"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the parrots screamin' an' the palm-trees' drowsy tune, But I'd want the Banks in winter an' the smell of ice in June, An' the hard-case mates a-bawlin', an' the strikin' o' the bell ... God! I've cursed it oft an' cruel ... but I'd miss it all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... am sure you have a great deal of reason. Oh, I am sure of it. You are reasonable in the same way that Monsieur Sadler is a violinist. He plays a little out of tune when he wishes. And you, too, when you are not quite logical, it is for your own pleasure. Oh, darling, you have a great deal of reason and of judgment, and I come to ask ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Clausen—Clausen's his chum—that if he went off the team he'd leave school. I guess few of us would be sorry. Bartlett Cloud's a coward from the toes up, March, and if he tries to make it unpleasant for you, why, just offer to knock him down and he'll change his tune." ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... awkward, fellows, came in squads, and companies, and regiments, swaggering along, dressed in their brown homespun clothes and blue yarn stockings. They stooped, as if they still had hold of the plough-handles, and marched without any time or tune. Hither they came, from the corn-fields, from the clearing in the forest, from the blacksmith's forge, from the carpenter's workshop, and from the shoemaker's seat. They were an army of rough faces and sturdy frames. A trained officer of Europe would have laughed at them, ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the stable to the pew. Then begins the hollow and flute-like modulation of a pitch-pipe within the great building. One of the members of the congregation who is a musician is setting the ears of the people to the tune of the hymn that is about to be given forth. The verse is read, and then rises the full swell of hundreds of voices; and while they sing let us think what a strange thing the old pitch-pipe—no organ, no harmonium—what a strange ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... minute, after a fashion that (I say it with reverence) would have tantalized even a deacon. She clapped her hands, she laughed, she danced, she went swaying on tiptoe around the room with a jaunty step, singing and keeping time to a waltz tune; and finally, pausing near the window, she doubled a tiny fist, as white as a snowball, bringing it down into the rosy palm of her other hand with a gesture of resolute determination, at the same time uttering, through closed teeth and with compressed and puckered lips, an oft-repeated vow, that, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... clarionet, a double bass, a bassoon, and a flute: also a tenor voice which "set the tune". The carpenter, to whom the tenor voice belonged, had a tuning-fork which he struck on his desk and applied to his ear. He then hummed the tuning-fork note, and the octave below, the double bass screwed up and responded, the leader with the tuning-fork ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... then went on to something which I do not remember, but while we were groping about through machine-gun pits, etc., the band behind began "Tipperary." That just put the finishing touch to Bolshevik patience! This famous war tune got on their gunners' nerves and they began to shell the tune for all they were worth. Needless to say not a single shell went anywhere near the mark. All shrieked over our heads and exploded harmlessly among the forest trees; one, however, ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... disease, an eruption that breaks out upon the soul, and destroys all its interest, all its beauty. The optimist dresses up the amazing figures of life like Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses, and pipes a foolish tune—the Old Hundredth or some such thing—for them to dance to. We cannot all refuse to see anything but comic opera peasants ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... His wonder always was who could have composed the quaint and beautiful strains of those mazurkas, polonaises, and krakowiaks, and who had taught these simple men and women to play and sing so truly in tune. The conditions then existing in Poland were very favourable to the study of folk-lore of any kind. Art-music had not yet corrupted folk-music; indeed, it could hardly be said that civilisation had affected the lower strata of society at ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... were seated round the fire when a little man came into the Chamber. He carried a harp in his hands. He bowed low to each of the four of them. "I am MacDraoi, the Giant's Harper," he said, "and I have come to play music for you." "Not one tune do we want to hear from you," said Feet-in-the-Ashes. "Whether you want it or not, one you will hear," said the Harper, "and that tune is the Slumber Tune. I shall play it for you now. And if the whole world was before me when I play it, and if every one in it had the ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... said, could not go to press without an article on the concert, but to do this article he must consult Mr. Innes, for in the first piece, "La my," the viols had seemed to him out of tune. Of course this was not so—perhaps one of the players had played a wrong note; that might be the explanation. But on referring to the music, Mr. Innes discovered a better one. "From the twelfth to the fifteenth century, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... burn'd, And moderate your passion's greed: Think how Bellerophon was spurn'd By his wing'd steed. So learn to look for partners meet, Shun lofty things, nor raise your aims Above your fortune. Come then, sweet, My last of flames (For never shall another fair Enslave me), learn a tune, to sing With that dear voice: to music care Shall yield ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... crouching to his master with a voluble, whining complaint in his own tongue. Nick lifted his hand; and with a vicious, backhanded stroke sent Xavier again reeling across the yard. It was the blow which was meant for Garth. Passion had set Nick dancing to a strange tune. Albert, seeing the look in his eye, instinctively edged out ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... different kind: she had such faith in her charms, and was so confident of their effects, that she could believe anything. Brisacier, whom she looked upon as desperately smitten, had wit, which he set off with common-place talk, and with little sonnets: he sung out of tune most methodically, and was continually exerting one or other of these happy talents: the Duke of Buckingham did all he could to spoil him, by the praises he bestowed both upon his voice ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... sun-bonnet pulled down over her sore eyes, changed a snuff-stick from her mouth to her pocket, burst into a heart-freezing scream, and began to thrash about in her seat. The hymn rolled on in stronger volume. The Yankee precentor caught the tune and tried to lead, but Uncle Jimmie's voice soared over him with the rapture of a lark and the shriek of an eagle, two or three more pair of hands clapped time, the other Suez pastor took a trochee, and the four preachers filed down from the high pulpit, singing as they ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... I thought my own case unique, but acquaintance with a music critic who cannot hum a tune, and with a celestial tenor (such tenors are so rare I fear this may be too personal for print) who was the most stupid of men, without the slightest capacity for high passion of any sort, convinced me of my error: and many subsequent conversations with men and women like myself incapacitated ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... above an' won't have nothin' to do with men. 'I don't want nothin' in my life but my work,' says she to me, herself. That's all very well for now but let her wait a few years an' she'll sing a different tune or I miss my guess. She ain't enchanted, Mary Rose, she's just pig-headed ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... and his own people. The arena in which he fought was small, the ideas he combated were few. He was not universal as those are universal who appeal to any man in any country. But he was eager upon these problems which his contemporaries wrangled over. He was in tune with, even when he directly opposed, the class from which he sprang, the mass of well-to-do Protestant Englishmen of Queen Victoria's reign. Their furniture had nothing shocking for him nor their steel engravings. He took for granted their probity, their common sense, and their reading. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... of a piano-forte; it had also a hand-organ, which pleased the poor inmates exceedingly. On one occasion the Empress, on entering the asylum, observed that the inmates appeared unusually dull, when she called them near, and played on the hand-organ herself an enlivening tune. ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... rightly regarded by many people as being little better than an instrument of torture. One reason for this aversion is that, in the great majority of cases, the household instrument is not kept in tune. Probably it is not too much to say that the man who would invent a sound cottage piano which would remain in tune would do more for the improvement of the national taste in music than the largest and finest orchestra ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... capon and plover, do you hear, sirrah? and do not bring your eating player with you there; I cannot away with him: he will eat a leg of mutton while I am in my porridge, the lean Polyphagus, his belly is like Barathrum; he looks like a midwife in man's apparel, the slave: nor the villanous out-of-tune fiddler, AEnobarbus, bring not him. What hast thou there? six ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... thanked the bunny uncle, and ran along, and the rabbit gentleman began brushing the chalk marks off the black-boards, at the same time humming a little tune that went ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... softly, with her eyes closed. It was a quaint old-fashioned tune, with a refrain of "Hush-a-by" and he held her hand until the song ceased and she was asleep. Then he went over to Ruth. "Can't you go to sleep for a little while, dearest? I know ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... where less depended upon him. There was a whole epidemic of courts-martial and inquiries, some of which were still smouldering when the war ended. And Stoughton, the principal victim, found scant sympathy. President Lincoln, when told that the rebels had raided Fairfax to the tune of one general, two captains, thirty men and fifty-eight horses, remarked that he could make all the generals he wanted, but that he was sorry to lose the horses, as he couldn't make horses. As yet, there was no visible re-enforcement of the cavalry in Fairfax County ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... marvellous mechanical invention of the age. It will play any tune that ever was written, in a melodious and pleasing manner. Difficult and simple music produced in a masterly style, and it can be played by a child as well as by a grown person, and will furnish music for social gatherings of any description, playing hour after hour, without any ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... Richard. I went up to the Hall to beg for the fragments off the rich man's table. Lady Bountiful, who was bountiful in nought but reviling, was the person whom I met. Bridewell and the stocks was the tune, and the big dog sang the chorus at my heels. But I'll be more than even with her. If I have the heart to feel an injury, she shall find that I've a head to help my heart to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the door, and after a pretty long interval—occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be lighted—a pair of small boots pattered over the floor-cloth, and Master Bardell ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... journey toward home, frequently meeting acquaintances who were seeking safety elsewhere. When within four or five miles of the town, while ascending a long hill, I heard the sound of a drum and fife not far ahead. Presently I recognized the tune played to be "Yankee Doodle." I could not believe it to be the vanguard of Hunter's army, but what on earth could it be? However, at the top of the hill I saw a train of refugee wagons preceded by two negroes who ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... his words, the band on the pier became audible on a sudden gust of wind. It was gaily jigging out the tune of "The Girl I Left ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... away. He was sorry that he was sick, and he was particularly sorry that he had to go himself without company. But, concluding that he would adopt Forester's principle of making the best of everything, in the events which occur in travelling, he walked along the road, singing a tune which he had learned at a juvenile singing school in New York, and watching the pulsations of the steam, as it issued from ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... left the fields, they returned to their cabins and after preparing and eating of their evening meal they gathered around a cabin to sing and moan songs seasoned with African melody. Then to the tune of an old fiddle they danced a dance called the "Green Corn Dance" and "Cut the Pigeon wing." Sometimes the young men on the plantation would slip away to visit a girl on another plantation. If they were caught by the "Patrols" while ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... gentleman appeared, made his bow, skipped upon the leader's stand, and with a wave of his baton caused a general uprising of white pinafores as the orphans led off with that much-enduring melody "America" in shrill small voices, but with creditable attention to time and tune. Pity and patriotism produced a generous round of applause, and the little girls sat ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... perceive the little larks, The lapwing, and the snipe, And tune their song like Nature's clerks, O'er meadow, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... first is in good, but not in bad. My second is in funny, but not in sad. My third is in sit, but not in stand. My fourth is in tune, but not in band. My fifth is in pan, but not in pot. My sixth is in clear, but not in blot. My whole ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... necktie with a disgracefully consequential air, though he was trying very hard not to look conceited; and while he was endeavouring to appear easy and gracefully careless, he began accidentally to hum, "See the Conquering Hero Comes," which was not the right tune under ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... painter. She goes into details about the mental anguish that has almost prostrated her since she discovered the fiendish assault on her privacy, and she announces how she has begun action for criminal libel and started suit for damages to the tune of ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... games and girls' games. Boys' games are mostly of a contest character, girls' of a more domestic type. The boys' dramatic games have preserved some interesting beliefs and customs, but the tendency in these games, such as "prisoner's base," has been to drop the words and tune and to preserve only that part (action) which tends best for exercise and use in school playgrounds. The girls' singing-games have not developed on these lines, and have therefore not lost so much of their early characteristics. The singing games consist of words, tune and action. The words, in verse, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... cut the throats of the English. These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dawn, and he loving it mightily. The which he should not have this day but that I have a month's mind to a slashte wastcote which hitherto he hath soured upon. This done, a brave dish of cream in the which he takes great delight; and so seeing him in Tune I to lament the ill wear of my velvet wastcote as desiring a Better, whereon he soured. We jangling mightily on this I did object his new Jackanapes coat with silver buttons, but to no purpose. He reading ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... vicious condition began about 1855, with the introduction of hymn-and-tune books and the revival of congregational singing. From that time the progressive improvement of the public taste may be traced in the character of the books that have succeeded one another in the churches, until the admirable compositions of the modern English ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... queen. He set forth on a mule, accompanied by two squires and five servants carrying torches. It was a sombre night, and as the unsuspecting prince rode up the Rue Vieille du Temple behind his little escort, humming a tune and playing with his glove, a band of assassins fell upon him from the shadow of the postern La Barbette, crying "a mort, a mort" and he was hacked to death. Then issued from a neighbouring house at the sign of Our Lady, Jean sans Peur, a tall ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... her to give great variety to her embellishments, which, as her taste was always good, were always judicious." In her cadenzas, however, she was obliged to trust to her memory, for she never could improvise an ornament. Her ear was so delicate that she could instantly detect any instrument out of tune in a large orchestra; and her intonation was perfect. In manner she was "peculiarly bewitching," and her attitudes generally were good, with the exception of an ugly habit of pressing her hands against her bosom when executing difficult passages. Her face and figure were beautiful, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... accordance with this, the worthy defender of his country, whistling a tune and twirling his mustache, seated ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... heroes to get "on the cheap" from the rough rank and file of her sons Has been England's good fortune so long, that the scribblers' swift tongue-babble runs To the old easy tune without thought. "Gallant sea-dogs and life-savers!" Yes! But poor driblets of lyrical praise should not be their sole ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... not long after tea, then Mr. Boddy took out his violin from the bag and played all the favourite old tunes, those which brought back their childhood to the two girls. To please Mary, Lydia asked for a hymn-tune, one she had grown fond of in chapel. Mary began to sing it, so Lydia got her hymn-book and asked Thyrza to sing with them. The air was a sweet one, and Thyrza's voice gave it touching beauty as she sang soft and low. Other hymns followed; ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... long forenoon my thought I held, And yet all thro' it The wires all England over shrill'd, And I never knew it! In a high muse I nurst my news All the forenoon, While England braced her limbs and thews To a marching tune. ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... stood there watching, Enjoying their chorus gay, My cat stole in from the kitchen, And all of them flew away— With wings that fluttered and quivered, they chirped to another tune, As they flew away through the garden ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... on the water casks, kicking his heels and whistling his infernal tune, always the same. He wasn't washed away nor moved by the action of the water; indeed, we heartily hoped and expected to see both him and the water cask floated overboard at every minute; but, as ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... cried Jarrow, swinging toward him, and extending a brawny arm wrathfully. "Ye make fast to me like a devilfish! That's the tune ye've been singin' for years! 'Said ye'd go!' Same old story! ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... flaring, Past the eyesight's bearing. Wake it from its sleep, And see if it can keep Its eyes upon the blaze— Amaze, amaze! It stares, it stares, it stares, It dares what none dares! It lifts its little hand into the flame Unharmed and on the strings Paddles a little tune and sings, With dumb endeavor sweetly— Bard thou art completely; Little child, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... that; I'm proof. Take things more easily. Don't ask yourself so much whether this or that is good for you. Don't question your conscience so much—it will get out of tune like a strummed piano. Keep it for great occasions. Don't try so much to form your character—it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... village church, which attained a high degree of perfection. He invented a curious monochord, which was not less accurate than his clocks in the mensuration of time. His ear was distressed by the ringing of bells out of tune, and he set himself to remedy them. At the parish church of Hull, for instance, the bells were harsh and disagreeable, and by the authority of the vicar and churchwardens he was allowed to put them into a state of exact tune, so ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... to the chorus, nothing would do but all of them must join. She taught the words and tune to Prince and Jimmie so that they could fall into line behind the old soldier and ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... version of the first touchdown—how he had been forced inch by inch across the goal line to the tune of thirty thousand yelling throats and his companions were hanging upon his words, when their new friend interrupted in such a tone that Anthony inquired ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... her death, she requested me to sing "The Christian's Home in Glory," or "Rest for the Weary"—a hymn, with its tune, dear to her for itself and for its associations. As I repeated the chorus, she exclaimed, again and again, with great tenderness and emphasis, "Rest, rest, rest! Oh, brother Lockwood, there I shall rest, rest, rest! This weary head shall rest on my ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... if it were short of breath the engine goes, and is suddenly swallowed up in a great tunnel! Oh, the roaring, the clattering, the clamp, clamp, clamp, the "dickery-dickery-dock" tune which the wheels play upon the metals and chairs and joints of the line! Suddenly we are out again under a starry sky; all the mist and fog and smoke are gone. The light which surrounded us in the tunnel, the flickering gleam which ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... calls at the shops of different tradespeople, or any one at all connected with the herring fishery, where they solicit contributions, and those who are disposed to be liberal, are honoured with a tune from the musicians, and the cheering of the mayor. After parading the town they retire to a tavern to dinner. A great number of French and Dutch fishing boats resort to Yarmouth at the herring fishing, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... trumperies like your Norfolkshire pedlars at Christmas-tide. We will sack a town for you, and bring you back the Lord Mayor's beard to stuff you a cushion; the Dauphin shall be your tapster yet; we will walk on lilies, I warrant you, to the tune of Hey, then ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... that he was not the only person in the room not dancing. A girl in apple-green sat, with a rather fixed smile on her lips, watching three of the young men teaching Jacqueline a new step, while Percival Channing produced upon the piano a tune too recent for the resources of the graphophone. It occurred to him that Jemima's party might leave something to be desired on the part of its instigator. He ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... takes up the tune, and the solo is repeated; after which the alphabet is sung through, and the last letter, Z, is sustained and repeated again and again, to bother the next child, whose turn it now is to sing the next solo. The new solo must be a nursery ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... out, and let me understand ye, And tune your pipe a little higher, Lady; I'll hold ye fast: rub, how came my Trunks open? And my Goods gone, what ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... find that he had not forgotten the turns and twists of the house. He threaded the dark passages easily, humming a little tune, and smelling that same sweet scent of dried rose leaves that he had known so well when he was a small boy. He could see, in imagination, the great white-and-pink china pot-pourri bowls standing at the corner of the ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... a little crooning song from the waters—no words, no tune that could be called a tune. It reminded him more of a baby's toneless cooing of joy, and yet it had a rhythm to it, too, and both joy and pathos in its cadence. Across the bright path of the moon's reflection ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... conscious of having deserved the undivided applause of the bystanders. The curtain dropped; but in two or three minutes it was again up, and a rope was discovered, extended on two cross pieces, for dancing upon. The tune was changed to an air, in which the time was marked, a graceful figure appeared, jumped upon the rope with its balance pole, and displayed all the manoeuvres of an expert performer on the tight rope. Many who would turn away ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... didn't hear me say nothing wrong to the young gent," and so on, in a whining tone, till Tom cut him short by saying that, "if he had any more nonsense among them, he would send 'em all three over to Captain Desborough, to the tune of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... driveller then, thou art, Unequal to the merry part Thou undertook'st to play;— The Birth-day comes but once a year, Then tune thy dulcet notes and clear, Again ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... a certain herdsman sings as Krishna sounds a tune of love Krishna here disports himself with charming women given ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... Nothing moved down there, and yet—was not emptiness mysteriously living, the closed-in air imprinted in strange sort, as though the drone of music and voices in prayer and praise clung there still? Had not sanctity a presence? Outside, a barrel-organ drove its tune along; a wagon staggered on the paved street, and the driver shouted to his horses; some distant guns boomed out in practice, and the rolling of wheels on wheels formed a net of sound. But those invading noises were transmuted to a mere murmuring ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sustained or taken up by the voices upon any defined scheme, and, if so, what that scheme is. Nor can I say whether the voices which take the lower notes in the music are silent after the word la, or repeat that word in the sixth bar, with or without the upper voices, in order to bring the tune to a full close. I have only given two verses; and, as regards the song in question, I doubt if there were any more. Unfortunately I am unable to translate the words, and can only give ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... deal of tremor and blushing (which became her very much), played and sang, sometimes of an evening, simple airs, and old songs of home. Her voice was a rich contralto, and Warrington, who scarcely knew one tune from another and who had but one tune or bray in his repertoire,—a most discordant imitation of 'God save the King'—sat rapt in delight listening to these songs. He could follow their rhythm if not their harmony; and he could watch, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as she strolled across the moor. She did not whistle a tune, but uttered sweet, plaintive notes like a bird's call, and as she reached the stream a tall figure rose up from the darkness of ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... was to have his first interview with Dr. Rowlands. The school had already re-opened, and one of the boys in his college cap passed by the window while they were breakfasting. He looked very happy and engaging, and was humming a tune as he strolled along. Eric started up and gazed after him with the most intense curiosity. At that moment the unconscious schoolboy was to him the most interesting person in the whole world, and ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Petty Sessions to defend some labourer, the bench of magistrates listen to his maundering argument as deferentially as if he were a Q.C. They pity him, and they respect his cloth. The scrubby attorney whistles a tune, and utters an oath when he learns the principal is engaged. Then he marches out, with his hat on one side of his head, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... and other better thoughts, the visitor, lightly humming a tune, now began indifferently pacing the poop, so as not to betray to Don Benito that he had at all mistrusted incivility, much less duplicity; for such mistrust would yet be proved illusory, and by the event; though, for the present, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... swept away to a tune of hammering hoofs; and quiet rested upon the street as Kirkwood turned the nearest corner, in an unpleasant temper, puzzled and discontented. It seemed hardly fair that he should have been dragged ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... a few minutes, having bade adieu, and giving his thanks to the humane people, he was buried in the straw below the tilt of the waggon, with his provisions deposited beside him, and the waggon went on his slow and steady pace, to the tune of its own jingling bells. Joey, who had quite recovered from his chill, nestled among the straw, congratulating himself that he should now arrive safely in London, without more questioning. And such was the case: in three days and three nights, without any further adventure, he found ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... her after her marriage, and I hope, I think, that I succeeded. I even did my best to fight that woman's influence with your father at Gibraltar. There I failed. I was foredoomed to failure! She had the trick of playing what tune she cared to on a man's heartstrings. After it was all over, and your father and she had left the place, I spent years trying to persuade your mother to get a divorce and marry me. But she was the daughter of a Bishop, ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and importance: all its houses were shut up; but the natives were in the streets, or at the upper windows, looking in a scowling and bewildered manner at the Confederate troops, who were marching gaily past to the tune of Dixie's Land. The women (many of whom were pretty and well dressed) were particularly sour and disagreeable in their remarks. I heard one of them say, "Look at Pharaoh's army going to the Red Sea." Others were pointing ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... round; Let it scramble by hook or by crook For wealth or a name with a sound. You are welcome to amble your ways, Aspirers to place or to glory; May big bells jangle your praise, And golden pens blazon your story; For me, let me dwell in my nook, Here by the curve of this brook, That croons to the tune of my book: Whose melody wafts me forever On the waves of an unseen river. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... players struck up a merry tune, but Rohan, with a wild face and stern eyes, pushed his way through the throng into his cottage. On a seat by the fire his mother sat weeping, her face covered with her apron; round her was a band of sympathising ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... on a turned-down bucket, and listened to a not unfamiliar tune. Private Conklin was a convalescent and should have ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... In a short tune the three chums, followed by George Abbot, were hurrying out of the school dormitory. Some of the monitors began a remonstrance, but when a Senior or two pointed out to Doctor Meredith, who had been hastily aroused, that it was the duty of the students to help prevent the spread ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... to sing with distinction. Moreover, the singer must have definite musical ability, natural and developed by study. He must thoroughly comprehend rhythm, melody, and harmony in order that his attention may not be distracted from interpretative values to ignoble necessities of time and tune. It is not possible to sing Mozart, not to say Beethoven and Wagner, without acquaintance with the vocabulary and grammar of the wonderful language in which they wrote. Familiarity with the traditions of different schools of composition and performance ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... and I found my years dropping away like the leaves of the maple after its first mad dance to the tune of the autumn's wind. I felt fully as young as when I saw her in Williamsburg. And time had placed a distance other than that of years between us: it had destroyed the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... those few women in the world that marriage had not improved. Her eyes were colder, more secret; her jaw crueller, her lips wider and harder at the edges. She welcomed me with distinguished loftiness, and I soon felt the unpleasant key in which the household tune was being played. It was amiable enough, this flat near Mount Morris Park in Harlem. The Viberts had taste, and their music-room was charming in its reticent scheme of decoration—a Steinway grand piano, a low crowded book-case with a Rodin cast, a superb mezzotint ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... was one of the most pleasant incidents of my entire tour, to hear a company of sailors chime in one evening and sing "Kiss Me Mother, Kiss Your Darling." I had heard little English speaking for months, and now to hear that old familiar tune, five thousand miles away from home, made me feel as if America could after all not be so very far off! There were no storms, nor was their any cool night air upon that "summer seat." I slept one night on deck, without even an awning of canvass over me,—how ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... me, every place is desert, And I, methinks, am savage and forlorn: Thy presence only 'tis can make me blest, Heal my unquiet mind, and tune my soul. ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... plow, bending sidewise with the force of the wind, not resentfully that it persisted in making it so difficult for him to earn his bread, for resentment was not in his nature, besides which, Seth loved the wind,—but humming a little tune, something soft and reminiscent about his old Kentucky home, with its chorus of "Fare you well, my lady," when a broncho, first a mere speck on the horizon ahead of him, then larger and larger, rushed out of the wind from across the prairie with flashing eyes and distended nostrils, ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... friend, and Charles Clarke's father in law, Vincent Novello, wishes to shake hands with you. Make him play you a tune. He is a damn'd fine musician, and what is better, a good man and true. He will tell you how glad we should be to have Mrs. Dyer and you here for a few days. Our young friend, Miss Isola, has been here holydaymaking, but leaves ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... about him with shining eyes, he again drew his bow across the strings and played a tune so lively and full of sweet happiness the childhood friends caught hands and danced in a circle, and the little sprites, elves, gnomes and fairies caught hands and danced around the children, and as they passed ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... am to leave these pretty Shades, The Gods and Nature have design'd for Love: Oh, my Amintas, wou'd I were what I seem, And thou some humble Villager hard by, That knew no other pleasure than to love, To feed thy little Herd, to tune a Pipe, To which the Nymphs should listen all the Day; We'd taste the Waters of these Crystal Springs, With more delight than all delicious Wines; And being weary, on a Bed of Moss, Having no other Canopy but Trees, We'd lay us down, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... of the lonely seas, Shaking of the guardian trees, Piping of the salted breeze; Day and Night and Day go by To the endless tune of these. ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... the sound of her voice from December to June And from June to December is always a tune; All the elves when they hear it stop short in their play For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... our tune from England," said Karlkammer reprovingly. "England is a polluted country by reason of the Reformers whom we were compelled ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... thinks you must be the most perfect of your sex! Why, his mind was made up about you, Amelie, before he said a word to me. Indeed, he only just wanted to enjoy the supernal pleasure of hearing me sing the praises of Amelie De Repentigny to the tune composed ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... discreetly as possible, frightened by the very words he spoke, the horrors he had to relate in that sphere of superlative luxury and enjoyment, before those happy ones who possessed all the gifts of this world; for—to use a slang expression—he fully realised that he sang out of tune, and in most uncourteous fashion. What a strange idea of his to have called at the hour when one has just finished dejeuner, when the aroma of hot coffee flatters happy digestion. Nevertheless he went on, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sole occupation in life up to that time had been to put screws on nuts; this must have been "nuts" to him, as the Yankees have it, because, being a diligent little fellow, he managed to screw himself through life at the Clatterby Works to the tune of twelve shillings a week. Joseph Tipps, having got leave of absence for an evening, was also there,—modest amiable, active and self-abnegating. So was Mrs Natly, who, in consideration of her delicate health, was taken great care ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... ken it?" cried the Cornal. "Oh! I kent it fine. 'The Rover' was her mother's trump card. I never gave a curse for a tune, but she had a way of lilting that one that ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... flower-pots beneath the window, which once bloomed beneath the hand of Mary Chaworth, were overrun with weeds; and the piano, which had once vibrated to her touch, and thrilled the heart of her stripling lover, was now unstrung and out of tune. ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... 'turn of the tune' which gives point to the far-famed legend of 'The Arkansaw Traveler,'—which legend, in brief, is to the effect that a certain fiddling 'Rackensackian,' who could never learn more than the first half of a certain tune, once bluntly refused all manner of hospitality ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... desired the women, who were supplying the canes, to sing, and they began at first with some of their own wild African airs, with words adopted at the moment to suit the occasion. She then told them to sing their hymns to the Virgin; when, regularly in tune and time, and with some sweet voices, the evening and other hymns were sung; and we accompanied Dona Mariana into the house, where we found that while we had been occupied in looking at the machinery, the boilers, and the distillery, dinner had been prepared for us, though it was long after ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion (cloth-of-gold of tissue) O'er-picturing that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... pile of books was quite gone, and the blackboard erasers, the bits of crayon, and the pointer had been thrown after them, the Prince put his hands in his pockets and lounged to the window, whistling a tune he had caught from a hand-organ. His twelve younger sisters were just coming into the courtyard, two by two, returning from taking their morning airing with their governesses. The Princesses were quite as good as the Prince was bad, and there could certainly have been no prettier sight than ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... laughable. The grand old hymn refused its cadences to this instrument of a tune-loving bourgeoise. It seemed to stand aloof and unconquered. This is a hymn for the swelling notes of an organ or for the great harmonies of a choir. It was not made to be debased by association with this caterwauling wood and wire, this sounding board for barbershop chords, this accomplice ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... happen to slip down, 'tis in great danger to break at the next winding up, especially in wet moist weather, and that It have been long slack. The 4th. is, that when a String hath been slipt back, it will not stand in Tune, under many Amendments; for it is continually in stretching itself, till it come to Its highest stretch. A 5th. is, that in the midst of a Consort, All the Company must leave off, because of some Eminent String slipping. A 6th. is, that sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... you in the hope that you may perhaps feel inclined to have a little work of mine listed on a convenient occasion at a theatre. The Opus would take at most 15-20 minutes in performance. Tune and scores are throughout clearly ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... I've roamed through many places, None there is that my heart troweth Fair as that wherein fair groweth One whose laud here interlaces Tuneful words, that I've essayed. Let this tune be gently played Which ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... not a romance—I have too often faced the music of life to the tune of hardship to waste time in snivelling and gushing over fancies and dreams; neither is it a novel, but simply a yarn—a real yarn. Oh! as real, as really real—provided life itself is anything beyond a heartless little chimera—it is as real in its weariness and ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin |
