, remind the Parisians of your wealth in water power as well as in steam, and there was nothing to show the citizen of London or ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... began. I found that I could speak only in a whisper. Or perhaps it was the whirr of a passing motor outside ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... with the last flush of twilight, myriads of swallows, already on their passage from the north, spotted the clear sky, and settled down upon the alders to pass the night. At our approach they rose again, and filled the solitude with the whirr of their wings. We likewise disturbed from the alders great multitudes of sparrows that had become gregarious. They stayed in the trees until the boat was about twenty yards from them, and then rose with the noise of a storm-wind beating the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... we burst, like a whirlwind, crashing across the pebbled streets, and out upon the broad, smooth road again. Before we had well considered the fact that we were out of Lyons, we stopped to change horses. Done in a jiffy; and whoop, crick, crack, whack, rumble, bump, whirr, whisk, away we blazed, till, ere we knew ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it, and began to mount it slowly. The lights of the city shone below them. Domini saw great sloping lawns dotted with streets and by trees. Scents of hidden flowers came to her in the night, and she heard a whirr of insects. Still they mounted, and presently reached the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... The sounds from outside filled the captain's cabin, voices, footfalls, whirr of machines and clash of doors, as the Pallas Castle readied ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... seem to be able to," she said. "It isn't a bit like shooting at clay targets. The twittering whirr takes me by surprise—it's all so charmingly sudden—and my heart seems to stop in one beat, and I look and look and then—whisk! the woodcock is gone, leaving ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... his hands, but was unable to do so, so he lifted his voice instead! Yerkes, in the whirr of the machine, doubtless mistook the voice for that of the boy, for he ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... around the sides, the great mirrors and the golden curtains, which fluttered in summer and remained austerely in place in winter, made a little heaven for us all, and life one long cry of joy. Here women, like strange flowers that bloomed only at night, smiled and laughed the hours away; and the low whirr of Broadway drifted in, while the faint thunder of Fifth Avenue lent an added mystery to the place, as though the troubled world were shut out but could be reached again in an instant, if you wished ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... wall. There fell a mist over his eyes, and there came a soorawn in his head, and he was obliged to sit down upon a great stone to recover himself. He could see nothing but the light, and he could hear nothing but the whirr of it as it shot round the paddock faster than ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... a string of the most elaborate abuse that even Kim had ever heard, in a high uninterested voice, that for a moment lifted the short hairs of his neck. When the vile thing drew breath, Kim was reassured by the soft, sewing-machine-like whirr. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... strange whirr and a clicking in the apartment beyond, as if some machinery was in motion. But then came a loud voice and the other sounds stopped. By getting down on his hands and knees Adam Adams was enabled to hear nearly all that was said in the place beyond ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... sent by any opportunity offering to the nearest point of shipment to hospital or camp. Fruits were gathered and made into preserves or wine "for the sick soldiers." Looms were set up on every plantation. The whirr of the spinning-wheel was heard from morning until night. Dusky forms hovered over large iron cauldrons, continually thrusting down into the boiling dye the product of the looms, to be transformed into Confederate gray or ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... would look for signals from the straw-stack, plans were made for his reception, and this part of the drama was witnessed from the village as well as from the camp. The night was clear, and at about eleven o'clock the whirr of a motor was heard in the distance. The Doctor, who had returned late from a visit to a sick patient in an adjoining village, heard it, and at once gave the alarm. Out of their beds tumbled the sleepy people of Fontanelle, and, wrapping ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... The old stormy rivers of my grief are dead Now at the spring; not one tear left unshed. Mine eyes are sick with vigil, endlessly Weeping the beacon-piles that watched for thee For ever answerless. And did I dream, A gnat's thin whirr would start me, like a scream Of battle, and show me thee by terrors swept, Crowding, too many for ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... that newly-created office, allowing for the tapping of the typewriter and the scratching of the pens, was very quiet; but outside there was the strange sound produced by the mingling of voices with trampling feet and the distant whirr and rattle of machinery, till a clock began striking, followed by the clangour of a bell, and ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... over dog and three chickens, and saw tandem horses take fright and bolt; dust flew, people yelled at us and we yelled at people. Came round sharp corner on to donkey standing in road. 'Boosted' him up into the air and saw him fall through roof of outhouse! Whirr-r-up! bang! rattle! fizz-izz—Bust!" ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... the fence, and disappear in the hazel thickets. The Bob Whites didn't mind the boys, unless Nip happened to be along, nosing about in search of some mischief to get into. But as yet no little white egg lay in the nest, and when Nip cocked his impudent little ears at them, they were off with a whirr that sent him, scampering, startled and scared, after the boys. From the trees to which they had flown, the Bob Whites watched the movements of the boys with some anxiety. "They might, you know," whispered Mrs. Bob, "be after that brood of our cousin's beyond ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... Suddenly a rasping whirr seemed to come from the ground at their feet. It was a sound to hold the nerves taut, to send the cold shivers up and ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... beat a concerted bass; while, the slackening of the coupling chains, in combination with the concussion of the buffers as they hitch up suddenly again, sounds a regular obbligato accompaniment—the scream of the steam whistle, and the thundering whish and whirr of the train through a deep cutting or tunnel, or over a bridge with water below, coming in occasionally as a sort of symphony ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... moment King Prigio, seeing, in the magic globe, all that passed, and despairing of Ricardo's life, was just about to wish the dwarf at Jericho, when through the open window, with a tremendous whirr, came a huge vulture, and knocked the king's wishing cap off! Wishing ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... prairie-chickens fly up from every little valley, images of life, joy, and plenty belong to the scene. The summer flowers are not more cheerful than the spring blaze, the spring blackness of richness, or the spring whirr and flutter. The sky is alive with the return of migratory birds, swinging back and forth, as if hesitating where to choose, where all is good. Frogs hold noisy jubilees, ("Anniversary Meetings," perhaps,)—very hoarse, and no wonder, considering their damp lodging,—but singing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... artist, "I am often at a loss to know whether I love or despise you most. If a little of the whirr of our great grandam's spinning wheel would only get into your brain the world might hear from you. You are a man of unbounded stomach and unbounded heart, and so you have won all there is of me except my head, and that disapproves ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... no sooner out of her mouth than, whisk! whirr! off they scampered out of the garden and away—fathers, mothers, children, babies, all crying in their shrill voices, "She sees us! she sees us!" For fairies are very timid folk, and dread nothing more than to have mortals see them ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... force of ruthless men, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying: Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain; So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman |
