"Singing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reference to the creatures of thought. Other poets, Keats for instance, or Tennyson, or the older poets like Dante and Homer, might compare ghosts flying from an enchanter like leaves flying before the wind. They might describe a poet wrapped up in his dreams as being like a bird singing invisible in the brightness of the sky. But Shelley can write of ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... of a July morning shrouded the river and its banks. It was a soft thin mist, not at all like a winter fog, and through it, and high above it, the sun was shining, and the larks singing; and Edward Rowles, the lock-keeper, knew well that within an hour or two the brightest sunshine would gladden ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... at the wonted hours, they yawn; while the nasal chant is singing in the old Latin words, they yawn. It is all foreseen, there is nothing to hope for in the world, everything will come round just the same as before. The certainty of being bored to-morrow sets one yawning from to-day; and the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... to whom I could impart the intelligence— there was no one whom I could expect to sympathise with me, or to whom I could pour out the abundance of my joy; for that the service prohibited. What could I do? Why I could dance; so I sprung from my chair, and singing the tune, commenced a Quadrille movement,—"Tal de ral la, tal de ral la, lity, lity, lity, liddle-um, tal ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... from his first sleep by the sound of singing, which seemed to stop with his waking. There came a confused murmur of girls' and young men's voices, and Ludlow could see from his open window the dim shapes of the serenaders in the dark of the trees below. Then they were still, and all ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... pompous style of speech. He was very fond of playing the bass-viol, of which he was by no means a very skilful master. He had, as a subject for his mock part, "The Base Violation of all Rules of Harmony." One Sunday evening he had a few friends with him who were singing psalm tunes to the accompaniment of his bass-viol. They made a prodigious noise, not at all to the liking of the proctor who had the care of the discipline of that entry, which was in Holworthy. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... refers to Leicester's wooing of Elizabeth, and his grand entertainment of her at Kenilworth in 1575. From authentic descriptions of that entertainment we learn, that among the spectacles and fireworks witnessed on the occasion was one of a singing mermaid on a dolphin's back gliding over smooth water amid shooting stars. The "love-shaft" which was aimed at the "fair vestal," that is, the Priestess of Diana, whose bud has such prevailing might over "Cupid's flower," glanced off; so that "the imperial ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... or saw him, but, given over to despair, to madness perhaps, while he lost himself in involved sentences, she listened to a voice within persistently singing the air which haunted her in that terrible crash, as the drowning man's eyes retain the image of the last object upon ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... It could not linger, because the band of the Acadians was playing, and the dark men of the Gulf were singing. Even with the foe in sight, and a long train of battles and marches behind them, with others yet worse to come, they began to dance, clasped in one ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... healed, that is, forgave, the people at the prayer of Hezekiah. And observe it, notwithstanding this disorder, as to circumstances, the feast was kept with great gladness; and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord; yea, there was not the like joy in Jerusalem from the time of Solomon unto that same time. What shall we say, all things must give place to the profit of the people of God. Yea, sometimes laws ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... through, and when their guide, stopping by an old, tumble-down house, invited them to enter and take some refreshment, both eagerly agreed. They entered the house and found there a large company of wild-looking men engaged in drinking from heavy black-jacks, and singing loud choruses. The parson and his servant made their way to a quiet corner and enjoyed a good meal, then, feeling better, agreed to stay for a while and join their ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... A celebrated singer was singing for the second time, and all the fashionable world was in the theater. Vronsky, seeing his cousin from his stall in the front row, did not wait till the entr'acte, but went to ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... to know why a young female is instructed to exhibit, in the most advantageous point of view, her skill in music, her singing, dancing, taste in dress, and her acquaintance with the most fashionable games and amusements, while her piety is to be anxiously concealed, and her knowledge affectedly disavowed, lest the former should draw on her the appellation of an enthusiast, or the latter that ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... him a pretty penny, madame. His singing-bird has cost him more than a hundred thousand francs in these two years. Ah, ha! you have not seen the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... to shout, to cry aloud to the heavens, but a great lump in my throat choked me and my head was singing dizzily. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... not understand it. Her reason told her that she should be torn by wild anxieties, weighted by dread fears, cast down by gloomy forebodings; but instead, her heart was singing and she was smiling into the answering face of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... some resemblance to the ancient morios once sold at the olden Forum Morionum to the ladies who desired these hideous animals for their amusement. At his feet gamboled a dwarf that squeaked and screeched, distorting its face in hideous grimaces. Scattered about the room, singing, bawling or brawling, were indigent morris dancers; bare-footed minstrels; a pinched and needy versificator; a reduced mountebank; a swarthy clown, with a hare's mouth; joculators of the streets, poor as rats and living as such, straitened, heedless fellows, with heads ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... towards the castle; and he could see neither the bounds nor the extent of the hosts that filled the streets. And they were fully armed; and a vast number of women were with them, both on horseback and on foot, and all the ecclesiastics in the city singing. In the midst of the throng he beheld the bier, over which was a veil of white linen; and wax tapers were burning beside and around it; and none that supported the bier was lower in rank than a ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... scholar, quotes an old French writer, Jean le Chapelain, as recording a custom in Normandy similar to that of Ross-shire, that the guest was always expected to repay hospitality by telling tales or singing songs to his host. And he states that the emigrants from Portugal to Brazil took this custom with them. In Gascony M. Arnaudin formed his collection of tales a few years ago by assisting at gatherings like ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... uncertain in meaning as many of the details must always probably remain, the main emotional gist is clear. It is not that the Australian wonders at and admires the miracle of his Spring, the bursting of the flowers and the singing of the birds; it is not that his heart goes out in gratitude to All-Father who is the Giver of all good things; it is that, obedient to the push of life within him his impulse is towards food. He must eat that he and his tribe may grow and multiply. It is this, his will to ...
— The Sex Worship and Symbolism of Primitive Races - An Interpretation • Sanger Brown, II
... seemed breathed into her, and every nook and corner of the house appeared to vibrate with melody. Even the servants in distant rooms said that it seemed that an angel was singing. After she ceased, the audience sat spellbound for a moment, and then followed prolonged thunders of applause, the portly brewer, Mr. Brown himself, leading off again ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... own subjects from the Privy Councillor and Knight of the Brush, Lord John Howard, he revengefully ordered me to 'edify' your Majesty with wise utterances; as if such poor, rude words as mine could please the ear that should only listen to the singing of birds, the babbling of brooks, or the silvery tongue ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... particular evening the lads, while busy there in the meadow, were surprised by hearing sounds as of a number of voices singing one of the elder's two tunes—I have forgotten now which it was—but the sounds came nearer and nearer, from the direction of the elder's house—and, to the great wonder and astonishment of the lads, ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... me. Save for a belated roysterer singing on his way homeward, and one or two nightbirds on the street below whose footfalls sounded fitfully, no whisper ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... and consonants; at the same time the forming of syllables. The last is especially easy to follow in the babbling monologues of the infant, which are often very long. The reduplication of syllables, accentuation, and inflection, whispering, singing, etc., belong likewise here. (2) The impressive processes are discerned in the looks and gestures of the child as yet speechless; later, the ability to discriminate in regard to words and noises, and the connection ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... other way of enjoying the first and best of everything, of guzzling (vulgar but expressive word) nice little dishes carefully prepared. Pons lived like a bird, pilfering his meal, flying away when he had taken his fill, singing a few notes by way of return; he took a certain pleasure in the thought that he lived at the expense of society, which asked of him—what but the trifling toll of grimaces? Like all confirmed bachelors, who hold their lodgings in horror, and live as much as possible ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... night—I'd just come from the Draytons, and Jack hadn't been home to dinner—that I heard Rawlins Richardson and Horace Trevano chattering about Maisie Hartopp. The "Jo-Jo" song had made the biggest kind of a hit that winter at the Gaiety, and the hit had been made by the Hartopp singing it to a stage box which the Johnnies scrambled ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... clergy; the smallness of their tonsure, which, it is probable, maintained no longer any resemblance to the crown of thorns; their negligence in attending the exercise of their function; their mixing with the laity in the pleasures of gaming, hunting, dancing, and singing; and their openly living with concubines, by which it is commonly supposed he meant their wives. He then turned himself to Dunstan, the primate; and in the name of King Edred, whom he supposed to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... of music in New England, as handed down to us by writers on the subject, seems to have consisted chiefly of church singing, concerning which there were many controversies. The early composers of New England were mainly occupied in composing psalm tunes, ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... you the L100 you ask for." To help child-friends who wanted to go on the stage, or to take up music as a profession, he has introduced them to leading actors and actresses, paid for them having lessons in singing from the best masters, sent round circulars to his numerous acquaintances begging them to patronise the first ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... a base shotte, so they made a sure account either to haue taken her or burnt her. In the meane time our men that had the watch (litle thinking of such villainous treacheries after so many faire wordes) were singing and playing one with the other and made such a noyse, that (being but a small gale of winde, and riding neere the lande) they might heare vs from the shoare: so that we supposed that they made account that we had espyed them, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... song from which this is taken is a great favourite with the young girls of Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole number present joining in the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our [Greek: "cho/roi"] in the winter of 1810-11. The ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... between the accepted theoretical basis of instruction in singing and the actual methods of vocal teachers. Judging by the number of scientific treatises on the voice, the academic observer would be led to believe that a coherent Science of Voice Culture has been evolved. Modern ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... was contemplating with increasing interest the singing gringo. He was not the knight of her dreams awaited by the fair lady. He was almost a servant, a blond immigrant with reddish hair, fat, heavy, and with bovine eyes that reflected an eternal fear of disagreeing with his chiefs. But day by day, she ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Baron had sunk into a state of insensibility. When he awoke from his trance it was broad daylight, and the birds were singing merrily ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... enchanted world, and saw things that are to be seen only by an imaginative and beauty-loving little boy in the light of the midsummer moon. Big hawk-moths, swift and sudden, darted by him with owl-like wings. Mocking-birds broke into silvery, irrepressible singing, and water-birds croaked and rustled in the cove, where the tide-water lipped the land. The slim, black pine-trees nodded and bent to one another, with the moon looking over their shoulders. Something wild and sweet and secret invaded the little boy's spirit, and stayed on ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... begged to have my sister's piano forte brought up into his bed room; and when he grew fatigued with giving me his kind admonitions, he was much pleased and refreshed by my sister's playing and singing. He was always passionately fond of music, and was a tolerable amateur himself, and it appeared to give him as much pleasure as ever to hear her play and sing "Angels ever bright and fair," &c. &c. Sacred music was mostly his choice upon this occasion, yet he would sometimes request ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... second daughter skipped out, and pussy caught her by the forehead, and popped her into his sack, and went on playing and singing till he had got all four daughters into his sack, and ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... minutes the child would stand there smiling with a perennial confidence, waiting to be noticed. Then she would come closer, without a word from her usually nimble little tongue, lean against McWha's knee, and look up coaxingly into his face. If McWha chanced to be singing, for he was a "chanter" of some note, he would appear so utterly absorbed that Rosy-Lilly would at last slip away, with a look of hurt surprise in her face, to be comforted by one of her faithful. But if McWha were not engrossed in song, it would soon become impossible ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hills, chanced to see a light shining through a crevice in the rocks. Creeping cautiously forward and peering through the opening, he observed the formidable thief sitting on the floor, amusing himself with an old fiddle and singing— ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... These two plays are in ballad-rhyme and prose, like Hertz's romantic dramas; there is the same determination to achieve the chivalric ideal; but the work is that of a disciple, not of a master. Where Hertz, with his singing-robes fluttering about him, dances without an ungraceful gesture through the elaborate and yet simple masque that he has set before him to perform, Ibsen has high and sudden flights of metrical writing, but breaks ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... him as if what he knew was not enough, and he looked upwards in the large huge empty space above him, and on she flew with him; flew high over the black clouds, while the storm moaned and whistled as though it were singing some old tune. On they flew over woods and lakes, over seas, and many lands; and beneath them the chilling storm rushed fast, the wolves howled, the snow crackled; above them flew large screaming crows, but higher up appeared the moon, quite large and bright; and ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... difficulty of deciding just what is the correct thing in religious worship. The Jews had their institutions, but Christ abolished them. The Pagans had their way—sacrifice; Protestants have their preaching and hymn-singing. Catholics offer a Sacrifice, too, but an unbloody one. Later on, we shall hear the Church speak out on the subject. She exercised the right to change the day itself; she claims naturally the right to say how it should be ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... sins are forgiven thee.' ... Glory! Glory! Delight flashed all around me. Joy unspeakable sprung up in my soul. It seemed to me that I was already in paradise. The very trees, the very leaves on the trees, seemed to be singing together and praising God.... Will you share this divine peace with me? Will you come with me this night to the foot of the cross?... Then come now—now—for this may be the accepted hour of your salvation.... Come.... If you wait, you are lost ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... the abrupt bluntness of Vil Holland's. He would appear shortly after her early supper, and was always well upon his way before the late darkness began to obscure the contours of her little valley. An hour's chat upon the doorstep of the cabin and he was gone—riding down the valley, singing as he rode some old chanson of his French forebears, with always a pause at the cottonwood grove for a farewell wave of his hat. And Patty would turn from the doorway, and light her lamp, and proceed ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... German literature, especially of novels; a man who seemed to have met every noted or notorious personage of the century, and whose mind was a magazine of amusing information; an excellent musical critic, who was not afraid to criticise Sybil's singing; a connoisseur in bric-a-brac, who laughed at Madeleine's display of odds and ends, and occasionally brought her a Persian plate or a bit of embroidery, which he said was good and would do her credit. This old ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... she, who is always so melancholy, was singing like a bird. Besides, your highness knows how much she detests going out, and also that her character has a ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... pretty close to the breaking point. They could hear Nick ranting as to what he ought to do to a fellow who played him such a trick as to come between him and the girl he had always taken to hops and singing school. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... some day see clearly, even in Charleston. The separation which was to establish the prosperity of the South by permitting it at last to live to its liking, to obey its genius, and to serve its interests, has hitherto resulted in little, save the singing of the Marseillaise, (the Marseillaise of Slavery!) and the striking down of the Federal colors before the flag of the pelican and the rattlesnake. A great many blue ribbons and Colt's revolvers are sold; and busts of Calhoun, the first theorist of secession, axe carried ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... to hear it. I do. Sometimes, just as I go to sleep, I hear it singing about the stars, and about little foxes who come down to drink, and about birds...." Faith stopped suddenly, for Esther was laughing; and as Faith turned to look at her she realized that Esther cared nothing about the ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... is the singing teacher able, after his class has sung through several scores, to tell ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... a certain Elizabeth Mascarene, before mentioned in connection with a work of art,—a fair, dowerless lady, who smiled and sung and faded away, unwedded, a hundred years ago, as dowerless ladies, not a few, are smiling and singing and fading now,—God grant each of them His love,—and one human heart as ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... He had been able to sing tunes ever since he was quite a tiny baby, and his father and mother often talked together of how, in about a year, he should be taught to play on the piano, or perhaps on the violin, if he liked it better. You might hear his sharp, shrill little voice, singing about the house and the garden all day long. John the gardener called it "squealin'," and told Olly his songs were "capital good" ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... use of wine made the company hilarious, and toasts and songs were frequently called for. A lieutenant remarked to the Admiral, "There is a Yankee lad confined below who can shame any of us in singing." ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lighted streets in town without noticing the weather, or were getting ready for the theatre, or sitting in their studies over a book. Oh, how much they would have given now only to stroll along the Nevsky Prospect, or along Petrovka in Moscow, to listen to decent singing, to sit for an hour or so in ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... attentions, her passionate love for him, so pervasive yet so unobtrusive; the feeling of her smooth, round arm about his neck; her way of pressing close up to him and locking her fingers in his; the music of her voice, singing her heartsong to him yet never putting ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... The conductors of Inez endeavoured to keep out of observation, and to traverse a gloomy part of the square; but they were detained at one place by the pressure of a crowd surrounding a party of wandering musicians, singing one of those ballads of which the Spanish populace are so passionately fond. The torches which were held by some of the crowd, threw a strong mass of light upon Inez, and the sight of so beautiful a being, without mantilla or veil, looking so bewildered, and conducted by men who seemed to ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... strong light, and the second to move the big Bible slightly, to show that the kirk officer, not having had a university education, could not be expected to know the very spot on which it ought to lie. Gavin saw that the minister joined in the singing more like one countenancing a seemly thing than because he needed it himself, and that he only sang a mouthful now and again after the congregation was in full pursuit of the precentor. It was noteworthy ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... heart was overflowing with love-thoughts, and he was very merry, knowing that his affection was reciprocated. The elevated railway stations, about whose eaves the ugly, hastily built nests protrude everywhere, furnish ample explanation of his reasons for singing. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... with all the brazen effrontery of a hardened criminal. That is to say she came out singing, and with her hair perfectly in order, and looking in every way fresh and charming. Billy recognized this immediately as the wile of a malefactor trying to throw an officer of the law off the scent, but he was not to be discouraged by it, and he jumped out of the hammock and went up to her. She ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... lichen and moss, the vast multitude of spectators, the brilliant sunshine, the booming of the guns from the warships in the bay outside, the screaming of the seagulls overhead, the massed Welsh choirs singing "Land of my Fathers," and, above all, the boy of eighteen, beautiful as a fairy prince in his blue costume, walking hand in hand between the King and Queen to be presented to his people at the ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... among the indefatigably industrious. And amid all this he found ample time for reading and conviviality. I have seen him picking, chipping, and finishing a block, talking, whistling, and sometimes singing, while his friends have been drinking wine at his profusely hospitable table. At nights, after a hard day's work, he generally relieved his powerful mind in the bosom of his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... using them arose, I had very grave doubts indeed. Fray Antonio declined to carry any arms at all; and after he had accidentally discharged one of my pistols, which he had picked up to examine, so that the ball went singing by my ear and actually cut through the brim of Young's hat, there was a general disposition to admit that the less this godly man had to do with carnal weapons the safer would it be for all the rest of us. Young's hat was a battered Derby, and about ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... sing for the mere love of singing: he knew nothing about "Art for Art's sake". His object in singing appears to have been intensely practical. The world was inhabited by countless hordes of spirits, which were believed to be ever exercising themselves to influence mankind. The spirits caused suffering; ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... finely and possessed something of the same distinction of carriage. Mary was eight-and-twenty, and, whatever might be thought about her face, there could be but one opinion upon her feminine splendor of figure. Her broad chest produced a strange speaking and singing voice—mellow as Joan's, but far deeper in the notes. Mary gloried in congregational melodies, and those who had not before heard her efforts at church on Sundays would often mistake her voice for a man's. She was dressed in print with a big apron overall; and her sleeves, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... fame, and Big James was the king of them, though the mildest. They sang at dinners, free-and-easies, concerts, and Martinmas tea-meetings. They sang for the glory, and when there was no demand for their services, they sang to themselves, for the sake of singing. Each of them was a star in some church or chapel choir. And except Arthur Smallrice, they all shared a certain elasticity of religious opinion. Big James, for example, had varied in ten years from Wesleyan, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... turned her nose about and was gliding smoothly upstream, following the random curvings of the lazy Onawanda as it wound through the low-lying, wooded hills of the Shenandawah country, singing a carefree wanderer's song as it flowed. It was a glorious, balmy day in late June, dazzlingly blue and white, sparklingly golden. It was the Carribou's big day of the year, that last day of June. On all other days she made her run demurely from Lower Falls Station to Upper Falls, carrying freight ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... (and in a tone of ill-humor—mind that!) 'Ma foi! Sire, give me rather regiments to conduct than birds and dogs. I am sure that people would laugh at you and me if they knew how we occupy ourselves.' And on the eighth—wait, yes, on the eighth—while we were singing vespers together in my chambers, you threw your book angrily into the fire, which was an impiety; and afterward you told me that you had let it drop—a sin, a mortal sin. See, I have written below, lie, underlined. People never deceive me, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sometimes. One evening had he not let her mend his glove? And another evening, when she was practising her dancing for Lady Tatham, had he not come in to look? Ah, well, wait till she could sing and dance properly, till—perhaps—he saw her on the stage! Her newly discovered singing voice, which was the excitement of the moment for Lady Tatham and Netta, was to Felicia like some fairy force within her, struggling to be at large, which would some day carve out her fortunes, and bring her to Tatham—on ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in hast To entertain you. Never was a man Heav'd from a Sheep-coat to a Scepter rais'd So high in thoughts as I, you left a kiss Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep From you for ever, I did hear you talk Far above singing; after you were gone, I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd What stir'd it so, Alas I found it love, Yet far from lust, for could I have but liv'd In presence of you, I had had my end, For this I did delude my noble Father With a feign'd Pilgrimage, and drest my self In habit ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and set it open. There was a swinging of incense, and the waves of fragrant smoke flowed out upon the chapel, dimming the altar and the figure before it. Laura caught sight for a moment of the young Sister who had spoken to her. She was kneeling and singing, with sweet, shut eyes; it was clear that she was possessed by a fervour of feeling. Miss Fountain thought to herself, with wonder, "She cannot be ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mystery of Gilgal have rivaled Bret Harte's own verses in popularity. In the last-named piece the reader is given to feel that there is something rather cheerful and humorous in a bar-room fight which results in "the gals that winter, as a rule," going "alone to the singing school." In the two former we have heroes of the Bret Harte type, the same combination of superficial wickedness with inherent loyalty and tenderness. The profane farmer {581} of the South-west, who ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... again. Had it not been for his anxiety over Tad, he would have enjoyed his ride to the fullest. The morning was glorious; the sun had not yet risen high enough to make the heat uncomfortable; birds were singing and in spots where the sun had not yet penetrated a heavy dew was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... and from every direction the Fairies come floating in, their gauzy wings spangled, and each one carrying a toy balloon, attached to a string. They trip back and forth, their balloons bobbing up and down like rainbow bubbles, singing. ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the animal during the mating season which are intensely interesting. Sometimes they consist simply of a wild delirium of joy, which overpowers the animal completely and makes him do wonderful things. Birds will fly with impetuous leaps in the air, mount higher and higher, singing wildly, only to turn suddenly at the top of the flight and drop promptly to the ground. I have seen such ecstatic flights in the oven bird and in our rollicking gold finch. I have seen a catbird on his way to a tree turn three somersaults, much like those performed ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... time stretched on a bed of sickness, while she is spending her days so agreeably with me. She has a way of forgetting that she has a home, or any other business in the world than just to stay on chatting with me, and reading, and singing, and laughing at any one there is to laugh at, and kissing the babies, and tilting with the Man of Wrath. Naturally I love her—she is so pretty that anybody with eyes in his head must love her—but too much of anything is bad, and next month the passages and offices are to be whitewashed, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the day, the shimmer and sparkle of the river, with the soft lap of its waters, the singing of the birds over his head, all had no effect on him. His dark, beady eyes noted nothing but the boats that passed, none of which, as yet—though the afternoon was waning fast—contained Adrien and ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... always gay, always irreproachably gowned. In winter there were daily meetings, for shopping, for luncheon, bridge or tea; summer was filled with a score of country visits. There were motor-trips for week-ends, dinners, theatre, and the opera to fill the evenings, German or singing lessons, manicure, masseuse, and dressmaker to crowd the morning hours all the year round. Margaret learned from these exquisite, fragrant creatures the art of being perpetually fresh and charming, learned their methods of caring for their own beauty, learned to ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... compliments with her gaiety, that Prescott did not wonder at Harley's obvious attraction, but he was not sorry to see the frown deepen on the face of the Colonel's sister. The sound of some soldiers singing a gay chorus reached their ears and he asked Helen if she would come to the door of the house and see them. She looked once doubtfully at the other woman, but rose and went with him, the two who were left behind making ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... came to the rescue of Miss Temple. 'Miss Temple has spoken so often to us of your singing, Captain Armine,' said his lordship; and yet Lord Montfort, in this allegation, a little departed front the habitual exactitude of ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Bouillon: one says, that poor Duchesse de Biron is again arrested and at the Jacobins, and with her "une jeune 'etourdie, qui ne fait que chanter toute la journ'ee;" and who, think you, may that be?—only our pretty little wicked Duchesse de Fleury! by her singing and not sobbing, I suppose she was weary of her Tircis, and is glad to be rid of him. This new blow, I fear, will overset Madame de Biron again. The rage at Paris seems to increase daily or hourly; they either despair, or are now avowed banditti. I tremble so ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... argues, that all good and wise men should take example from the swans, who are considered sacred to Apollo, not without reason, but particularly because they seem to have received the gift of divination from him, by which, foreseeing how happy it is to die, they leave this world with singing and joy. Nor can any one doubt of this, unless it happens to us who think with care and anxiety about the soul, (as is often the case with those who look earnestly at the setting sun,) to lose the sight of it entirely: and so the mind's eye ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... singing a merry tune. Hardly had he seated himself upon the hillside when he heard the giant's whistle. The prince was not at all frightened, although the giant scowled with anger because he had been obliged to give up ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... moment Mrs Quantock did not answer, but cocked her head sideways in the direction of the pear-tree where a thrush was singing. It fluted a couple of repeated phrases and then was ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... they swung into the dark avenue, singing "Barney Riley" in resonant undertones, while overhead the chilly little Western stars looked down through pallid convolutions of moving clouds, and the wind in the gas-lit avenue grew ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... justice. The seigneur explained that he had already supped, but having allowed himself to be persuaded into joining them, he ended by eating more than Ephraim Savage, drinking more than Du Lhut, and finally by singing a very amorous little French chanson with a tra-le-ra chorus, the words of which, fortunately for the peace of the company, were entirely ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Rio della Madonnetta into the narrow rio that was the back approach to the Palazzo Amadeo. It is a dark little canal, a rio of the poor. The doors that stood open in the peeling brick walls above the water let out straggling shafts of lamplight and quarrelling voices and singing and the smell of wine. The steep house walls leant to meet one another from either side; from upper windows the people who hadn't gone to bed talked across a space of barely ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand years, singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good and its voice as clear and musical as when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a wild story it could tell if its murmur could be understood; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... song, executed some days afterwards at Strasbourg, flew from city to city, in every public orchestra. Marseilles adopted it to be sung at the opening and the close of the sittings of its clubs. The Marseillais spread it all over France, by singing it every where on their way. Whence the name of Marseillaise. De Lisle's old mother, a royalist and religious, alarmed at the effect of her son's voice, wrote to him: "What is this revolutionary hymn, sung by bands ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of keys by all sorts and conditions of composers. Since Philip the Second of Spain published his views on "financiering and unhallowed practices with bills of exchange," and illustrated them by repudiating his debts, there has been a chorus of opinion singing the same tune with variations, and describing the financier as a bloodsucker who makes nothing, and consumes an inordinate amount of the good things that are made ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... such a jolly one that every toy in the store felt like dancing or singing. The Jumping Jack worked his arms and legs faster than they had ever jerked about before. The Talking Doll swayed on her feet as though waltzing, and even the China Cat beat time ...
— The Story of a China Cat • Laura Lee Hope
... and especially did he enjoy the cantu Gregoriana and chorale. But if at times he perceived in a new song that it was incorrectly copied he set it again upon the lines (that is, he brought the parts together and rectified it in continenti). Right gladly did he join in the singing when hymnus or responsorium de tempore had been set by the Musicus to a Cantum Gregorianum, as we have said, and his young sons, Martinus and Paulus, had also after table to sing the responsoria de tempore, as at Christmas, Verbum caro factum est, In principio erat verbum; ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... The Grasshopper, singing All summer long, Now found winter stinging, And ceased in his song. Not a morsel or crumb in his cupboard— So he shivered, and ceased in ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... ceased to laugh. Then they tried to sing. They kept up this for some time. They exhausted all their stock of school songs, nigger songs, patriotic songs, songs sentimental and moral, and finally tried even hymns. But the singing was not a very striking success; there was a lack of spirit in it; and under this depressing sense of languor, the voice of ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... buzzing and singing in Silla's ears; it was as if the door were opening to her of itself. She could go now ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... the refutation of an objection raised by the advocate of the final view. We do not admit, the objector says, the unity maintained by you, since the texts clearly show a difference of form. The text of the Vjasaneyins represents as the object of meditation that which is the agent in the act of singing out the Udgtha; while the text of the Chandogas enjoins meditation on what is the object of the action of singing out (i. e. the Udgtha itself). This discrepancy establishes difference in the character of the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... dawn a voice went singing, a man's voice, singing a cheap and common air. Yet something in the elan of it all told he was young, jubilant, ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... trained for centuries to a curious uneven scale, at least they admired Elinor's lovely voice, clear and sweet as a bell. She had a large repertoire and knew all the favorites of everybody. While she was singing "Oh, that we two were Maying," at the request of Miss Campbell, Nancy, seated on the couch beside Billie, near the door, whispered into her ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... spoke the blue flower, as she rang her bell, oh so sweetly! so that it seemed to the rabbit as if she played a song about the blue skies, and birds singing and fountains spouting upward in the sun while pretty blossoms grew all around. "Go on, Uncle Wiggily, but if you don't find your fortune come back here, and I will sing you to ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... through the place in the dusk, we could dimly discern the inhabitants sitting in their thatched verandahs, in the thinnest of white dresses, gossipping, smoking, and love-making, tinkling guitars, and singing seguidillas. It was quite a Spanish American scene out of a romance. There was no romance about the mosquitos, however. The air was alive with them. When I was new to Cuba, I used to go to bed in the European fashion; and as the beds were all six inches too short, my feet used ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... suspect any fault in me. O ruler of the Nishadhas, passing over the celestials themselves, I choose thee as my lord. It was to bring thee hither that the Brahmanas had gone out in all directions, even to all the sides of the horizon, singing my words, in the form of ballads. At last, O king, a learned Brahmana named Parnada had found thee in Kosala in the palace of Rituparna. When thou hadst returned a fit answer to those words of his, it was then, O Naishadha, that I devised this scheme to recover thee. Except thee, O lord of earth, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... The singing and yelling did not cease until after eleven o'clock but two hours before this time Coach Phillips made sure that every football man was snugly stowed away in bed. Judd dropped off to sleep immediately upon retiring, but nothing short of chloroform could have caused Cateye to lose ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... preached to audiences of 6000 people. There had been a funeral, the natives say, though Mr. C. does not remember it, and his text had been "Be ye also ready," and larger throngs than usual had followed the preachers to their homes. The fatiguing day was over, the natives were singing hymns in the still evening air, and Mr. C. "had gathered his family for prayers" in the very room in which he told me this story, when they were startled by "a sound as if a heavy mountain had fallen on the beach." There was at once a fearful cry, wailing, and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... wherefore the hero returned not unto the banquet. So they went forth to seek him, and when they had found him in his blood, they came and told Sohrab what they had seen. But Sohrab would not believe it; so he ran to the spot and bade them bring torches, and all the warriors and singing girls followed after him. Then when Sohrab saw that it was true he was sore grieved; but he suffered not that the banquet be ended, for he would not that the spirits of his men be damped with pity. So they went back yet ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... more, Not with the chisel-and bruised bronze alone, But also with brush, colour, pencil, tone, To rival, nay, surpass that fame of yore. But now, transcending what those laurels bore Of pride and beauty for our age and zone. You climb of poetry the third high throne, Singing love's strife and-peace, love's sweet and sore. O wise, and dear to God, old man well born, Who in so many, so fair ways, make fair This world, how shall your dues be dully paid? Doomed by eternal charters to adorn Nature ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... and the ash grew longer on the captain's cigar. It was another delectable day, and the Belle Julie was still churning the brown flood in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and Charlotte could not catch the words; but the blending harmony, rich in the altogether inimitable timbre of the African song-voice, rose above the throbbing of the engines and the ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... The wide house was darkened and silent, and without a sunlight washed with gold filtered through the leaves. There was a drowsy hum of bees, and in the distance the occasional languishing note of a bird singing what must have been a cradle-song. My mind wandered, and shirked the task that was set ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... SHEEP.—The keeping of flocks seems to have been the first employment of mankind; and the most ancient sort of poetry was probably pastoral. The poem known as the Pastoral gives a picture of the life of the simple shepherds of the golden age, who are supposed to have beguiled their time in singing. In all pastorals, repeated allusions are made to the "fleecy flocks," the "milk-white lambs," and "the tender ewes;" indeed, the sheep occupy a position in these poems inferior only to that of the shepherds who tend them. The "nibbling sheep" ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... earlier source. 'You see nothing in any direction but the sky and the sands, without the slightest trace of a road; and travellers find nothing to guide them but the bones of men and beasts and the droppings of camels. During the passage of this wilderness you hear sounds, sometimes of singing, sometimes of wailing; and it has often happened that travellers going aside to see what these sounds might be have strayed from their course and been entirely lost; for they were voices of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the weighing proceeded in leisurely and dignified fashion. Haste, truly, were unseemly. But at last the supplies were stowed in the brown pack, there were handshakings all round, and a word of advice from old heads, and I marched away with a singing heart. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... we while the time away? Well, we organized a minstrel band, singing clubs, and debating societies; we had occasional lectures and exchanged books in a so-called reading room; we had two rival base-ball teams, and we played the indoor games of chess, checkers, cards, and dominoes. I spent ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... they joyously shouted. The glasses were filled, one arm was thrown round that of the neighbor, and the glasses were emptied, whilst several commenced singing "dulce cum sodalibus!" ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... hand, he coughed. It was clear that he wished intensely to escape, but was held by his conceptions of the obligations of conduct. "The suddenness—" Lee said, and then paused with a furrowed brow; "that's what surprises me. She was as well as you, and singing, yes—singing, that she didn't want to be a wife. I thought she had tripped on the loose silk thing she wore; and then I was certain that she had fainted from your heat." He bore heavily on the word your, and then proceeded to curse ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... where Tawno presently fell asleep. I was about to fall asleep also, when I heard the sound of music and song. Piramus was playing on the fiddle, whilst Mrs. Chikno, who had a voice of her own, was singing in tones sharp enough, but of great power, a ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... assembly was called to order by the Vice-President. Dea. Samuel Jacobs, of Lewiston, at 10 o'clock A.M. Opened by singing an Indian hymn Prayer by Rev. Thomas Green, of Lewiston, ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... upper part of his field, and by charging threepence for admission to the other side reaped a good harvest. The competitors arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and left again for the north early on the Monday morning. Thousands of spectators spent Sunday night in the fields, gathering round bonfires or singing to keep themselves warm. In this competition the French monoplane pilots carried off the honours; Beaumont was first, and Vedrines second. The only competitor who completed the full course on a British-built ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... at home. Clara was too much fatigued to walk out, and none of us would leave her. What a day of happiness that was! I knew something of music, and could sing a second. Clara was delighted at this, for the others had not cultivated singing much. We therefore spent the whole morning in this way. Then she produced her sketch-book, and I brought out mine, and we had a mutual interchange of prisoners. What cutting out of leaves and detaching of rice-paper ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... that in both years we didn't hear America singing, we heard America shouting. And now all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, must say: We hear you. We will work together to earn the jobs you have given us. For we are the keepers of the sacred trust and we must be faithful to it in this ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... their own rights only, but also for those of their sons and daughters. But few parts of the land have such thrilling stories to tell as that of Northumbria. Border ballads innumerable have been written, and there are old stones, dark rocks, and picturesque glens, that are ever singing their songs of the olden and far-away days, and singing them so that no pen can reproduce them. If they could but speak a language that we could understand, what crowds of eager students would gather about them, what hosts of world-weary people ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... from that prince of songsters. Excited but not frightened away by the moving host beneath, the bird outdid its kind in its imitations of other birds, and in its calls and notes of endless variety, whistling and singing with a full resonant power that rose above all other sounds. The marching soldiers ceased their talk, listening intently and craning their necks to get a sight of the peerless musician. It was a celebration of the coming peace, unique in beauty and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... accused the emperor as the incendiary of his own capital; and as the most incredible stories are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. [30] To divert a suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress, the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some fictitious criminals. "With ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... whole line then passed slowly along the front of the village sideways, facing the north, and singing, and all the women came out and helped themselves to the clay molds and the ears of corn borne by the Ta-tau-kya-mu, bestowing many ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... Queen," "part of which was written by Dryden," and the whole revised and corrected no doubt, especially in the article of versification, was acted in 1664 with great applause. "It presented," says Sir Walter, "battles and sacrifices on the stage, aerial demons singing in the air, and the god of dreams ascending through a trap, the least of which has often saved a worse tragedy." Evelyn, in his Memoirs, has recorded, that the scenes were the richest ever seen in England, or perhaps ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... man was so worked up by that time—it likely being he hadn't seen much of hangings—he was just a-hopping: with his plug hat off, and sousing the sweat off his face with his pocket-handkerchief, and singing out what was going on wasn't any better than murder, and begging all hands not to do what he said was such a ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... conscientiously observed; we kept up the services of the Church of England as far as practicable, and sometimes had a visitor to join us in the same, not omitting the hymn singing. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... the mysteries of sombre trees hard by, stole the plaintive notes of a blackbird singing, as it ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... up over pa's illuminated remains when the Indians came out to put Pa on the fire, and when they saw the phosphorescent glow all over him, and, his face looking as though he was at peace with all the world, and us whites on our knees, making motions and singing that hot dirge, they all turned pale, and were scared, and they fell back reverently, and gazed fixedly at poor pa, who was winking at us, and whispering to us to keep it up, and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... were crowded with humanity, for the most part laughing and chatting gayly and singing bits of song, though here and there were sad, tear-stained faces, where long farewells, some of them perhaps the last farewells, were ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour |
