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More "Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... country such storms soon passed. It wetted them to the bone, no doubt, but within three-quarters of an hour it had blown over and become calm. Immediately the rain had ceased, the air began to hum with many wings, and forth came "a kind of flies of that country, called mosquitoes, like our gnats," which bit them spitefully as they lay in the bottoms of the boats. It was much too hot to lie beneath a blanket, and the men did not know how to kindle a "smudge" of smouldering ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... that of the prying stars overhead. In the distant vista, might be seen a part of the crowded promenade, where music held its court; whilst at intervals, a voice's swell or guitar's tinkle would be borne on the ear. There was the hum of men, too—the laugh of the idlers without the sanctum, as they indulged in the delights of the mischievous fire-ball—and the sudden whizz, followed by an upward glare of light, as a rocket shot into the air. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was rocked and sung to sleep with it by mother, by father, and by servants, and it was one of the first things she herself learned. There was music in the race, and this bright little one had her full share of it, and soon could hum her parent's triumphal march, the talisman of her family, ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... lord, am fancy's slave. Like the low murmurs of the Indian shell Ta'en from its coral bed beneath the wave, Which, unforgetful of the ocean's swell, Retains within its mystic urn the hum Heard in the sea-grots where the Nereids dwell— Old thoughts still haunt me—unawares they come Between me and my rest, nor can I make Those aged visitors of sorrow dumb. Oh, yet awhile, my feeble soul, awake! ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... subject, for a moment I lost sight of untidy Gothic facades and gaunt unfinished church walls; and as I walked, I was in the Close of Salisbury on a perfumed summer afternoon. The drowsy scent of lime-flowers and mignonette, the cawing of elm-cradled rooks, the hum of bees above, the velvet touch of smooth-shorn grass, and the breathless shadow of motionless green boughs made up one potent and absorbing mood of the charmed senses. Far overhead soared the calm grey spire into the infinite air, and the perfection of accomplished beauty slept beneath in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... man named Hum, of the race of Feridun, dwelt hard by. He was remarkable for his strength and bravery, but had peacefully taken up his abode upon the neighboring mountain, and was passing a religious life without any communication with the busy world. His dwelling was a little way above the cave of Afrasiyab. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... environs. Ignorant of this, and not apprehensive of any danger, I had strayed to a considerable distance among the trees, against one of which I stood leaning, and contemplating the banks of the Seine, the Palais Bourbon, and other surrounding objects. All was silent, except the distant hum of the city, and the rattling of carriages, which ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Japanese wax-tree. Still further up, the hills are covered with dark, moss-grown gravestones, bearing curious characters engraven upon them, and marking the sleeping-places of bygone generations. The unbroken quiet of this city of the dead contrasts vividly with the hum of busy life which comes up to us from the town with its population of a hundred thousand souls. As to the products of this locality, they are mostly figured porcelain, embroidered silks, japanned goods, ebony and tortoise-shell finely carved and manufactured into toy ornaments. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... spring opened, all remained quiet. Then began the busy hum of preparation, and great things for our town foreshadowed themselves. A hundred men went to work on the site chosen for a new mill, digging, blasting, and hauling; while carpenters and masons were busy in and around the old mansion, with a view to its thorough ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... in, and still the silken ball pursued its course. So long as lights were burning in the towns and villages which it passed in rapid succession, the solitary voyagers looked down on the scene with delight; sometimes they could even catch the hum of the yet busy multitude, or the bark of a watch-dog; but midnight came, and the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... dodge quickly about with cheerful hum. Where they go, these busy buzzy flies, when the cold calls them away for their winter vac. is a mystery. Can they hibernate? for they show themselves again at the first ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... talents, and their tastes the same; Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, And smit with love of poesy and prate. The pond'rous books two gentle readers bring; The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring. The clam'rous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum, Till all, tun'd equal, send a gen'ral hum. Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on; Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose, At ev'ry line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow; Thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... with satchel on back, and "shining morning face." What a sudden burst of sound was emitted—what harmonious discord—what a commixture of all the tones in the vocal gamut, from the shrill treble to the deep under-hum! A chord was touched which vibrated in unison; boyish days and school recollections crowded upon me; pleasures long vanished; feelings long stifled; and friendships—aye, everlasting friendships—cut asunder by the sharp ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... beetles so abundant as they were on this spot. Some dozen species of good-sized golden Buprestidae, green rose-chafers (Lomaptera), and long-horned weevils (Anthribidae), were so abundant that they rose up in swarms as I walked along, filling the air with a loud buzzing hum. Along with these, several fine Longicorns were almost equally common, forming such au assemblage as for once to realize that idea of tropical luxuriance which one obtains by looking over the drawers ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Sound.—The beat of rain against the window panes, the crack of a whip, a church bell, the hum of bees, the whistle of a railway, the clinking of tea-spoons and saucers, ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... Hall, presumably. It will be quite dark in Neville's Court long before midnight, only the pillars opposite will always be white, and the fountains. A curious effect the gate has, like lace upon pale green. Even in the window you hear the plates; a hum of talk, too, from the diners; the Hall lit up, and the swing-doors opening and shutting with a soft thud. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... propose fresh arrangements for the morrow. Sunday was not a day of rest to them; from early morning they were all engaged in different directions in prosecuting their search, and not until the curtain of night was spread over the town, and the hum of traffic and din of bustle had ceased, did they return to ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... low voice, and as it were, mumbled through the different documents concerning the new peer, and the Lord Chancellor had proclaimed his admission in the midst of what is called, in the reports, "general inattention." Every one was talking. There buzzed through the House that cheerful hum of voices during which assemblies pass things which will not bear the light, and at which they wonder when they find out what they have done, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Hallowe'en. But it must be remembered that the Bon dance during the first nights is in the nature of a lament for the dead. There is something haunting in the strange little refrain, though it is difficult to hum or whistle it. Perhaps the whole festival is too intimately racial to be fully understood by a stranger. By the end of the festival, on the night of merrymaking in honour of the village guardian spirit, things were livelier. Some of the lads had evidently had sake ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... generally to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have derived ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... of the cicada, the grasshopper, and tree frog make an incessant hum, and produce by their monotony a pleasing melancholy.... Every half-hour different balsamic odours fill the air, and other flowers alternately unfold their leaves to the night.... While the silent vegetable world, illuminated by scores of fireflies as by a thousand moving stars, charms the ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... and falling, on the short waves by the San Dominick's side; and then, glancing about the decks where he stood, saw the oakum-pickers still gravely plying their fingers; and heard the low, buzzing whistle and industrious hum of the hatchet-polishers, still bestirring themselves over their endless occupation; and more than all, as he saw the benign aspect of nature, taking her innocent repose in the evening; the screened sun in the quiet camp of the west shining out like ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... glad to hear one," said Charlotte: "at least, I think very much depends upon ourselves; I know it is so with me. When anything annoys me, and disturbs my temper, I hasten into the garden, hum a couple of country dances, and it is all right with me directly." "That is what I meant," I replied; "ill-humour resembles indolence: it is natural to us; but if once we have courage to exert ourselves, we find our work run fresh from our hands, and we experience ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... The boy "Betty" was already asleep, while the Lady Sarah and "the Panorama" divided a fourpenny pie most faithfully between them. A reeking atmosphere of spirit (but not of water) testified to the general conviviality. A hum of conversation was borne in upon them from the greater cellar—at odd times a rough oath of protest or the mad complainings of a drunkard. For the most part, however, the night promised to be uneventful. Alban had never seen the Lady Sarah more gracious, and as for "the Panorama" he had no doubt ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... whose eyes were swelled up with sleepiness. "It's all misty and thick, and the window-sill's wet, and the roses outside look drenched. Heigh, ho, ha, hum!" he yawned. "I shall go to bed for half an hour ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... "These hum-drum teachings tire me, I'm disgusted with reciting And repeating, day by day, what I knew well enough before." Then quickening briskly her startled steed with the riding-whip, She darted onward through the forest, reaching first ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... three men were sitting clothed in white, just as if it was summer, and for about thirty feet all round winter had been banished. The moss was dry and the plants green, while the grass seemed all alive with the hum of bees and cockchafers. But above the noise the son of Long Hans could hear the whistling of the wind and the crackling of the branches as they fell beneath the weight ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... rack Had forced the moon upon her back; The wind piped up a naval ditty; And the lamps winked through all the city. Before that house, where lights were shining, Corpulent feeders, grossly dining, And jolly clamour, hum and rattle, Fairly outvoiced the tempest's battle. As still his moistened lip he fingered, The envious policeman lingered; While far the infernal tempest sped, And shook the country folks in bed, And tore the trees and tossed the ships, ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with egotistic woes, far too many for the brief moment in which he would be closeted with the great one, who held the invisible keys of relief, who penetrated this mystery of human maladjustment. It was a busy, toiling, active, subdued place, where the tinkle of the telephone bell, the hum of electric annunciators, as one member of the staff signalled to another, vibrated in the tense atmosphere. Into this hive poured the suffering, mounting from the street, load after load, in the swiftly ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... I hope that in five years' time you will be supporting me and my family. Your sister-in-law will be speechless with jealousy. I congratulate you. Hum—The Blank and Dash Avenues Company? Well, you won't have to send John very far with your copies of the pleadings. Pope was appointed attorney for the company last week, in place of old Slyther, who resigned, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... plainly heard, came the sound of Mary's voice singing the old English song, "Robin Adair"; and as the notes reached his ear, James Ellis smiled, held his head on one side, swayed it to the melody, and began softly to hum over the ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... little, brought Philip Curtis to tell so much as he knew of the story of Peter God. Philip's voice was tuned with the winds and the forests. It rose above the low and monotonous hum about them. People at the two or three adjoining tables might have heard his story, if they had listened. Within the immaculateness of his evening dress, Barrows shivered, fearing that Curtis' voice might attract undue attention to them. But other people ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... women, when Lorimer put in a tardy appearance, the day after the Fresh Air Fund concert. A dozen little tables littered with cards were pushed together in one corner, and the tinkling of china and the hum of conversation betrayed the fact that whist had given place to a more congenial method of passing the time. Modern womanhood plays whist almost without ceasing; but it should be noted that she frowns ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... afternoon's lessons were got over in Eden Valley Academy. The hum of disturbance reached even the juniors, skulking peacefully under little Mr. Stephen, the assistant. Only Miss Huntingdon, in the Infant Department, remained quiet and neat as a dove new-preened among her murmuring throng of ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... There was a hum of amazement and horror from the spectators, but the senator appeared not to notice it. He whirled around upon the tips of his toes, kicked right and left in a graceful manner, and startled a bald-headed man in the front row by casting a languishing ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... windows, two doors opposite each other, one door always kept open winter and summer. A huge fire-place is in one end of the room. If you would have a view of humanity in its simplicity, visit one of these mountain homes. You will find everything of the most primitive kind. The hum of the spinning-wheel and the heavy thud of the loom will greet your ears. In one room you will very often see several beds, while the rest of the furniture will consist of a few wooden chairs, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... up the circular incline in the peak of the tower! We heard the hum of it; and when we went up there, the first thing we saw was a mirror tuned in readiness for us to view the garden we had just left. This strange Tarrano, giving Georg the visible proof that he would keep his word and not harm Elza. We could ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... before you tonight to report that the state of our union is strong. Now, America is working again. The promise of our future is limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the hum of our prosperity to lull us into complacency. How we fare as a nation far into the 21st century depends upon what we do as ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant as it ascended ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... day. He lighted his pipe and composed himself beside the camp-fire to smoke and rest awhile before going to bed. The silence of the wilderness enfolded lake and shore; yet presently it came to be a silence accentuated by near and distant sounds, faint, wild, lonely—the low hum of falling water, the splash of tiny waves on the shore, the song of insects, and the dismal hoot ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... your honest face. I was whiles thinking you must have given us the go-by. Fegs, but it's a braw day and a sight guid for sair een to see you, lad. You will have heard how we gave Johnnie Cope his kail through his reek." He broke off to hum:— ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... out of his difficulties: he could ask advice. He could lay the whole matter frankly before some dispassionate person, whose judgment should determine his course. Why had he not thought of it before! Mr. Denner's face brightened; he walked gayly along, and began to hum ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... flew down the stairs, and passed like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky figures. How she did it I could never understand, for the two heavy bolts had both been drawn, but the next moment the door stood wide open; and a hum of voices, cheery with the anticipation of a period of perfect bliss, was borne in upon the cool ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... box, with benches and a stove in it. Never-the-less, it is the thing signified more than its outward seeming that catches and holds the eye upon the country school-house as you drive past it. You count yourself fortunate if, mingled with the creaking of the buggy-springs, you hear the hum of recitation; yet more fortunate if it is recess time, and you can see the children out at play, the little girls holding to one another's dress-tails as they ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... rugged cliffs and hollow glens; The wild beasts slumber in their dens, The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade and hang their ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... me far afield, away from men and things. So, for a moment, I have stopped to listen to the hum of this chaotic city as it rises from Dearborn and State in the full blast of a commercial noon. You wonder why an unprofitable person like myself lives here, and not in an up-town club with my fellows. Ah, my dear lady, I wish to see the game always going on in its liveliest fashion. So I have ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the greens of the grasses and leaves and the yellows and blues of the field flowers. It was warm, a spring day, with none of the discomfort of summer heat. Jubilant, Roger spun around in circles, inhaling the fragrance of the field, listening to the hum of insect life stirring back to awareness after a season of inactivity. Then he was running and tumbling, barefoot, his shirt open, feeling the soft grass give way underfoot and the soil was good and rich ...
— Pleasant Journey • Richard F. Thieme
... the former had more intelligence—at least, I am sure they had more vivacity in their countenances than I had seen during my northern tour: their senses seemed awake to business and pleasure. I was therefore gratified by hearing once more the busy hum of industrious men in the day, and the exhilarating sounds of joy in the evening; for, as the weather was still fine, the women and children were amusing themselves at their doors, or walking under the trees, which in many places were planted ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... clouds. The night was like the ocean, its extent seemingly increased by the gloom, a dark abyss wherein you divined that a world lay hid. From the unseen city blew a mighty yet gentle wind. There was still a hum; sounds ascended faint yet clear to Helene's ears—the sharp rattle of an omnibus rolling along the quay, the whistle of a train crossing the bridge of the Point-du-Jour; and the Seine, swollen by the recent storms, and pulsing with the life of a breathing ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... Nor would a man, although very discerning, have recognized noble Sarpedon, since he was totally involved, from his head to the soles of his feet, with weapons, and blood, and dust. But they still crowded round the corse, as when flies in the stall hum around the pails full of milk, during the spring season, when the milk makes moist the vessel. So they still crowded round the body: nor did Jove ever turn his bright eyes from the violent conflict; but he ever beheld them, and meditated many evil things ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... exhausting the universality of things. Much less had he seen the whole apparatus of human intelligence so constructed from its own certain and eternal principles that all things should appear mutually concatenated among themselves from first to last without any hiatus! "Metaphysicians hum to themselves only, Natural Philosophers chaunt their own praises, Astronomers lead on their dances for themselves, Ethical Thinkers set up laws for themselves, Politicians lay foundations for themselves, Mathematicians triumph for themselves, and for themselves Theologians reign." What ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... right arms to us shall bring The victory and the spoils; And Montezuma's halls shall ring, When there we end our toils.' ON, then, ye brave' like tigers rage, That you may win your crown, Mowing both infancy and age In ruthless carnage down. Where flows the tide of life and light, Amid the city's hum, There let the cry, at dead of night, Be heard, 'They come, they come!' Mid scenes of sweet domestic bliss, Pour shells of livid fire, While red-hot balls among them hiss, To make the work entire And when the scream ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... could have brought more of them," Ken said. "We'll have to rout around to-morrow and buy an oil-stove or something and a couple of chairs to sit on. Ah hum! Let's turn in, Phil. We've a tight room and a fire, anyhow. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... must of necessity be the lady who is in love with me. See, how she surveys my person! certainly one wit knows another by instinct. By that old gentleman, it should be the lady Laura too. Hum! Benito, thou art ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... foliage of the trees that encircled the Fairy Ring, where, but an hour before, her footsteps had lingered with her friend. All around seemed buried in the most profound stillness; not the bay of a dog, nor the hum of an insect, disturbed the repose that slept on every plant and flower, and covered the earth as with a garment. Suddenly a nightingale flew past the window, and resting its breast on the bough of an old thorn, poured forth a delicious strain of melody. Constance leaned her throbbing ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... morning in Sydney harbor. The wharves were crowded with shipping from all parts of the world which were already filled with workmen busily engaged in unloading the cargoes. The hum of the thousands in the city beginning their daily work, rose into the air and spread far over ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... and ugliness at the same time—when some good fairy always came along, who, by a magic touch of her wand, made both the sisters far more lovely than the elder had been. Beauty was always the burden of the tale; people who were not beautiful met with no adventures, and seemed to lead a hum-drum sort of life; therefore, I insensibly learned to regard this wonderful possession as something very much to be desired. I believe I was quite a pretty child, with dark bright eyes, red lips, and a pair of very rosy cheeks. ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the hydrophones. Sure enough, his ears could make out the faint hum of the jetmarine's atomic turbines. Tom directed Hank toward the sound, then ordered him to switch on the Sea ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... heads of more people. People were entering all the time and leaving all the time. Scores of waitresses, in pale green and white, moved to and fro like an alien and mercenary population. The heat, the stir, the hum, and the clatter were terrific. And from on high descended thin, strident music in a ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... heavily. The Siegesthor loomed blackly great against the lights of the city beyond. It was no longer quiet about them, but the hum and buzz of all the bees swarming home was in the air, on the pavement, ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... women—at six o'clock in the morning and worked until six at night. I never worked so hard, nor did so much. All day long there was a fire of jokes and jolly gibes, interspersed with song, while beneath all ran a gentle hum of confidential interchange of thought. The man who owned the field was there to direct our efforts and urge us on in well-doing by merry raillery, threat, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Wilkins conducted us for some distance along the river bank; we jumped into a boat and rowed perhaps half a mile, landing by the side of a little shop-like building, where we heard the hum of voices and the commotion of many busy persons. We entered and found ourselves in a long, low room, having wide tables ranged along the walls; here, working rapidly, were rows of chatty country girls, who, as they worked, laughed and talked, and now and then ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... shut out troubled thoughts, he stooped and, throwing his big, long arms about the hemp, lifted it to his shoulder. "Come, Captain," he called to his companion, and stalked heavily away. As he went, he began to hum ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... took them up without deigning to look at the person who had accosted him, and turning them over in his hand, "One, two, three, hum; there is half-a-dozen. What do ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... things here yet," reported Mrs. Jenkins. "Gus come hum too late last night to take the preacher's surplus and Miss King's lace waist. You was so tired I didn't tell you, 'cause I know'd you'd be sot on goin' with them ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... being the best-dressed man in town. Suddenly Sir Charles paused, his coup d'archet half-executed, the final beauty of his neck-cloth half-achieved, while he listened with surprise and indignation upon his large, comely, fresh-complexioned face. Below, the decorous hum of Jermyn Street had been broken by the sharp, staccato, metallic ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Standing at the door she heard the hum of a sewing-machine. It made her heart sink, so clearly did it ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... a soft cork and hum it thoroughly; when it ceases to blaze, powder the coal very fine on a plate. Mix a table-spoonful of this powder with a little milk or water, or any thing agreeable to the palate; repeat the dose till the disorder ceases, ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... filed out of their apartment, and as they retired to consider their verdict the judge retired to his own room. The prisoner was removed from the dock and taken down the stairs out of sight. There was an immediate hum of voices in the court. Inspector Chippenfield approached the table and whispered to Mr. Walters. The latter nodded affirmatively and left the court room in company with Mr. Holymead. The sibilant sound of whispering voices died down after a few minutes and then began the long tedious ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... bustling about the royal palace or in the palaces of the nobles of Lutha. The buzz and hum of excited conversation filled the whole town. That the choice of the king met the approval of his subjects was more than evident. Upon every lip was praise and love of the Princess Emma von der Tann. The future of Lutha seemed assured with a king who could fight joined in ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... read the dial for her (there were some miles which stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changed its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of a giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands would not move, and when, oh, when would they ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... receipt for gas bills and water rates or fit out a general store. Under one roof it held the resources of a city. Henry was startled by its immensity, and as he followed Witherspoon through labyrinths of bright gauzes and avenues of somber goods, he perceived that a change in the tone of the hum announced the approach of the master. And it appeared that, no matter what a girl might be doing, she began hurriedly to do something else the moment she spied Witherspoon coming toward her. The quick signs of ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... ecstatic life, the river had paused in the valley to rest, dreaming, perchance, of the long cool shadows in the uplands, the far altar-fires of daybreak. There were pleasant things to do in the valley, to lie at full length, basking in the sun, to hum a bit of the old music, to touch gently the harp-strings of the marsh grass and rushes, dimpling with pleasure at the faint answer, to reflect every passing mood of cloud and sky, even to hold the little clouds as a mother ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Johnson, and the fastidiousness of Gray, the critic who passed his days amidst "the busy hum of men," and the poet who mused in cloistered solitude, have fatally injured a fine natural genius in Shenstone. Mr. Campbell, with a brother's feeling, has (since the present article was composed) sympathised with the endowments and the pursuits of this poet; but ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... said, "it was simply a chaos of noise and confusion. Of what was going on I knew nothing. The din was appalling. The roar of the shells, the hum of grape and canister, the whistle of bullets, the shouts of men, formed a mighty roar that seemed to render thinking impossible. Showers of leaves fell incessantly, great boughs of trees were shorn away, and trees themselves ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... that this had been the principal business of the two since leaving the States, though the statement is not strictly correct. The hum of conversation went on for hours; the night gradually wore away, but still the two men sat talking in low tones, and looking at the roll of paper spread out between them, and which was covered with numerous curious drawings. The theme must have been an absorbing one, ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... moment they heard the hum of voices, and in a moment more came upon the pickers. They were all hard at work, talking and laughing as they picked. They sat on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their sides, and some stood by the bin throwing the hops they picked straight ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... rate, it was clear that she was going to make a struggle for her life, and to do vicious damage, it might be, before she yielded it up. The watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this. Their wagers, and the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round the ring of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... low hum of comment. Then he turned on the man who had told him of the priest and his novice. "Thou sayest the king hath a reward for this priest ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... if he were being prepared for some inhuman biological experiment. A cage of terminals was fitted to his head and a thousand small electrodes adjusted to contact with his skull. The faint hum of equipment supported the small surge of apprehension ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... was so false and severe as to be very depressing to her spirits. And, never having been inured to hard labor or parental censure, these double tribulations were almost crushing; and to help her courage she kept up the low, almost inaudible hum of the sweet tunes she had so loved to sing among her chosen people, and, thus abstracted, toiled ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... brought the sun, with the activity and hum of the morning, had made no great change in the relative positions of things within and without the bay. The people of le Feu-Follet had breakfasted, had got everything on board their little craft in its proper place, and were moody, observant, and silent. One of the lessons that Ithuel had succeeded ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... had mastered the situation. He wrote home a detailed account of his doings, and complicated matters by using phrases that were not commonly heard or understood in quiet villages far away from the hum of seaports. The family were sent into consternation by the description of his climbing experiences, and an extra petition for his safe-keeping was offered up when the time for family devotions came. No more was heard of him for many months. His experiences had become more real and fuller ere the ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... inhospitable host standing in the opening of the second-story window, a quaint figure framed in green branches, the ladder behind him, and on his face a kind of impenetrable dignity, as he shook his head and said, "Tom ain't ter hum; ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... hitherto prevailed ashore was pierced by a shrill whistle, in response to which the whole face of the bush bordering the open space at once began to spit flame, while the air around us hummed and whined to the passage of a perfect storm of bullets and slugs, among which could be detected the hum of round shot, apparently nine-pounders, the gig weathered the storm unscathed; but upon glancing back I saw that the other boats had been less fortunate, there being a gap or two here and there where ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... he did but hum a burly bass to the tune of the "Little wee wife." But, being called away, he turned to me before closing the door behind him, and asked me very keenly, as though he had been restraining his impatience for some space: "And how about ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... there were comings and goings, and junketings, all perfectly proper, by the way, which caused the men to say sharp things and the women to be spiteful. Only Mrs. Eppingwell did not hear. The distant hum of wagging tongues rose faintly, but she was prone to believe good of people and to close her ears to evil; so she ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... cried, "I have been longing mightily for you. You have come to take me on a canoe trip to the countries beyond—to Lituya and Yakutat bays and Prince William Sound; have you not? My weariness of this hum-drum, work-a-day life has grown so heavy it is like to crush me. I'm ready to break away and go with ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... appears,[236] And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, 20 With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas[237]—and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood 30 Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... expanded, her whole person quivered with pleasure. The Abbe Troubert opened a window to get a better light on the folio volume he was reading. Birotteau stood as if a thunderbolt had stricken him. Mademoiselle Gamard made his ears hum when she enunciated in a voice as clear as a cornet ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of the forest. Over all the fair scene, the flashing water, the velvet marshes, the smiling fields, the fringe of dark and mysterious woodland, hung a Virginia heaven, a cloudless blue, soft, pure, intense. The air was full of subdued sound—the distant hum of voices from the fields of maize and tobacco, the faint clink of iron from the smithy, the wash and lap of the water, the drone of bees from the hives beneath the eaves of the house. Great bronze butterflies fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... mi wi mi 2 bar ar e(a) ra(a) ar a o ar ir 3 pe lohe oe lai lai loi la la lei 4 puon pun(pon) phun pon saw thaw sia so so 5 pfuong pan phan hpawn(fan) san than san san san 6 tol tal to laiya(lia) (hin)riw thro thrau ynro threi 7 kul pul phu a-laiya (hin)iew (hum)thloi ynthla ynniaw ynthlei (alia) 8 ti ta ta s'te(su'te) phra humpya humphyo phra humpyir 9 kash tim tim s'ti(su'ti) (khyn)dai hunsulai hunshia khyndo khyndai 10 kan kel ken(ko) kao (shi)phew ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... perpetually throwing over the cargo to save the ship, but what a motion you gave her when you made her ride the waves—a motion as rhythmic as the dance of a goddess! Wayworth took long London walks and thought of these things—London poured into his ears the mighty hum of its suggestion. His imagination glowed and melted down material, his intentions multiplied and made the air a golden haze. He saw not only the thing he should do, but the next and the next and the next; the future opened before ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... hum now, I s'pose, ain't ye?" he asked with a note in his voice of cheery assurance that perhaps he did not feel, tilting back and forth in his old-fashioned rocking chair, as I had so often seen him do, with closed eyes and open mouth, his face steeled against expression. And the slow jog, ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... was hit. In the darkness the Germans were unable to aim carefully. The boys heard the hum of bullets around them, but they did not falter. There was no second volley, for the lads had disappeared in the darkness, and the Germans were not minded to spend ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... terrific pleasure began to hum in my head, my knees gradually gave way beneath me, until I was on my knees before the two women. My hands were unconsciously extended as if to fend them off, and each of them seized a hand, pulled me to the round bench at the back of the control cabin. They stroked ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... at intervals formed a girdle of flame round the base of the mountain, so that when darkness fell, Maunganamu appeared to rise out of a great brasier, and to hide its head in the thick darkness. Five hundred feet below they could hear the hum and the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... up in thousands, to their everlasting honor. By their response they showed the spirit of the nation, roused at last to a sense of horrible danger. Throughout the land there were martial sounds—the hum of camps, the tramp of men, the clang of horses' hoofs, the rattle of war department wagons. Before people had time to rub their eyes and become wide awake, an army had landed in France, eager to help gallant little Belgium, and stop the rush ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... hear their brutal jests, directed not only against himself, but against those dear to him—his mother and sister. While this pained him, he began to wonder that they should be so much the subject of the conversation. He could not tell what was said of them, but in the hum of voices their names repeatedly reached his ear. He had lain about an hour on the banqueta, when the door opened, and the two officers, Vizcarra and Roblado, stepped within the cell. They were accompanied ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... a low moaning sound, like the hum of a wild bee; it seemed to come out of the earth. After a little it grew louder and sharper; then it ended in a yelp and ceased altogether. After a short interval it began afresh, this time still clearer; then came the yelp, loud, sharp, and ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... "Ah, Glyndon!—hum!—welcome! What! thou art twice my rival! But Jean Nicot bears no malice. Virtue is my dream,—my country, my mistress. Serve my country, citizen; and I forgive thee the preference of beauty. Ca ira! ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "Hum! The investigation really was a very simple one," remarked Holmes; "but I don't think it struck him in that light when he first called us in. However, let us see what Jim Browner has to say for himself. This is his statement, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... owes its secret to the Bessemer steel rail. The fishplate instead of the frog, and the steel rail in place of the good old snakehead! "The song of the rail" died out to a low continuous hum when Carnegie began making steel rails and showed the section-hands how to bolt them ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... quiet, peaceful, comfortable feeling in my heart. I was returning from a tryst, I had no need to hurry; I was not sleepy, and I was conscious of youth and health in every sigh, every step I took, rousing a dull echo in the monotonous hum of the night. I don't know what I was feeling then, but I remember I was happy, ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... She fancied that she could almost hear the blossoms dropping on the grass; there was a faint stir of leaves as a stray breeze came wandering by, and another sound mingled with that stir—a far-away hum—hum—growing louder every moment! ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... to feed with and to be fed; the dangerous dowagers and the desperate mothers; the widows, wild as early partridges; the budding virgins, mild as a summer cloud and soft as an opera hat! Think of the drony bores, with their dull hum; think of the chivalric guardsmen, with their horses to sell and their bills to discount; think of Willis, think of Crockford, think of White's, think of Brooks', and you may form a faint idea how the young Duke had to ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... a moment and from the roof-top spoke a few words to the people in the street below. They answered him with shouts of applause mingled with a hum of murmured anger underneath. The Chemist went back to his friends, his face set ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees expanded their buds, when, in the still April mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings. He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his taste ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... tops are formed of short pieces of bamboo with a wooden peg put through them, and the hole cut in the side makes them have a fine hum as the air rushes ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... sound was the barely audible hum of his wrist watch and the dismal splatter of raindrops on the cobbled street outside. There was no sound to feed his fear, yet he knew then, without a flicker of doubt, that they were going to ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... more remembers his Mother now, then an eight yeare old horse. The tartnesse of his face, sowres ripe Grapes. When he walks, he moues like an Engine, and the ground shrinkes before his Treading. He is able to pierce a Corslet with his eye: Talkes like a knell, and his hum is a Battery. He sits in his State, as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids bee done, is finisht with his bidding. He wants nothing of a God but Eternity, and a Heauen ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... heart with half so sweet a voice As the bowering arms of the wild-wood larch, Where the clematis and wild woodbine Festoon the flowering eglantine; Where in every flower, shrub, and tree Is heard the hum of the honey-bee, And the linden blossoms are softly stirred, As the fanning wings of the humming-bird Scatter a perfume of pollen dust, That mounts to the kindling soul like must; Where the turtles ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... the weather side, watching the gradual breaking of the day, and the first streaks of the early light. Much has been said of the sunrise at sea; but it will not compare with the sunrise on shore. It lacks the accompaniments of the songs of birds, the awakening hum of humanity, and the glancing of the first beams upon trees, hills, spires, and house-tops, to give it life and spirit. There is no scenery. But, although the actual rise of the sun at sea is not so beautiful, yet nothing will compare for melancholy ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... feel more at home when we meet." There was a pause of a moment, and then Guy, as he appropriated a cigar from a china stand that tempted him close by, resumed, "this certainly is a strange, unlooked- for incident in your hum-drum life, but it is also a very fortunate one, since she is such a comfort to you and such an acquisition to your home—I fancy, from your description she could scarcely be otherwise. I hope we will all be an agreeable and sociable family ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... soldier-workman, physically unchanged, mentally a little weakened, but more "characterful" and restive, will step out through a demobilisation—heaven send it be swift, even at some risk!—into an industrial world, confused and busy as a beehive, which will hum and throb and flourish for two or three years, and then slowly chill and thin away into, may be, the winter ghost of itself, or at best an autumn hive. There, unless he be convinced, not by words but facts, ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... evening, cool for July; no sound was heard save the hum of the summer insects, and Lady Isabel sat in silence with her companion, her rebellious heart beating with a sense of its own happiness. But for the voice of conscience, strong within her; but for the sense of right and wrong; but for the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the Goblin, calmly. "When a cab-horse on a vacation talks about eating you, a Hum Bug is a pretty good thing to take the conceit out of him. They're loaded, you see, and they go booming along as innocently as you please; but if you touch 'em—why, 'There you aren't!' ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... should think it would succeed. He, it should seem, thinks otherwise."—W. Allen's Gram., p. 65. "I could wish you to go."—Ib., p. 71. 3. WILL, &c. The following are nearly of the same character, but not exactly: "The isle is full of noises; sometimes a thousand twanging instruments will hum about mine ears."—Shak. "In their evening sports she would steal ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... come sweeping over from the Lolab Valley. The hollow is so small that it barely contains my tiffin basket, rifle, gun, and self—in fact, my grass-shod and puttied extremities dangle over the rim, whence a steep slope shelves down some 200 feet to a brawling burn, the hum of which, mingling with the fitful sighing of the pines as the breeze sweeps through their sounding boughs, is perpetually in my ears. Across the little torrent, and not more than a hundred yards away, rises a slope, covered with rough grass ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... passenger truly, not averse to stiff rowing, after a stiff walk, "jest for pleasure". But the dusky pilot had met these anomalous white beings before—"spo'tsmen", they called themselves. And a certain sense of humor, as Mr. Heatherbloom sat down to the oars, caused the colored man involuntarily to hum: I'se got a white man a-workin' for me. He had only finished a bar or two, however, when the tune abruptly ceased on his lips. "Dat's too bad," he said. "I guess ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... to a room wrapped in a green trembling twilight. She was alone save for the black cat. The fire crackled, the gas was turned low, and the London murmur beyond the window was like the hum of an organ. There was no one in the room; she felt, as she lay there, an increasing irritation at her weakness. She was afraid too for her future. Did she faint like this at the earliest opportunity people would allow ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... Shakespeare makes Falstaff hire red-nosed Bardolph in St. Paul's, and Ben Jonson lays the third act of his Every Man in his Humour in the middle aisle. Bishop Earle, in his "Microcosmography," describes the noise of the crowd of idlers in Paul's "as that of bees, a strange hum mixed of walking tongues and feet, a kind of still roar or loud whisper." He describes the crowd of young curates, copper captains, thieves, and dinnerless adventurers and gossip-mongers. Bishop Corbet, that jolly prelate, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of the bright warm day is purest around the retired path leading to the little dwelling. Here the fragrance of wild flowers rises pleasantly from the waving grass; the lulling, monotonous hum of insect life pervades the light, steady air; the sunbeams, intercepted here and there by the clustering trees, fall in irregular patches of brightness on the shady ground; and, saving the birds which occasionally pass overhead, singing in their flight, no living ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... "Selling a quarter of a million bushels of wheat you do not own and never will! Hum-m-m! Ahem! ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Miss Higham was called frequently to Pall Mall; and, in a brief period, all the outworkers were again busy: Great Titchfield Street found itself so fully occupied that the girls had no time to recall songs learned at the second house of their favourite music hall. Into the hum and activity of this busy hive came, one evening, Madame's husband, making his way to the office where Madame and Miss Higham faced each other at sloping desks. He began to shout; it was clear that on the way from King's Road he had been taking refreshment to encourage determination. When he ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... The hum of the streets was hushed. Few sounds came from without; but the silence that had so long reigned in the mansion, was broken by the gentle tones ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... Quartett began. The daylight had diminished so much that the yellow curtains had to be drawn back. Several other ladies left. A low hum of conversation was audible here and there. The fatigue and inattention which invariably marks the end of a concert began to make itself apparent in the audience. By one of those strange and abrupt manifestations of moral elasticity, Andrea experienced a sudden sense of relief, not to say gaiety. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... seemed to have no windows, and the roar of the New York street outside was gone, or faint as the hum of a hive. The walls were hung with fabrics of wool or silk, in dull greens and reds, and the floor was spread with rugs. With mouth redly ravening at him, and eyes emitting opalescent gleams, lay a great tiger-skin rug, upon which, on ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... came upon an individual of the species they always knew that some white man's dwelling stood nearby. Those who are familiar with the solitudes of our Appalachian forests must often have remarked, in the stillness of a summer day, the hum of a swarm from some forest or domestic hive in its search for a dwelling-place. Those who have followed up the movements of these migrating colonies have had a chance to perceive how long is the search before ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... turned and sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods, with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine. And all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and how conducive to amiable discussion and ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... had left the table, but the rest, lingering over their fresh filled coffee cups, sat around telling tales, and Tex Calder was among them. He was about to push back his chair when the hum of talk ceased as if at a command. The men on the opposite side of the table were staring with fascinated eyes at the door, and then a big voice boomed behind him: "Tex Calder, stan' up. You've come to the end ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... answer the hum and whirr of two high-powered motors chugging in unison stole upon the air and rapidly increased in volume. Ben craned his neck from the ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... unuttered on your lips and hang on my lips and pay respectful attention to whatever I choose to say. I tell you your party is rotten and filled with grafters, and instead of flying into a rage you hum and haw and admit there is a great deal in what I say. And why? Because I'm famous; because I've a lot of money. Not because I'm Martin Eden, a pretty good fellow and not particularly a fool. I could tell you the moon ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... can and can't. I'm willing to attack you personally, but while I live no other shall do so. Wherefore I tell Mr. Brief plainly, and to his face, that if he says you ever sang a comic song he says what is not so. You might hum one, but sing it—never!" ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... beginning of this harangue, saw its tendency, seemed to yield the most serious attention to what he said: breaking in upon it, every now and then, with the interjections, hum! ha! the deuce! and several civil questions, from which the other conceived happy omens of success; till perceiving they had advanced as far as the passage into St. James's, the mischievous youth interrupted him all at once, saying, "I see you are for the end ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Refuses to Start. If there is a humming noise when you try to start the motor, and the outfit does not start, one of the fuses needs replacing. The outfit will hum only on two or three phase current. Never leave the power turned on with any ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... loved Bonaventure, each according to knowledge of him. Nor did their common likings stop with him. The things he had taught Claude to love and seek suddenly became the admiration of Marguerite. Aspirations—aspirations!—began to stir and hum in her young heart, and to pour forth like waking bees in the warm presence of spring. Claude was a new interpretation of life to her; as one caught abed by the first sunrise at sea, her whole spirit leaped, with unmeasured self-reproach, into ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... disturbances of the night the old clergyman had slept little. He now lay down on the couch, and soon sank into a profound slumber. When he awoke he heard the hum of voices. The cave was ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... and I don't know whether I can spare the time to go to Philadelphia or not. I'll have to think it over. An electric airship, eh? He's sort of following along the lines of my inventions. Wants my aid—hum—well, ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... her think of rounders in the hot school garden, singing-classes in the large green room, all the class shouting "Gather roses while ye may," hot afternoons in the shady north room, the sound of turning pages, the hum of the garden beyond the sun-blinds, meetings in the sixth form study.... Lilla, with her black hair and the specks of bright amber in the brown of her ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... way down to the gate, lurched a little heavily across the dip into the road, and, steadying as it came upon the straight, began to hum contentedly ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... an actor give this word "so" its proper emphasis. Shakespeare's meaning is—"lov'd you? Hum!—so I do still," &c. There has been no change in my opinion:—I think as ill of you as I did. Else Hamlet tells an ignoble falsehood, and a useless one, as the last speech to ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Jerry. Looky here, one fine fox, and, would ye believe it, actually a mink, boy! That ere pelt orter bring me a twenty, all right. That's why I'm so tickled, ye see. This shore must be one o' my lucky days. Make yerself to hum. Come to take a snack o' dinner along with ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... silence beside the bare sandy mound. No stone—no mark. Another nameless grave! She had been a child once, with dancing eyes and smiles, loved by some one, surely, and perhaps mourned by some one living. The low hum of Benton's awakening night life was borne faintly on the wind. The sand seeped; the coyotes wailed; and yet there was silence. Twilight lingered. Out on the desert the ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... fairies, and the peasants take off their hats and say "God bless them."' When they are gay, they sing. Many of the most beautiful tunes of Ireland 'are only their music, caught up by eavesdroppers.' No prudent peasant would hum The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow near a fairy rath, 'for they are jealous, and do not like to hear their songs on clumsy mortal lips.' Blake once saw a fairy's funeral. But this, as Mr. Yeats points out, must have been an English ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... air had the indescribably sweet smell of ripening grain, clover-blooms, and new hay; for the high stands of wild hay around the ponds and lakes are all being cut this year, and even the timothy along the roads, and there was a mellow undertone of mowing machines everywhere, like the distant hum of a city. Fat cattle stood knee-deep in a stream as we passed, and others lay contentedly on the clover-covered banks. One restless spirit, with a poke on her neck, sniffed at us as we went by, and tossed her head in grim defiance of public opinion and man-made laws. She ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... to a seat in the superb salle a manger. "I'll get out of here to-night," he muttered, and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit. It was in a deference to old habit, and the "qu en dira't on," that he ordered a half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all the scrupulous punctilio ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... now eagerly expectant of the arrival of him whose face we have so long sought The hour is at hand when he joins his military family at an unostentatious and very frugal dinner. In about half an hour there is a sudden cessation in the hum of conversation, the guard is ordered to stand to arms, and in a moment more, amid profound silence, Garibaldi has passed through the antechamber, leaving the place, as it were, pervaded by his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... of the majestic sail swelling with the wind, and still more on perceiving a decided improvement in the pitching of the boat, the spirits of the party rose again, and Braintree actually began to hum ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... blankets, so as to protect her father from the cold, and in answering inquiries, which he seemed to make with a captious and querulous manner. She did not trust herself to look towards the Place, although the hum of the assembled crowd must have drawn her attention in that direction. The fourth person of the group was a handsome and genteel young man, who seemed to share Miss Bertram's anxiety, and her solicitude to soothe and accommodate ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... glass, and refilled it. Nearly all the tables in the room were now occupied, and the general hum of talk gave security to intimate dialogue. Flushed and bright-eyed, the young man presently ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... creation? Regarding the immensities receding over him in unfathomable abysses bursting with dust heaps of suns, must not man be dwarfed into unmitigated contempt, his life and character rendered absolutely insignificant, the utmost span of his fortunes seeming but as the hum and glitter of an ephemeron in a moment's sunshine? Doubtless many a one has at times felt the stupendous truths of astronomy thus palsying him with a crushing sense of his own nothingness and burying him in fatalistic despair. Standing at night, alone, beneath the august dome studded from ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... silent till compelled to speak. He therefore got as near O'Grady as he could, and, pretending to stumble, put his finger against his friend's lips. O'Grady passed on the signal soon afterwards to Reuben. This matter arranged, they quietly followed their captor—O'Grady doing his best to hum a tune which he had heard Rosalie sing, and forgetting that he pretended to be deaf as well as dumb. There was still sufficient light for them to see that their captor was a gendarme, a discovery far from pleasant, as it led them to suppose that some person in authority was at ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... and green, when a breeze of sufficient strength sweeps across it. The larks are so multitudinous that no distinct song can be caught, and amidst the confused melody comes the note of the thrush and the blackbird. A constant under-running accompaniment is just audible in the hum of innumerable insects and the sharp buzz of flies darting past the ear. Only those who live in the open air and watch the fields and sea from hour to hour and day to day know what they are and what they mean. The chance visitor, or he who looks now and then, never understands ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... to the store, but mother will be here in a few minutes, so make yourselves to hum," cried the genial host, showing the female guests the way into the spare room "to take ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... perfectly she was arranging for his absence, told him who would take up this and who take up that exactly where he had left it, gave him in fact chapter and verse for the moral that nothing would suffer. It filled for him, this tone of hers, all the air; yet it struck him at the same time as the hum of vain things. This latter effect was what he tried to justify—and with the success that, grave though the appearance, he at last lighted on a form that was happy. He arrived at it by the inevitable recognition of his having been a fortnight before one of the weariest of men. If ever a man ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... them up without deigning to look at the person who had accosted him, and turning them over in his hand, "One, two, three, hum; there is half-a-dozen. What do you ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... them, please," he said. "Hum! All of the same date, and each in the paid part of the paper! It is clear Mr. Darrow inserted these singular notices himself. I will tell you what Osborne will say when he learns of these articles. He will say they strengthen his theory; that no sane man would publish such a thing, except ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... great spaces of emptiness lay gleaming in the mild sunlight, exhaling freshness like that of dewy lawns. When, under the glare of noon, they lay slumbrous, they were impressive by their prodigality of width and scope; in the bustle and hum of dusk, with the cafes filling, and spilling over on to the pavements, he could not tire of them; but at night, the mystery of their magic enthralled him. How could one sleep in such a city? The Puerto del Sol was then a sea of dark fringed with shores of ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... spinning-wheel ceased with its hum, the silence was to Cosmo like the silence after a song, and his thoughts refused to do their humming alone. The same moment he fell—from a wondrous region where he dwelt with sylphs in a great palace, built on the tree-tops of a forest ages ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... which are ever making, either from some newly-discovered manuscript, or from oral tradition in some out-of-the-way part of the country. The numbers, too, which have been preserved, seem to be exceeded by the numbers that have unfortunately been lost. Who has not in his ears the hum of many lyrics heard by him in his childhood—from mother, or nurse, or some old crooning dame at the fireside—which are to be found in no collection, and which are now to himself but like a distant, unformed sound? All our collectors, whilst ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... me is the shieling, and the hum that is in it, Since the ear that was wont to listen is now no more on the watch. Where is Isabel, the courteous, the conversable, a sister in kindness? Where is Anne, the slender-browed, the turret-breasted, whose glossy hair pleased me when yet a boy? HEICH! WHAT AN HOUR WAS MY ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... was distasteful to him. He hated the blue and white, the intensity and definiteness, the hum and heat of the south; the landscape seemed to him as hard and as romantic as a cardboard background on the stage, and the mountain but a wooden screen against a sheet painted blue. He walked fast in spite of the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... down to Guildford early in the morning, and returned late in the evening. It was a beautiful day, bright and cloudless; and as those London boys wandered about the country lanes and meadows of Guildford, and heard the ceaseless hum of insect life, and the uncaged birds singing high in the blue sky, and saw the wild-flowers in the hedgerows, and the glancing waters in their way, we may be sure that more than mere enjoyment was stored up in their minds, and that thoughts which might not be brought out into set phrases, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... "Um-hum. Lover was alone in the woods, wasn't he? How did his friends find out about those midnight spirits ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... air. The words stuck in the silence like insects wriggling upon a pin. Then the voice was gone, and the silence was complete and heavy. The carrier hum ceased. With a spine-tingling brief blaze of high-frequency sound, Hoskins' ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... sooner, we might have kep' him out o' trouble," she said. "He got away from me when things begun to hum." ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... image. That this was an omen no man could doubt. It needed no augur to interpret it. The murmur, gathering force as it swept through the packed aisles, passed from surprise to fear, from fear to a deep hum of anger;—for the people understood, as plainly as though she had spoken, that the Virgin of the Valseccas had cast from her ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... lad! Mix it oop!" cried the iron-men to their Master. And then a hum of exultation ran through their ranks as they realised that their tougher, harder, stronger man held the vantage, after all. Neither of the men showed much sign of punishment. Small gloves crush and numb, but they do not cut. One of ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... very still, save the soft, low hum of the bees busily probing the heath bells for honey in the beautiful, wild stretch of granite moorland, and the black darkness was for the unhappy ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being told ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... a strange and moving spectacle. The mist like a shroud over the great city, some stars of leaden hue paling out overhead, the day dawning over the vast square, the wide silence with the far-off hum of awakening life, the English workmen stopping to look at us as they went by to their work, and our company of dark-bearded men, emigrants and exiles, sending their hearts out in sympathy to their brothers in the south. As I spoke from the base of the Gordon statue and turned towards St. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... he passed from her sight, as all things else had passed, for in the blindness of her tears it was as if dark night had fallen. She turned about and in her ears his words rang, and again strong-set to be brave, the misty night was winked away. Hearing the hum of the old negro's tuneful spirit, she called him and he came to ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... the child's step from the man's, the slipshod beggar from the booted exquisite, the lounging from the busy, the dull heel of the sauntering outcast from the quick tread of an expectant pleasure-seeker—think of the hum and noise always being present to his sense, and of the stream of life that will not stop, pouring on, on, on, through all his restless dreams, as if he were condemned to lie, dead but conscious, in a noisy churchyard, and had no hope of rest for ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... approached this spot in the evening about half an hour before sunset, I was surprised to hear the hum of voices, and occasionally a shout of merriment from the meadow beyond the churchyard; which I found, when I reached the stile, to be occasioned by a very animated game of cricket, in which the ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... explanation into an epigram: "American wages are the honey-pot that brings the alien flies." He says further: "If a steel mill were to start in a Mississippi swamp paying wages of $2 a day, the news would hum through foreign lands in a month, and that swamp would become a beehive of humanity and industry in an incredibly short space of time." Dr. A. F. Schauffler says, with equal pith, that "the great cause of immigration is, ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... listening. Through the quiet hum of afternoon came the voices of the two children. Outside the lich-gate, under the shade of the spreading cedar, the horses stamped occasionally as the flies troubled them. The grooms were mounted; one held the delicate-limbed white Arab, the other ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... I transplant them, and I treasure them like gold. One cluster bears light-coloured bloom; another bears dark shades. I sit with head uncovered by the sparse-leaved artemesia hedge, And in their pure and cool fragrance, clasping my knees, I hum my lays. In the whole world, methinks, none see the light as peerless as these flowers. From all I see you have no other friend more intimate than me. Such autumn splendour, I must not misuse, as steadily it fleets. My gaze ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... evanescent dream. What had wrought the change? Was it the sight of Delbridge and his mention of Mostyn's financial prowess? Was it the fellow's confident allusion to Mitchell and his daughter? Had the buzz and hum of business, the fever of conquest, already captured and killed the impulses which in the mountains had seemed so ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... some flowers upon his grave, may not I? And that will bring the bees humming over it. How fond he was of going near the hives, to hear the bees hum! Where shall his ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... anxious as myself to leave and together we moved towards the door, while the hum of excited comment which the intrusion of a fainting woman had undoubtedly interrupted, recommenced behind us till the ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army,) harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a definite life; ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of aerial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O, happy unimaginable vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O, mental holiday, now as impossible to me, as to take a true school-boy's interest in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind—and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... no answer, but shouted something in at the gate and stood looking at the broad-shouldered young labourer scraping the mud off Nekhludoff's boots with a chip of wood by the light of the lamp. From behind the palisade came the hum of male and female voices. In about three minutes more something rattled, the gate opened, and a sergeant, with his cloak thrown over his shoulders, stepped out of the darkness ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... military force of wa, This force now consisted of 35,000 musketeers, 700 Cassay cavalry, and other troops, amounting in the whole to 60,000 men. On the 30th of November this great force assembled in the forest of Rangoon, fronting the great Shoedagon pagoda. On the following night the low hum of voices proceeding from the encampment suddenly ceased, and it was succeeded by the distant but gradually increasing sounds of a multitude moving stealthily through the woods. The British commander soon became aware ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for the brief moment in which he would be closeted with the great one, who held the invisible keys of relief, who penetrated this mystery of human maladjustment. It was a busy, toiling, active, subdued place, where the tinkle of the telephone bell, the hum of electric annunciators, as one member of the staff signalled to another, vibrated in the tense atmosphere. Into this hive poured the suffering, mounting from the street, load after load, in the swiftly flying cages; their visit made, their ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... pleased Abellino. "Hum! feel my pulse then," he said jestingly, "but put your hand, not on my ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... god, All temples bright, in shining white, fly open at thy nod! A lucky sun doth shine; nor voice, nor thought of ill, be stirr'd To tempt the time; the happy day demands the happy word. No brawls assail the ear; cease now the harsh-vex'd forum's hum, And calumny with eager tongue, for once thy spite be dumb! Lo! where the pure and fragrant flame from every altar round Upwreathes, while ears devout receive the saffron's crackling sound! The wandering ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... below with those two poisoned daggers of hers! What will come of such temerity? A buzzing of wings ascends from the depths. Run to earth in her private apartments, the Lycosa is no doubt at grips with the intruder. That hum of wings is the Calicurgus' paean of triumph, until it be her death-song. The slayer may well be the slain. Which of the two will ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... the great door of entrance was a low platform railed off, on which the prisoners, surrounded by their guard, were now assembled to await their trial. The sun shone in brightly from a high window, and a hum of ceaseless talking pervaded the hall cheerfully as Lomaque entered it. He was a privileged man here, as at the prison; and he made his way in by a private door, so as to pass to the prisoners' ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... all the modish swains of France have sung against thee, as the SOW CHALLENGED ATHENE. They never knew the shepherd's life, the long winter nights on dried heather by the fire, the long summer days, when over the parched grass all is quiet, and only the insects hum, and the shrunken burn whispers a silver tune. Swains in high-heeled shoon, and lace, shepherdesses in rouge and diamonds, the world is weary of all concerning them, save their images in porcelain, effigies how unlike thy golden figures, dedicate to Aphrodite, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... of the torches only partly revealed. Satisfied with his scrutiny, he turned and again conferred with his associates who nodded their heads in acceptance of his suggestion. They sat back in their chairs while he came to the center of the platform and awaited the cessation of the hum ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... "Either my perceptive faculties are on the blink or there's something decaying in Denmark. It's you for the Goddess of Liberty enlightening the unenlightened savage. I'm from Missouri and I want you to start the ticker on the hum." ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... 'Hum! Hum!' muttered Graham, shaking his head. 'When men thank fortune for her gifts she usually turns her ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... harmony with the occasion; but it should be under control, a smiling cheerfulness, not a free-and-easy jollity. Before the play, or the programme, begins, social conversation is usually allowable in quiet tones that do not disturb the surrounding people. A gentle hum of lively voices is not an unpleasant overture on such occasions. But the moment the orchestra begins, if at the theatre, or the instant that the meeting is called to order by any initial feature of the programme, silence should fall upon the assembly, and not a whisper be ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... reach the goat-herd's hut? There were many little roads branching off in several directions, and sometimes Mr. Sesemann doubted if he had taken the right path. But not a soul was near, and no sound could be heard except the rustling of the wind and the hum of little insects. A merry little bird was singing on ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... there is no terror like the terror of that sound to me. When I hear a trumpet or a drum or the clash of steel or the hum of the catapult as the great stone flies, fire runs through my veins: I feel my blood surge up hot behind my eyes: I must charge: I must strike: I must conquer: Caesar himself will not be safe in his imperial seat if once that ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... are summer blue, The bees hum in the sun's warm light; But frosts of winter chill me through, I shiver as I say Good night. ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... operation never was. A solid placid People, heavily asleep (and snoring much, shall we say, and inarticulately grunting and struggling under indigestions, Constitutional and other? Do but listen to the hum of those extinct Pamphlets and Parliamentary Oratories of theirs!),—yet an honestly intending People; and keenly alive to any commandment from Heaven, that could pierce through the thick skin of them into their big obstinate heart. Such a commandment, then and there, was that monition about Jenkins's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... mysteriously evaporated. A pair of silk socks, purple with gold spots. Will come in useful as a rifle rag. A long, wide woolly article resembling a cross between a scarf and a blanket ... do as a pillow. A large cake, two packets of chocolate and fifty fags. Hum, won't go far among ten. A pot of jam—go fine on the cake or may tackle it with a spoon. And a brief note hidden away at the bottom—"For ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... pleasure of that evening. They dined at a little round table in the most desirable corner of the room—the professor and Edith, Mr. Bomford and himself. The music of one of the most famous orchestras in Europe alternately swelled and died away, always with the background of that steady hum of cheerful conversation. It was his first experience of a restaurant de luxe. He looked about him in amazed wonder. He had expected to find himself in a palace of gilt, to find the prevailing note of the place an unrestrained and inartistic gorgeousness. He found instead ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Ha! Hum!" said a grave and somewhat pompous voice, "our friend here might readily become a very dangerous person if he exercised his remarkable gifts in private, and made things disappear in this extraordinary fashion, and then refused to produce ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... veritably to hum with secret and, to judge by the pitch of its rumour, well-nigh panic activity. One divined a scurrying as of rats about to desert a sinking ship. Untoward events had thrown this establishment into a state of excited confusion: their nature Lanyard could not surmise, but ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... masks. Gradually they left the main crowd, unconsciously approaching the steep brow of the hill, where, looking towards the east, they beheld the broad red moon swinging out from the blue horizon. The loud hum of the revellers came softly and pleasantly on the ear. It was an hour of quietness and delight—a few hasty, happy moments snatched from these gaudy hours—the pomp and circumstance of life. Would that Sir John had been here in lieu of his friend! ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... mainly directed to the maintenance of friendly relations and the preservation of peace and quiet on the frontier. All this is now changed. There is no such thing as the Indian frontier. Civilization, with the busy hum of industry and the influences of Christianity, surrounds these people at every point. None of the tribes are outside of the bounds of organized government and society, except that the Territorial system has not been extended over that portion of the country known as the Indian Territory. As ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... moments empty with terror. Nor of how terror, through habit of inarticulate, emotionless existence, gave place again to brute stolidity. And so, heavily back across the dewy fields, under the larks' songs, the cooings of pigeons, the hum of wings, and all the unconscious rhythm of ageless Nature. No! The probings of Justice could never reach the whole truth. And even Justice quailed at its own probings when the mother-child was passed up from Tod's side into the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to a heavenly Father's heart and home. Here a gate is opened by the Mediator's hand, and no man can shut it, until the angel shall proclaim that time shall be no more. Here resounds a voice clear, human, memorable—a voice that all the hum of the world cannot drown, proclaiming to the lowest, furthest outcasts, and to the latest generations, "Whosoever ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... it already is. City property is a dreadful nuisance, the taxes are outrageous and the tenants pay poorly; and although the New York Banks announce dividends, yet when you come to look at their actual condition, hum, hum;—is that door shut?—just put your ear a little this way, so; there, I say nothing; there are Banks and Banks; but a building may have two doors, and what goes out at one may come in again at the other, eh? Mind, I say nothing. So you see, beside the East Haddam diamond ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... completely deserted. Boxes and bales of goods lay untouched on the wharves; the cheering cries with which the workmen formerly animated their labour were hushed. There was no sound of creaking cords, no rattle of heavy chains—none of the busy hum ordinarily attending the discharge of freight from a vessel, or the packing of goods and stores on board. All traffic was at an end; and this scene, usually one of the liveliest possible, was now forlorn and desolate. On the opposite shore of the ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in heaven, it flares upon the Thames, The people are as thick as bees below, They hum like bees,—they cannot speak—for awe; Look to the skies, then to the river, strike Their hearts, and hold their babies up to it. I think that they would Molochize them too, To have ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspires the pale-eyed priest ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... with the bark of the terrier, though it was by no means an index of his disposition, which I soon found to be light, merry, and anything but malevolent, for when I, in order to show him that I cared little about him, began to hum "Eu que sou Contrabandista," he laughed heartily and said, clapping me on the shoulder, that he would not drown us if he could help it. The other poor fellow seemed by no means averse to go to the bottom; ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Sr. Rog: Hum! dam me he looks like Mahomet Charratha going to dance the Rope. harkee Seignior— what is this Medley of yours? this Covent Garden Theatre? ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit, while Peony acted rather as a labourer, and brought her the snow from far and near. And yet the little urchin evidently had a ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... always clear, often lively, and sometimes rising to solemn and fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which were delivered without any note, was heightened by a noble figure and by pathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more. [217] In his moral ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... puir body! work at Smith's shop, eh? Ye'll ken John Crossthwaite, then? ay? hum, hum; an' ye're desirous o' reading books? vara weel—let's ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... free-and-easyness with my lady to do the deed. It can cost me nothing except her good opinion, which I can afford. But I'll lay you anything to nothing, if she knew the weight of my four quarters, she would have me herself after all! I don't quite think myself a lady-killer: by George, my—hum!—entourage is against that, but where money is money can! Only I don't want her, and my money is for her betters! What damned jolly fun it will be to send her out of the house in a rage!—and a good deed done too!—By George, I'll do it! See if ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "will dispatch the weightiest affairs as hee walke along in the streets, or at meales, the other upon the least occasion of businesse will retire solemnly to a room, and if a fly chance to hum about him, it will discompose his thoughts and puzzle him: It is a kind of sicknesse for a Frenchman to keep a secret long, and all the drugs of Egypt cannot get it out of a Spaniard.... The Frenchman walks fast, (as if he had a Sergeant always at his heels,) the Spaniard slowly, ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... that they might see his size. Although only a boy in years, he was as large and strong as de Mezy, and his eyes were clearer and his muscles much firmer. A hum of approval came from the spectators, who now numbered more than a score, but the approval was given for different reasons. Some, and they belonged to the honnetes gens, were glad to see de Mezy rebuked and hoped that he would be punished; others, the following of Bigot, Cadet, ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... was led to the punch-bowl. When the last one had been taught the way to that cool nook, there was a pleasant hum of voices in the room. There was still an undercurrent of difference as to the punch's merit—other than mere coolness; though Miss Eubanks now agreed with Aunt Delia that it possessed virtues not to be discerned in the first careless draught. ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... rolled slowly and carefully along this rough road, the music of distant waters fell upon the listening ear, and from the faintest hum that could hardly be heard, it gradually swelled into a deafening ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... and before going to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station on Seventh Avenue the youths treated themselves to a lunch. During the meal Shadow was allowed to tell several of his best stories, and Luke was called on to hum over the song he had composed in honor of their days at ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... Cochrane, &c. &c. a quartier de hum contos de reis, pro conta de huma divisiao de octento contos de reis, senda parte de certos dinheiros recebidos da Junta ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... and carry off; often glaring around, but the sheep are just huddled together and trample on one another; so the heroes grievously scared the arrogant Bebrycians. And as shepherds or beekeepers smoke out a huge swarm of bees in a rock, and they meanwhile, pent up in their hive, murmur with droning hum, till, stupefied by the murky smoke, they fly forth far from the rock; so they stayed steadfast no longer, but scattered themselves inland through Bebrycia, proclaiming the death of Amycus; fools, not to perceive that another woe all unforeseen was hard ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... properties than those which have accompanied her in the state which she has quitted. Sounds are ringing in her ears which never rang there till now; visions are before her eyes which are now awakened for the first time. The music of birds, and the hum of bees, and the rattling of the distant rill, and the sighing of the wind, greet her ear, and her eyes are made happy by all the bright things which the Great Being has placed in this glorious world. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Castle Lines, and naval men from the squadron at Simon's Town. Here they talk of the sins of Cecil Rhodes, the insolence of Natal, the beauties or otherwise of the solid Boer vote, and the dates of the steamers. The argot is Dutch and Kaffir, and every one can hum the national anthem that begins 'Pack your kit and trek, Johnny Bowlegs.' In the stately Hongkong Clubhouse, which is to the further what the Bengal Club is to the nearer East, you meet much the same gathering, minus the mining speculators ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes. As in the inmost dells of some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... streaks which accompanied its setting. Standing in the waggon, Cathelineau could see the crowds of hurrying royalists rushing along the road, wherever the thick foliage of trees was sufficiently broken to leave any portion of it visible, and he could hear the eager hum of their voices both near him and at ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... know. And I am beginning to find out that I have done a very stupid thing in not bringing his Ugliness with us. By my sword, I wish we had brought him! I wished it last night too, over and over again, when I felt so—ah, hum—when I couldn't sleep for the creaking and groaning of ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... was normal. The engine room was a place of stillness and peace, save for the almost inaudible hum of the drive, running at half a million Gauss flux-density. The skipper did whatever skippers do when they are invisible to their subordinates. The weapons officer, Taine, thought appropriate thoughts. In the navigation room the second officer conscientiously glanced at each separate instrument ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... sheltered by trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day, multitudes of Ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the fireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at noon-day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley's health and inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and more attached to the part of the country were chance appeared to cast us. Sometimes he projected taking a farm situated ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... party of twenty—ten men and ten women—at six o'clock in the morning and worked until six at night. I never worked so hard, nor did so much. All day long there was a fire of jokes and jolly gibes, interspersed with song, while beneath all ran a gentle hum of confidential interchange of thought. The man who owned the field was there to direct our efforts and urge us on in well-doing by merry raillery, threat, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... field and town. Waving blooming country of the brightest green, dotted all over with handsome villas, handsome groves crossed by roads and human traffic, here inaudible, or heard only as a musical hum; and behind all swam, under olive-tinted haze, the illimitable limitary ocean of London, with its domes and steeples definite in the sun, big Paul's and the many memories attached to it hanging high over all. Nowhere of its kind could you see a grander prospect on a bright summer day, with ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Durant looked thoughtful. "Hum," he said, "I'd planned to give you girls of '81 a choice evergreen, and as for a place for it: what do you say to the plot on the north side, just under ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... SULLIVAN sat next to Sir HENRY HAWKINS during part of the recent sensational trial at the Ancient Bailey, making, of course not taking, notes. Sir HENRY occasionally conversed with the Knight of Music. Did the latter hum, sotto voce, "And a good Judge too!" with other selections from Trial by Jury? Everyone glad Sir ARTHUR is so well. Perhaps after this he will return to Real Eccentric Gilbertian Opera, and go away for "change of air." The "Carte" is at the door, ready to take him, but his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... could not deceive one who had been brought up within the hum of judges of life and death, and with a father who as his daily business propounded the Greater and Lesser Questions. And their precious block, as smooth as sawn and polished timber, with never a notch from side ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... more, Till you meet your angry fathers Upon the farther shore. Thrice have I spoken, and now, Before the cock be heard, I take my leave for ever With the naming of a word. It shall sing in your sleeping ears, It shall hum in your waking head, The name—Ticonderoga, And the warning ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him where he lived. He replied: "When I'm to hum, I lives on a ranch in Colorado; but I've been to Chicago sellin' of my steers, and them thar fellows came nigh gettin' the best of me with some of their new-fangled games; but they gave me some of their tickets, and when I get home I'll make the boys think I didn't take my critters ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... of Dwerostel rode into the market, conscious of a buzz which rose to a loud hum. The bellowing of beasts, the cries of vendors, the scuffling of many feet, all blended into one great sound—the voice of ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... regulations of the Royal Yacht Club will not admit of our awarding the precedence to one or the other, we will descend from the elevation of Northwood, amidst the din of music from the Club House, and the hum of promenaders on the beach, and ensconce ourselves in the snug parlour of "mine host" Paddy White, whom we used to denominate the Falstaff of the island. Though from the land of shillelaghs and whiskey, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... the comparison was undeserved, but the advice was sound. The blankets spread out on the grass looked inviting and they felt comfortably warm in the sunshine. The breeze was slow, languorous, fragrant, and it brought the low hum of the murmuring waterfall, like a melody of bees. Helen made a pillow and lay down to rest. The green pine-needles, so thin and fine in their crisscross network, showed clearly against the blue sky. She ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... of her voice. The hum of his heavy, staggering wings Sets quivering with wisdom the common things That she says, and her ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... they will answer for hereafter. He then call'd Mr B——s again, and said, Well, sir, what do you design to do by me? The lieutenant answer'd, Sir, your officers have design'd the purser's tent for you. Hum! I should be obliged to the gentlemen, if they would let me stay in my own tent. The lieutenant came to acquaint the officers of the captain's request, but they judg'd it inconvenient, as Mr H——n's tent join'd the purser's, one guard might serve 'em both; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... had proven its superiority to any of the seventeen cars which he at present maintained in his establishment. He had got three of these new cars, and while Montague sat upon the quarter-deck of the Triton and gazed at the magnificent scenery of the river, he had in his ear the monotonous hum of Devon's voice, discussing annular ball-bearings and ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... and threw a handkerchief over his white head, and then sat down in the dusk, looking out into his shop and the alley beyond it. He must have fallen into a doze after a while, being overcome with the heat, and lulled by the constant hum of the streets, which reached his dull ear in a softened murmur; for at length he started up almost in a fright, and found that complete darkness had fallen upon him suddenly, as it seemed to him. A church clock was striking nine, and his shop was not closed yet. ...
— Alone In London • Hesba Stretton
... is with hum of tiny things Held idly, struggling there, As if the golden mist entangled were About the viewless wings, That beat out music ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the midst among the trees, about five hundred small tents and pavilions were erected, for the convenience of the stock-jobbers. Their various colours, the gay ribands and banners which floated from them, the busy crowds which passed continually in and out—the incessant hum of voices, the noise, the music, and the strange mixture of business and pleasure on the countenances of the throng, all combined to give the place an air of enchantment that quite enraptured the Parisians. The Prince de Carignan made enormous profits while the delusion lasted. Each ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... to the south, he saw everything at the height of Summer. The trees were fully green, and luscious fruits weighed down their branches, while over all was the drowsy hum of ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... trembling, and gradually firmer, grasp. She did not move now, and I touched her cheeks with my lips, and suddenly without seeking them, mine met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still, if I had not heard a hum! hum! just behind me, at which she made her escape through the bushes, and turning round I saw Rivet coming towards me, and standing in the middle of the path, he said without even smiling: "So, that is the way in which you settle the affair ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... plant spread a broader leaf, and flourished with greater luxuriance in the gardens and hedge-rows of the cottages around, than at any place I had before visited. "Industry is the first step to improvement, and education follows hard upon it," thought I, as on foot, attracted by a busy hum of voices, we made our way through an intervening copse towards the spot whence it seemed to come. A fig-tree, the superincumbent branches of which shaded a wide circuit of ground, arrested our progress; and looking through an opening among the large green leaves, we espied the village ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... drawing-room to your chamber, to drum with your fingers upon the table—to beat your brain for a thought which you vainly seek to weave into rhyme in praise of your inamorata—all is unavailing. The rain is slow but ceaseless, and the hours are days to the unemployed mind. We hum a tune and whistle to hurry time, but the indicating fingers of the tediously ticking clock seems stationary, and time waits for fair weather. The ladies love their chambers, and sleeping away the laggard ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... greetings—faces whom we had never seen before, and were never to see again. We sometimes came so near that it was possible to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart swells at the sight of so many bellying sails, and we feel strangely moved when the confused hum and far-off dance-music, and the deep voices of sailors, resound from the shore. But the outlines of all things vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening mist, and there remained visible only a forest of masts, rising long ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the probable character of the coming winter, what reliable signs remain? These remain: When December is marked by sudden and violent extremes of heat and cold, the winter will be broken; the cold will not hold. I have said elsewhere that the hum of the bee in December is the requiem of winter. But when the season is very evenly spaced, the cold slowly and steadily increasing through November and December, no hurry, no violence, then be ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... off from the Calle Principal by the little old church of La Cruz, and passed onward across the market-place, where buying and selling went on languidly, and where a drowsy hum of talk made a rhythmic setting to a scene that seemed to my unaccustomed eyes less a bit of real life than a bit lifted bodily from an opera. Facing the market-place was the ancient church; and the change was a pleasant one, from the vivid sunlight and warmth of the streets ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... have heard the shot and his cry, and though we made things hum about them, they took time to look into it and ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... Presently I knew myself descending, leaving, as I felt rather than saw, the stark horror of the gorge and its glimmering snow patches above me. Puffs of a warmer air purred past my face with little friendly sighs of welcome, and the hum of a far-off torrent struck like a wedge into the indurated fibre of the night. As I dropped, however, the mountain heads grew up against the moon, and withheld the comfort of her radiance; and it was not until the whimper of the torrent had quickened about me to a plunging ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... rolling still up, it has plunged in the mantle o'erhead, We hear the low hum of the volley, we see the fierce bomb-burst of red; Still the rock in the forehead of Lookout through the rents of the windy mist shows The horrible flag of the Crossbar, the counterfeit rag of our foes: Portentous it looks through the vapor, then melts to the eye, but it tells That ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... then suddenly fetches him a blow in the stomach that doubles him up speechless. The doctor walks over to the window and reads the morning paper for a while. Presently he turns and begins to mutter more to himself than the patient. "Hum!" he says, "there's a slight anaesthesia of the tympanum." "Is that so?" says the patient, in an agony of fear. "What can I do about it, doctor?" "Well," says the doctor, "I want you to keep very quiet; you'll ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... sign to Philip, to ask him if he was hungry; Philip replied in the affirmative, when his new acquaintance put his hand into a bag made of goat-skin, and pulled out a handful of very large beetles, and presented them to hum. Philip refused them with marks of disgust, upon which, the chief very sedately cracked and ate them; and having finished the whole handful, rose, and made a sign to Philip to follow him. As Philip rose, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... it was first appealing and then proud, she would be more than ever conspicuous against the background of brilliant toilets, fine jewels, and assured manners which the family would produce for the occasion. As a matter of fact, there was a perceptible hush in the hum of talk as she made her entry into the drawing-room, ostensibly led by Philip Wayne, but really leading him. As she paused near the door, half timid, half bewildered, looking for her hostess, it did not help her to feel at ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... A great hum broke out in the Hall, when Dugdale swore that he had heard with his own ears my Lord Stafford and others who had been present, give their assent one by one to the King's murder. His Majesty himself, I was told later by Mr. Chiffinch, retired to the back of his box to laugh, when he heard ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... hayricks and thick hedges groups of disconsolate birds stand, seeking some shelter from the piercing wind. The hawthorn berries have all been eaten. Insect food there is none; it is only in the summer time that the comfortable hum of insects is heard in England. Thus the ordinary food supply of the fowls of the air is greatly restricted, and scores of field-fares and other birds die of starvation. The snow-covered lawn in front of every house, of which the inmates are in the habit ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... great guns gleamed; mast and spar and rigging made network against the blue; high in air floated bright pennants and the red cross in the white field. To and fro plied small boats, while over the water to them in the wherry came a pleasant hum of preparation for the morrow's sailing. Upon the Cygnet, lying next to the Mere Honour, and a very noble ship, the ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... met a little, old queen, who was fanning herself with the leaf of the poor-man's-weather-glass; she had taken off her crown, and it was lying on the top of a lovely red mushroom. I poked the mushroom with my parasol, and instantly felt on my face a faint puff of air, and heard a hum no louder than the ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... Bachche-k gnd men anguli k thi!" ("Schoolmaster hum! Who fumbled and fingered the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... me that some immediate danger of this threatened him, and I braced myself up to a firm determination, that, if this was so, I, out of my deep gratitude to him, would do my utmost best to warn him in time. While these thoughts possessed me, the hum of gay conversation went on, and Zara's bright laughter ever and again broke like music on the air. Father Paul, too, proved himself to be of quite a festive and jovial disposition, for he made himself agreeable to Mrs. Challoner and her daughters, and entertained them ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... disaster. The homecoming of these sailor lads, who frequently brought friends with them, was a great joy to the Burnsides, and also to those of the villagers with whom they associated. Both lads were very sailorly, and it was well known that they never failed to make things hum with mirth and mischief, as soon as they had taken their bearings and found the coast clear of "squires" and "parsons." It was a pretty sight to see their two sisters rush out of the house as soon as their brothers were ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... off, this was the darkest hour of the night, so that even the sounds of dockland were muted and the riverside slept as deeply as the great port of London ever sleeps. Vague murmurings there were and distant clankings, with the hum of machinery which is ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... harmful," she rejoined. "But I can't sing. Sometimes when I can't express what I am thinking about I hum it. How long are you and Alf going ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... telling him I'm the scum of the earth, and that it's up to him to get rid of me." He added, sententiously: "She'll find, I guess, that this is about the most difficult billet a fair lady ever intrusted to a gallant knight." Whereupon, inspired by his metaphor, he proceeded to hum under his breath, by way of outlet to his amused sensibilities, the dulcet refrain ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... of an evening, and the feelings engendered in him by the scene were wild, of a truth indescribable. He turned from the luxuriant foliage, to the stars aflame above, and he followed the fireflies as they danced. The woods were vocal with the hum of insect life, and balm loaded the breezes as they blew softly. These things at first oppressed his senses as so novel, so strange, that his mind almost hovered between the realms ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... loaded beasts splashing and floundering in front of them. It was almost dark now, though a line of snow still glimmered white and cold high up beyond the trees until the trail plunged into the blackness of the forest. Then the lights of the settlement were blotted out behind them, the hum of voices ceased, and they were alone in the primeval silence of the bush. The thud and splash of tired hoofs only served to emphasize it, the thin jingle of steel or creak of pack-rope was swallowed up and lost, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... to restore the religion of Abraham, which the pagan Arabs had polluted with idolatry, the Jews in corrupting their holy books. At the same time he heard a Voice, and sometimes he felt a noise in his ears like the tinkling of bells or a low deep hum, as if bees were swarming round ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... and, so delicate is the perceptiveness of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was mentioned or a reason given for some ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... upon a sack of Indian corn, was Planchet, with both his arms under his chin, and his eyes fixed on D'Artagnan, who was either thinking, dreaming, or sleeping, with his eyes open. Planchet had been watching him for a tolerably long time, and, by way of interruption, he began by exclaiming, "Hum! hum!" But D'Artagnan did not stir. Planchet then saw that it was necessary to have recourse to more effectual means still: after a prolonged reflection on the subject, the most ingenious means that suggested itself to him under the present ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... steam calliope preserve me from a "smart" person. There is as much difference between smartness and brain as there is between a jewsharp and a flute, or between mustard and wine. A "smart" person may turn off a lot of work and make things hum, so does a buzz-saw! Who would not rather spend an afternoon with a lark than with a hornet? The lark may not be so active, but activity is not always the most desirable thing in the world. A smart person may accomplish more than a dreamer, but in the long run I'll take my chance ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... acquainted with the object in which one pays him adorations. Do thou then, if it pleases thee, seek the protection of the chief of the deities. He sometimes rejoices, and sometimes yields to wrath, and sometimes utters the syllable Hum with a very loud noise. He sometimes arms himself with the discus, sometimes with the trident, sometimes with the mace, sometimes with the heavy mullets, sometimes with the scimitar, and sometimes with the battle ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and the ruddy tinge Which lately flooded all the western sky Has now diminish'd to a single streak, And here I sit, alone, and listen to The noise of forests, and the hum of groves. ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... to the Parliament, and found there the Princes with nearly a thousand gentlemen and, I may say, the whole Court. I had few salutes in the Hall, because it was generally thought I was an undone man. When I had entered the Great Chamber I heard a hum like that at the end of a pleasing period in a sermon. When I had taken my place I said that, hearing we were taxed with a seditious conspiracy, we were come to offer our heads to the Parliament if guilty, and if innocent, to demand justice upon our accusers; and that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... the doors through which so many lucky individuals passed had proved very interesting earlier in the evening, and after the door had closed upon the latest comer to creep closely to doors and windows, and listen to the hum and flutter of the crowd, and then to hear the band's inspiring strains was a source of joy. But when the music ceased and a great calm settled on the audience, they knew very well it was because the show had commenced, and that, alas, was ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... place, penetrated by shafts of sunlight, coloured by flashes of floating butterflies, filled by the chaunt of birds rising over the long hum of insects, lifted the fallen spirits of Rodriguez as he walked on ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... around suspiciously; but the gorge was silent as the grave—not a leaf stirred; there was neither the hum of insect nor the note of bird. Heat—glowing heat—reflected from the rocks, already not to be ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... the song died down into a hum. But soon a quavering falsetto was heard formulating a new motive, expressing a new thought. Other voices joined the leader's; a minor refrain swept up and down the line; and abruptly the climax swelled out ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... the foot of what seemed a donjon keep. The floor was cement, and doors let off in various directions. One, opening to a Chinese in the white apron and starched cap of a chef, emitted at the same time the low hum of a dynamo. It was this that deflected Forrest from his straight path. He paused, holding the door ajar, and peered into a cool, electric-lighted cement room where stood a long, glass-fronted, glass-shelved refrigerator flanked ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... square, near the Bibliotheque Nationale. In the centre of the square stood the basin of a fountain, supported by lusty nymphs. The paths, bordered with laurel and spindlewood, were deserted, and from this little-frequented spot one heard the vast and reassuring hum of the city. The rehearsal had finished very late. When they entered the room the night, already slower to arrive in this season of melting snow, was beginning to cast its gloom over the hangings. The large mirrors of the wardrobe ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... they seemed, these flowers of London town! Seated in companies they sit, with radiance all their own. The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs, Thousands of little boys and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... by his gate, watching the dawn flame into incandescence and looking more frail and helpless than ever. The cruiser towered beyond, blotting out half the dawn sky like a sinister omen. A faint, deep hum was coming from it as the drive went into the preliminary phase that ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... the room, Mike the Angel could see nothing, and he could hear nothing but the all-pervading hum of the ship's engines. But he ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Father," by those beloved ones who have since gone to the more perfect worship. Holy was that distant choral praise, even to the most thoughtless; and when it, in fact, was ended, in the instant's pause, during which the ear awaits the repetition of the air, they caught the noontide hum and buzz of the myriads of insects who danced away their lives in the glorious day; they heard the swaying of the mighty woods in the soft but resistless breeze, and then again once more burst forth the merry jests and the shouts of childhood; and again ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... their beds considering the possibilities of this trove. Two floors below them they could hear the hum of the angry house; for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-afternoon of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Oh, my soul, think on't! As he said the words I looked at him and then some distance through him and beyond, and entirely onbeknown to myself I begun to hum over ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... mind; and for this purpose he left the Pleasance, in order to mingle with the noisy crowd upon the walls, and view the preparation for the pageants. But as he left the garden, and heard the busy hum, mixed with music and laughter, which floated around him, he felt an uncontrollable reluctance to mix with society whose feelings were in a tone so different from his own, and resolved, instead of doing so, to retire to the chamber assigned him, and employ himself in study until the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... lit up precisely as I had remembered it so many years ago. It so carried me back into my youth that, for a few moments, I quite lost track of the present. And when I came to the old piano, the impulse seized me to play a few bars and hum the lines of a little song I had once composed for my mother. I had at that time rather a gift for music, and this song was a sort of secret of ours— I never sang or played it for any one else. ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which were delivered without any note, was heightened by a noble figure and by pathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... saloon was partitioned off into a "Ladies' Room," whose door opened on the alkali flat behind. From thence came the monotonous drone of a murmured conversation. Cassidy tried ineffectually to follow it, but the droning of the voices and the steady hum of the flies around the beer lees on the bar made him sleepy. Outside it was stiflingly hot. Over on the grade the horses were choking and snorting in the dust, while the shambling-gaited men cursed steadily and heaved at the heavy scrapers. The little patch of blue in the doorway ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... sigh, and looked out at the naked limbs of the wrestling giant—the majestic sway and reel she used to note with childish awe—and thought of many things which had befallen her since then, until the steady rocking of the boughs and hum of the November breeze soothed her into ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... from idleness or curiosity, while they strive to find evil in everything, they do not comprehend that others still believe in the good. Therefore they have to be so nonchalant as to stop their ears, lest the hum of the busy world should suddenly startle them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but fleeting. But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and see what has taken place in him during ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... followed the under cook, the scullery boy went back to cleaning the knives, Susan, the parlor maid who was going through the kitchen with her dustpan and broom, hurried off with a backward glance or two, and Phronsie was left quite alone to hum her way along ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... the water's din was heard, As down it fell into the other round, Resounding like the hum of swarming bees: When forth together issu'd from a troop, That pass'd beneath the fierce tormenting storm, Three spirits, running swift. They towards us came, And each one cried aloud, "Oh do thou stay! Whom by the fashion of thy garb we deem To be some inmate ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... a thought has come That had a bitter meaning in it. And in the conversation's hum I lost it ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... wasp, with a remarkably long and narrow waist, the Pelopaeus fistularis. This species collected the clay in little round pellets, which it carried off, after rolling them into a convenient shape, in its mouth. It came straight to the pit with a loud hum, and, on alighting, lost not a moment in beginning to work— finishing the kneading of its little load in two or three minutes. The nest of this wasp is shaped like a pouch, two inches in length, and is attached to a branch or other projecting object. One of these restless artificers ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... reading and sitting-rooms are filled with well-dressed men, guests and citizens, who have sauntered here from all parts of the city. Four-fifths are smoking, and the air is hazy with the "vapor of the weed." The hum of conversation is incessant, but the general tone is well-bred and courteous. In the farther end of the great hall a group of stock brokers may be seen comparing notes, and making bargains for the sale and purchase of their fickle wares. The clink of glasses makes music ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... sweeping through the grass, the flails heard through the hot air from the barn, the clinking of the anvil in the village forge, the bubble of the stream through the weir—all these had a tale to tell him. Sometimes, for days together, he would hum to himself a few notes that pleased him by their sweet cadence, and he would string together some simple words to them, and sing them to himself with gentle content. The song of the reapers on the upland, or the rude chanting in the little church had ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... gaze from the stars, as, one after one, they receded into the depths of heaven; and his eyes fell over the broad expanse below. Dim in the silenced port of the city rose the masts of the galleys; along that mart of luxury and of labor was stilled the mighty hum. No lights, save here and there from before the columns of a temple, or in the porticoes of the voiceless forum, broke the wan and fluctuating light of the struggling morn. From the heart of the torpid city, so soon to vibrate with a thousand passions, there came no sound: the streams ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... undermine that comb, how near they are to the undermining of their own hive! But so it is with us all! When we think we are in the highest prosperity we may be nearest to a fall, and when we are poorest and hum-blest, we may be about to be exalted. I often think of these things, out here in the wilderness, when I'm alone, and my thoughts ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... been there but a little while, when—snap! buzz! buzz! buzz! ziz! ziz! and electricity began to pull my hair and hum around my ears. The electricity passed off shortly, but in a little while it caught me again by the hair for a brief time, and this time my right arm momentarily cramped and my heart seemed to give several lurches. I arose and tramped on and downward, ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... come paddle back roun' de ben' down yonder, an' you hear me singin' dose chanson; but now de day she's too fine, de river she's laugh too loud, an' de birds she's sing too purty for Francheman to stop on shore. Ba gosh, I'm glad!" He began to hum, and they heard him singing all the way down to the river-bank, as if the spirit of Youth and Hope and Gladness were ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... that truest of fictions, 'The History of the Plague Year', Defoe shows death, with every accompaniment of pain and terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old London, and changing their busy hum into a silence broken only by the wailing of the mourners of fifty thousand dead; by the woful denunciations and mad prayers of fanatics; and by the ...
— On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge • Thomas H. Huxley
... Yudhishthira, entered into that mighty forest where no human sound was heard and which was inhabited by deer and bears and birds, and which was adorned with trees that were bright and green, and which echoed with the hum of the black-bee and the notes of winged warblers. As he was proceeding along, he beheld that beautiful lake which looked as if it had been made by the celestial artificer himself. And it was adorned ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Dan when the hum of voices had ceased "I never thought as how I'd have to get up here and make a speech to-night or I might have taken to the woods. Howsomever, mother and Susan says as it's gettin' late it's about time we had some supper. Somewhere in the big cake is hid a gold ring. If one of the girls gets ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Auntie. "I'm so sleepy I couldn't tell a doubloon from a doughnut. Ho-ho-hum! Let's ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... broken only by the hum of the arithmetic-tape, Sam wondered at himself. As kids went, Mark had never been a nuisance. Certainly Rhoda had never had any trouble with him. But Rhoda had been altogether different. Sam was tough and he had always got a sense of satisfaction out of knowing that he was hard-boiled. ...
— Dead Man's Planet • William Morrison
... writhing masses of rubber-covered metal, weaving in some infinite pattern, weaving in flashing speed, while the whirr of air sucked into a transmutation field, whined and howled about the writhing mass. Fierce beams of force drove and pushed at a rapidly materializing something, while the hum of the powerful generators within the shining cylinder of F-1 ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... strangely fearless and unabashed. It will dart among the vines on the veranda while the entire household are assembled there, and add its hum to that of the conversation in a most delightfully neighborly way. Once a glistening little sprite, quite undaunted by the size of an audience that sat almost breathless enjoying his beauty, thrust his bill into one calyx after ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... So I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll send Andrews out on the next boat, but inform him that his position is temporary. Then if he doesn't make good out there we can take him back into this office, where he is a most valuable man. Meanwhile—ahem! hum-m-m! Harumph!—meanwhile, you'd oblige me greatly, Skinner, my dear boy, if you would consent to take this young man into your office and give him a good work-out to see the stuff he's made of. As a favor to me, Skinner, my dear boy, as a favor ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... some one would have laughed, and then would have burst forth a storm of derision. But the keenest critic had never found Franklin Marmion wrong yet, and he had far too great a reputation to permit himself to say in such a place that which he did not seriously mean. So the hum died down as he went to the black-board, and Nitocris looked at Merrill with something like ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... drem conveys the buzz and hum of social happiness, and more particularly the sound of music and singing."—E. Cf. l. 3021; and Judith, l. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... and disobedience" was so false and severe as to be very depressing to her spirits. And, never having been inured to hard labor or parental censure, these double tribulations were almost crushing; and to help her courage she kept up the low, almost inaudible hum of the sweet tunes she had so loved to sing among her chosen people, and, thus abstracted, toiled ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... voice, the familiar glance! It was all too good to be true. He was blind to the presence of Ramsey. He was alone with her; Ramsey did not exist; the restaurant did not exist. The hum of voices, the clatter of plates, the movements of the waiters, were distant sounds: all he knew was that he ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... "Go hum and be femails, and don't make sich tarnal loonatix of yourself any longer, gittin mixed up with the body polertick; for sures you're born, when woman votes sheel trail her skirts in the dust and you cant stop her; when she walks up to the ballit box, and undertakes ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... And they came. Not to come meant "war and rumors of war." The backless benches, high above the floor, groaned under the weight of irrepressible young America; the multitude of mischievous, shining faces, the bare legs and feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere—one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... through the streets; and now, by a group of officers disputing loudly the demands of their imperturbable Flemish landlords; for not even the panic which prevailed could frighten the Flemings out of a single stiver; screams and yells occasionally rose above the busy hum that murmured through the crowd, but the general sound resembled the roar of the distant ocean. Between two and three o'clock the Brunswickers marched from the town, still clad in the mourning which they wore for their old duke, and burning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... marble and granite disappear beneath hangings of silk and festoons of flowers; the wealthy display their dazzling luxury, the poor drape themselves proudly in their rags. Everything is light, harmony, and perfume; the sound is like the hum of an immense hive, interrupted by a thousandfold outcry of joy impossible to describe. The bells repeat their sonorous sequences in every key; the arcades echo afar with the triumphal marches of military bands; the sellers of sherbet and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he sat and dropped his head forward on the table. Pentfield resumed the monotonous drumming with his knuckles. A loud snap from the door attracted his attention. The frost was creeping up the inside in a white sheet, and he began to hum:- ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... they stepped to and fro, drawing out the smoothly twisted threads to the musical hum of the great spinning-wheels. The little girls chattered like magpies over their dolls and the new bed-spread they were planning to make, all white dimity stars on a blue calico ground, as a Christmas present to Ma. The boys roared at Eph's jokes, and had rough ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... publishers, however, could not turn me back. From the day on which I first tasted blood in the garret my mind was made up; there could be no hum-dreadful-drum profession for me; literature was my game. It was not highly thought of by those who wished me well. I remember being asked by two maiden ladies, about the time I left the university, what I was to be, and when I replied brazenly, 'An author,' ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... "Eight thousand—eh?" repeated Joe; "hum, well, we'll cut off the five hundred for expenses and passage home, and that leaves eight thousand clear, which, according to agreement, gives each ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... stepped inside a state-room, or the ladies' cabin, or perhaps gone on to the general saloon, to take part in the sports of the evening. She sees the lights shimmering through the latticed windows, and can hear the hum of voices, all merry. She has no desire to join in that merriment, though many may be wishing her. Inside she would assuredly become the centre of an admiring circle; be addressed in courtly speeches, with phrases of soft flattery. She is aware of this, and keeps ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... possessed an observation tower right on top of its "head." (The four afterward established that this was the sort of a machine that Smith's agent had operated.) The occupant approached to within a respectful distance from Billie's borrowed eyes, and proceeded to hum the ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... I do? I don't believe there is a mountain on the face of the globe lofty enough to lift its head above that flood. Hum, hum! It's no use thinking about mountains! The flood will be six miles deep—six miles from the present sea-level; my last calculation proves it beyond all question. And that's only a minimum—it may be miles deeper, for no mortal ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... descending, leaving, as I felt rather than saw, the stark horror of the gorge and its glimmering snow patches above me. Puffs of a warmer air purred past my face with little friendly sighs of welcome, and the hum of a far-off torrent struck like a wedge into the indurated fibre of the night. As I dropped, however, the mountain heads grew up against the moon, and withheld the comfort of her radiance; and it was not until the whimper ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... dandelion, the buttercup, the dog-daisy, the wild rose, the raspberry and the strawberry spring up in lavish abundance, by every brook, on every hillock, on every mountain-slope; then hundreds of insects hum in the grass as in a tropical land; then cows, horses, and sheep are driven up the hills and the mountain-sides, while the Fin from the highlands comes down into the valley with his reindeer and waters them in the river; then the cloudberry moors lie reddening for many a mile inland; ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... crust of bread. Jason Philip got up, clasped his hands behind his back, and began to walk back and forth. Just then Rieke came in and began to clear off the table. She went about her business in a slow but noisy fashion. She made things rattle, even if she could not make them hum. When she was through, Jason Philip, his hands pressed to his hips, his elbows ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... father's right hand, and the greatest comfort of his mother's life; and that is saying a great deal, isn't it? When he came in Alice found something to do at her mother's couch, and her seat in the window did not long remain unoccupied. There was quite a hum of conversation in the room, and then when candles were brought in, and the curtains drawn, Miss Keane said with ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... a long, hot, sleepy day, when one has stood about under the trees? I used to have a particular tree I always went and leaned against. It just fitted my side, and I wore the trunk quite smooth. And there I stood all the long, hot day, with sound of the rich forest life in my ears, the buzz and hum of the myriad things that fly and swarm, and the dense leaves kept off the sun; it was dark and hot. Then, when evening came, and it grew a little cooler, we used to join together, all of us who belonged to the same herd, and go down to the water. Then what romping and splashing, what trumpeting ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... comparison: a snug little room, with a table of green baize in the centre of the floor, and about the table sundry folks of various ages and degrees, before each a heap of glittering coins, and in the midst of all a something which moves forever, with a hurtle and a hum—the roulette. ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... she know'd nuffin' more, till byme-by, when she come to, and fine big Sam dar, and he struck har agin, and make har gwo ter de work; and she did gwo, but she feel like as ef she'd die. I toled har de good ma'am wudn't leff big Sam 'buse har no more 'fore you cum hum, and dat you'd hab 'passion on har, and not leff har gwo out in de woods, but put har 'mong de nusses, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... song somewhere. As the wine waggon creaks down the hill, the waggoner will chant to the corn that grows upon either side of him. As the miller's mules cross the bridge, the lad as he cracks his whip will hum to the blowing alders. In the red clover, the labourers will whet their scythes to a trick of melody. In the quiet evenings a Kyrie Eleison will rise from the thick leaves that hide a village chapel. On the hills the goatherd, high in air amongst the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... a plan was rapidly forming. He looked through the trees in every direction. No one was in sight. From the slope below came the hum of the camp, ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... window at the head of the stairs remained open as they had left it; and through it a ceaseless hum, as of a hive of bees swarming, poured in from the night, and told of multitudes astir. The alarm-bell had ceased to ring, the wilder sounds of conflict had died down; in the parts about the Tertasse the combat appeared to be at an end. But this might be either because resistance ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... whiskers, and a refined organisation of the whole man. He used to array himself in his regimentals, and saunter about like an officer of the Coldstream Guards, strolling down to his club in St. James's. Every time he passed me, he would heave a sentimental sigh, and hum to himself "The girl I left behind me." This fine corporal afterward became a representative in the Legislature of the State of New Jersey; for I saw his name returned about a ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... he managed to call to his chum before they once more straightened out, and again allowed the motor to send forth its loud hum. ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... no sweet Penelope somewhere that's longing much for me, But I can smell the blundering sea, and hear the rigging hum; And I can hear the whispering lips that fly before the out-bound ships, And I can hear the breakers on ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Federico was again conducted for some distance on foot. He knew that he was still in Madrid, for he walked over pavement, and in spite of the thick cloth that impeded his hearing, he could distinguish the distant sound of carriages and hum of life. Presently a door creaked, and he apparently entered a garden, for there was a smell of flowers and a rustling of leaves; then he ascended a staircase, and was conducted through cool lofty apartments, and through doors which seemed to open and shut of themselves. Suddenly his companion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving: Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure but what you're totally feminine and that ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... thunder-storm, and torrents of rain, in the night, but then the sky was perfectly cloudless; that thin transparent haze, which in England sobers without obscuring the brightness of a hot sunny day, hung lightly on the horizon; the lights and shades played in the stream below, and the busy hum of insects was the only sound that reached my ears. The rose of May, and the slender jessamine, twined round the pilasters, near which I stood. They were giving out all their sweetness, and seemed to be rearing their graceful heads again, after the storm that ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the protective function, for a visitor strolling, sitting, talking, reading, that of a nurse of reverie. The air of the place, in the August time, thrilled all the while with the bliss of birds, the hum of little lives unseen and the flicker of white butterflies. It was on the large flat enclosed lawn that Nanda spoke to Vanderbank of the three weeks she would have completed there on the morrow—weeks that had been—she made no secret of it—the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... eternal hunger of corruption. Through sunshine and rain, through the long days of summer, through the long nights of winter, for ever, for ever, Baby lies silent and dreamless under that waving grass. The bee will hum overhead for evermore, and the swallow glance among the cypress. The butterfly will flutter for ages and ages among the rank flowers—Baby will still lie there. Come away, come away; your cheeks are pale; it cannot be, we cannot believe it, we must not remember it; other Baby ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... cost half so much as my plain pale-gray. Althea devoted herself to the Philosopher—she and the Skeptic had never got on very well. Meanwhile the Skeptic was saying things into my ear, under cover of the orchestra and the loud hum of talk. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... their way through the wood. The air grew colder and colder, till their hands and faces tingled with the frost. Silence fell upon them, and for some time nothing could be heard but the occasional clash of steel and the continual creaking of snow and breaking of dead branches under foot. Then a hum of voices came to them fitfully, and at last the path ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... bonnie knowes, sae yellow a', Where aft is heard the hum of bee, The meadow green, and breezy hill, Where lambkins sport sae merrilie, May charm the weary, wand'rin' swain, When e'enin' sun dips in the sea, But a' my heart, baith e'en and morn, Is ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to-day. I start operations in Grey Town this afternoon. Did it ever strike you that this place needs stirring up? It's been sleeping ever since it was born. I have come here to make things hum, I tell ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... promoting by whatever means the national glory." Yes, indeed, whether the means were fair or foul. Of course it was a common enough policy, but it was lying and cheating all the same. "Nao foi sem duvida por ma fe ou perfidia que tacitamente se mandon armar hum navio a cujo capitao se confiou o plano que Colombo havia proposto, e cuja execucao se lhe encarregou; mas sim por seguir a politica naquelle tempo usada, que toda consistia em olhar com desconfianca para tudo o que ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... this college were two very wise Chinese philosophers—by name Hum-Drum, and Kopy-Keck. For them the king sent; and straightway they came. In a long speech he communicated to them what they knew very well already—as who did not?—namely, the peculiar condition of his daughter in relation ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... It seemed to Helen, oblivious to all else, that she heard amid the thunder of the cannon other and varying notes. There was a faint but shrill incessant sound like the hum of millions of bees flying swiftly, and another, a regular but heavier noise, was surely the tread of charging horsemen. The battle was rolling a step nearer to them, and she began to see, low down under the pall of smoke, flashes of fire like swift strokes of lightning. Then it rolled another step ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Looky here, one fine fox, and, would ye believe it, actually a mink, boy! That ere pelt orter bring me a twenty, all right. That's why I'm so tickled, ye see. This shore must be one o' my lucky days. Make yerself to hum. Come to take a snack o' dinner along with me, ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking when charity was like a top. It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, 'When it begins to hum.' There are temperaments of a refined suspiciousness to which, when the plea of reform is urged, the claims of suffering humanity at once begin to hum. The very word reform irritates a peculiar kind of sensibility, as a ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... lengthened period, during my early years, I studied the rudiments of education; and what a host of almost forgotten memories of the past came thronging back upon my mind, as I stood alone—in that well remembered room. I seemed again to hear the hum of youthful voices as they learned or recited their daily tasks, and, as memory recalled the years that had passed since we used there to assemble, I could not avoid saying mentally: "My schoolmates, where are they?" Even that thought called to mind an amusing story related by a much loved companion ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... when Nancy, who had left the officer at the door, stated the case to him—"hum-m-m! thus it is that intercourse with the world's people defileth the chosen. Still, I may as well help thee out o' the pother. Hum-m-m! I suppose my small-clothes would hardly be large enough, would they?" and he looked down at his ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... panic five baby wrens took flight in five different directions. The cause of the disturbance rose, with a look of discomfiture on her face, as if she had been caught robbing a nest. She seemed so dismayed that I laughed, while those wrenlings made the air fairly hum about her head. ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... establishment; but having spent a single day in it, she had protested against its laws and had been allowed to stay at home, where, in the September days, when the windows of the Dutch House were open, she used to hear the hum of childish voices repeating the multiplication table—an incident in which the elation of liberty and the pain of exclusion were indistinguishably mingled. The foundation of her knowledge was really laid in the idleness of her ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... the two baskets, lying in the bottom of the vinta, a frown puckered her brow. A dull hum, like a caged wind protesting in faint whispers, rose from them. Gradually a smile broke over her face, and she ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... fellow-passengers. Now and then one would bend forward and whisper to his neighbour, who answered with a grunt or a motion of his head; but for the most part, and for mile after mile, we all sat silent, listening only to the horses' gallop, the chime of the swingle-bars, the hum of the night wind in our ears. The motion and the strong breeze together lulled me little by little into a doze. My neighbour on the right wore around his shoulders a woollen shawl, against which after a while I found my cheek resting, and begged his pardon. ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the hardy American emigrant, trader, adventurer, and home-seeker penetrated the wilderness, and, building better than they knew, laid the foundations of populous and thriving States. Peaceful farms and noble cities, towns and villages, thrilling with the hum of modern industry and activity, are spread over the vast spaces through which the explorers threaded their toilsome trail, amid incredible privations and hardships, showing the way westward across the boundless continent which is ours. Let the names of those two men long be held in ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... than the noise of mowing-machine hum, as the machines which make it are more delicate and more curious. Madam How is a very skilful workwoman, and has eyes which see deeper and clearer than all microscopes; as you would find, if you tried to see what makes that "Midsummer hum" of which the haymakers are so ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... Mary Leonard, after she had dismissed the driver with orders to call for them later in the day. They walked on over the crisp dry grass, and seated themselves on a bit of the fallen masonry. The reaches of the placid river lay before them, and the hum of the alert cricket was in their ears. Now and then a bird flew surreptitiously from one bush to another, with the stealthy, swift motion of flight in autumn, so different from the heedless, fluttering, hither-and-yon vagaries of the spring and ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... I in a place where the resounding of the water that was falling into the next circle was heard, like that hum which the beehives make, when three shades together separated themselves, running, from a troop that was passing under the rain of the bitter torment. They came toward us, and each cried out, "Stop thou, that by thy garb seemest to us to be ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... habits and tastes. Whenever he experienced any vexation, or when any unpleasant thought occupied his mind, he would hum something which was far from resembling a tune, for his voice was very unmusical. He would, at the same time, seat himself before the writing-table, and swing back in his chair so far that I have often ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat—lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars, as he walks on a First Day loafe, and looks at the oats and rye, The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum, a confirmed case, He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bedroom; The jour printer with gray ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum, as if a vast hive of bees ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... "Yoh — hum, but I'm sleepy," he murmured drowsily. A moment more and his head had drooped to one side and Tad Butler was sleeping as soundly as if tucked away between his own blankets back in his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... the humor for it, Nicanor could work very well indeed, as he had shown. But more often than not he was sadly out of humor; and liked nothing so much as to slip away from the hum and drone of the wheels and the smell of bone and oil, and wander out of the quiet church precinct down to the busy life at the fords. Here was unending amusement; all day long he would watch the going and the coming, listen to the uproar of traffic, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... streams took their beginning in the glens of Gruenewald, turning mills for the inhabitants. There was one town, Mittwalden, and many brown, wooden hamlets, climbing roof above roof, along the steep bottom of dells, and communicating by covered bridges over the larger of the torrents. The hum of watermills, the splash of running water, the clean odour of pine sawdust, the sound and smell of the pleasant wind among the innumerable army of the mountain pines, the dropping fire of huntsmen, the dull stroke of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of guile in this matter. Though in one sense a woman of the world, it was, after all, that world of daylight coteries and green carpets wherein cattle form the passing crowd and winds the busy hum; where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on the other side of your party-wall, where your neighbour is everybody in the tything, and where calculation is confined to market-days. Of the fabricated tastes of good fashionable society she knew but little, and of the formulated self-indulgence ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... sweet-voiced panegyrists and bards, the king proceeded towards the city called after the elephant. The progress, O mighty-armed one, of king Yudhishthira, became so beautiful that its like had never been on earth. Teeming with healthy and cheerful men, the busy hum of innumerable voices was heard there. During the progress of Pritha's son, the city and its streets were adorned with gay citizens (all of whom had come out for honouring the king). The spot through which the king passed had been decked with festoons of flowers and innumerable banners. The streets ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... sward round it, was like an oasis of green in a desert. And, there, wild flowers, whose chill hues the eye would have scarcely distinguished the day before, now glittered forth in blooms of unfamiliar beauty. Toward that spot were attracted myriads of happy insects, whose hum of intense joy was musically loud. But the form of the life-seeking sorcerer lay rigid and stark; blind to the bloom of the wild flowers, deaf to the glee of the insects—one hand still resting heavily ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... all such as can pay, For the Summer-green country are up and away; But what of the poor pale-faced waifs of the slums? Oh, the butterfly flits, and the honey-bee hums O'er the holt and the heather, the hill and the plain, But they flit and they hum for Town's children in vain; Unless—ah! unless—there is hope in that word!— Mrs. JEUNE'S kindly plea by the Public is heard. Heard? Everyone feels 'tis a duty to listen. The eyes of the children will sparkle and glisten, In hope of the beauty, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... meantime, there he sits, not with his feet in the window or on a chair—he is a gentleman, I said, a Boston gentleman—the flower of a gracile ancestry. In the lazy, hazy air is the hum of autumn birds and beetles—the hectic beauty of the dying year is over all. The hum seems to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... under the cypresses of the 'Ladders of the Dead;' those cypresses which overshadow innumerable tombs of Mussulmans, and descend from the heights of Pera to the shores of the sea. No one ever passes at that hour: you would suppose yourself an hundred miles from the capital, if a confused hum, wafted by the wind, was not occasionally heard, which speedily died away among the branches of the cypress. These sounds weakened by distance; the songs of the sailors in the vessels; the stroke of the oars in the water; the drums of the military bands in the barracks; the songs of the women ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... thunder in the distance. The storm, however, does not pass over Rochester, but further on we find traces of it where the roadways have been washed up. Afterwards the air becomes deliciously cool, and that hum of all Nature which succeeds the quiet preceding the storm is distinctly perceptible. Crossing Rochester Bridge, keeping to the right along Strood and Frindsbury—the churchyard of which affords a splendid view of Rochester, Chatham, and the Medway—passing ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... Sleepless, I carved on the walls fantastic figures in mazy bewildering lines—winged horses, flowers with human faces, women with limbs like serpents. No passage was left anywhere through which could enter the song of birds, the murmur of leaves or hum of the busy village. The only sound that echoed in its dark dome was that of incantations which I chanted. My mind became keen and still like a pointed flame, my senses swooned in ecstasy. I knew not how time passed till the thunderstone had struck the temple, ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... hours, with the slow, strong pulse of life beating round me, it seems that something is preparing for one struck dumb and crushed with sorrow to the earth. How soft a thrill of hope throbs in the summer air! How the bird-voices in the thicket, and the rustle of burnished leaves, and the hum of insects, blend into a secret harmony, a cadence half-heard! I wait in love and confidence; and through the trees of the garden One seems ever to draw nearer, walking in the cool of the day, at whose bright coming the flowers ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bubble of Dignity, she had likewise a modest estimate of her dues. Alack, my poor heroine had no pride! Mrs. Ford's silent censure awakened no resentment. It sounded in her ears like a dull, soporific hum. Lizzie was deeply enamored of what a French book terms her aises intellectuelles. Her mental comfort lay in the ignoring of problems. She possessed a certain native insight which revealed many of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... but he feared that the jury had been made doubtful. It was evident to him that the Judge had a bad opinion of Dumeny, and had conveyed his opinion to the jury. Was the unwisdom of Mrs. Clarke to prove her undoing? Esme Darlington was pulling his ducal beard almost nervously. A faint hum went through the densely packed court. Mrs. Chetwinde moved and used her fan for a moment. Dion did not dare to look at Guy Daventry. He was realizing, with a sort of painful sharpness, how great a change a verdict against Mrs. Clarke must make in ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... "Huh! Huh—hum—m—m! Writes me on Monday from Sacramento that he's busted, an' to send him a money order to San Francisco, General Delivery. Letter postmarked ten thirty A. M. Then he wires me from Stockton, the same day, to disregard letter an' telegraph him fifty at Stockton. Telegram ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... produced by the European species is a sort of drumming or whizzing note, like the hum of a spinning-wheel. The male commences this performance about dusk, and continues it at intervals during a great part of the night. It is effected while the breast is inflated with air, like that of a cooing Dove. The Piramidig has the power of inflating himself in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... bearers were obeying the surgeon's order and were taking a rest. The officers and sisters in the theatre were in high spirits. They were trying to speak French and ridiculing each other's efforts. Captain Wycherley began to hum a tune and wave his amputation knife like the conductor of an orchestra, whereupon the others locked arms and danced up and down the theatre, talking and joking. Then Captain Calthrop broke away and danced ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... Hum he calls, that Count Rollanz; "A thousand Franks take, out of France our land; Dispose them so, among ravines and crags, That the Emperour lose not a single man." Gualter replies: "I'll do as you command." A thousand Franks, come out of France their land, At Gualter's word they scour ravines ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... world—that is to say, her world. The usual throng of men of fashion, guardsmen, literary men, and budding politicians were bending over the chairs of their feminine acquaintances, or standing about in little groups talking amongst themselves. The clatter of teacups was mingled with the soft hum of voices; the pleasantly shaded room was heavy with the perfume of many flowers. People said that Lady Meltoun was the only woman in London who knew how to keep her rooms cool. It was hard to believe that outside the streets and pavements were ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... who didn't believe in God, and Heaven, and such things—you know what I mean,—the man who didn't believe anything, and wrote about it? Let me see it. I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it." Carol turned the pages with critical disapproving eyes. "Hum, yes, I know about this." She faced Connie sternly. "I suppose you think, Connie, that since we're out of a parsonage we can do anything we like. Haven't we any standards? Haven't we any ideals? Are we—are we—well, anyhow, what business ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... when Scott came upon the three dead men whose mutilated bodies had been dragged from the scene by the section men and who lay with covered faces side by side under a little plum-tree, fragrant with blossoms and alive with the hum of bees. The sunshine and the beauty of the spot contrasted strangely with the revolting spectacle upon ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... shed, which extended beyond the illimitable range of the Angel's eye, machinery and tongues were engaged in a contest which filled the ozone with an incomparable hum. Men and women in profusion were leaning against walls or the pillars on which the great roof was supported, assiduously pressing buttons. The scent of expanding food revived ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... excited. Games of all kinds that have a tendency to make him nervous must be avoided. The same caution applies to exciting literature. In short, a patient with organic heart disease must be a drone in the hum of this busy, fast-rushing life, if he would hope to keep the spark of life for many years. Sleep, rest and quiet is a better motto for ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... it rolls,—not only the great globe itself, but the life which stirs and hums on its surface, enveloping it like an atmosphere;—on it rolls; and the vastest tumult that may take place among its inhabitants can no more make itself seen and heard above the general stir and hum of life, than Chimborazo or the loftiest Himalaya can lift its peak into space above the atmosphere. On, on it rolls; and the strong arm of the united race could not turn from its course one planetary mote of the myriads that ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... I know, to oblivion may doom the fruits of my talented brain, But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine: They'll appreciate there my illustrious work on the way to make Pindar to scan, And Culture will hum in the State of New York when I read it ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... in the quarter they had entered was still and solemn; only afar came the mingled hum, or the sudden shout of the pandemonium in the rear, mellowed by distance to a not unpleasing sound. An occasional soldier, crossing their path, stalked silently and stealthily to some neighbouring tent, and seemed scarcely to regard ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... calamitous, So frequent were the groans by Atreus' son Heaved from his inmost heart, trembling with dread. 10 For cast he but his eye toward the plain Of Ilium, there, astonish'd he beheld The city fronted with bright fires, and heard Pipes, and recorders, and the hum of war; But when again the Grecian fleet he view'd, 15 And thought on his own people, then his hair Uprooted elevating to the Gods, He from his generous bosom groan'd again. At length he thus resolved; ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... our cheer, and have all been flattering ourselves with the thoughts of home, I'm ready to take any bet Duff likes to make that we shall not be in England this day six weeks, or two months, if he likes, for I believe, after all, it's a hum of his; and I propose we cob him as a punishment for deceiving his Majesty's liege subjects and gallant ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... who has not read in the author's notes to Guy Mannering, Sir Walter's account of the visit to Mump's Ha' of Fighting Charlie of Liddesdale, and what befell him thereafter? In spite of a head that the potations pressed on him by an over-kind landlady had caused to hum like an angry hive of bees, Charlie had sense enough, after he had travelled a few miles on his homeward way, to examine his pistols. Finding that the charges had been drawn and tow substituted, Charlie, now considerably sobered, carefully reloaded ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... a place which might be in the hands of an enemy. Her boat was tied at the dock. She had the half-ruined distillery yet to pass. It had stood under the cliff her lifetime. As she drew nearer, cracks of light and a hum like the droning of a beehive magically turned the old distillery into ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... I'll believe; and, to speak my mind plainly, I believe that you are an arrant, bamboozling hum-bug!" cried Tom. "No ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... of contemplated abasement, he waded round the car, satisfying himself that there was nothing else out of gear; and apprehensively cranked up. Whereupon the motor began to hum contentedly: all was well. Flushed with this success, Maitland climbed aboard and opened the throttle a trifle. The car moved. And then, with a swish, a gurgle, and a watery whoosh! it surged forward, up, out of the river, gallantly ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... "it was simply a chaos of noise and confusion. Of what was going on I knew nothing. The din was appalling. The roar of the shells, the hum of grape and canister, the whistle of bullets, the shouts of men, formed a mighty roar that seemed to render thinking impossible. Showers of leaves fell incessantly, great boughs of trees were shorn away, and trees themselves sometimes ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... will dress it, with collodion so that you can't even see that it's hurt.... Crazy! Hum! That's funny!" And he left by the door to the promenade deck, with a merry laugh which showed how the nervous strain had lightened, after all these solitary, ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... The very first night, they were guilty of a fatal imprudence. The banks of both these streams are low and covered with reeds; the soil a red clay mixed with sand; and the surrounding country is covered with forests of high trees and jungle. Not a hum of a single mosquito was to be heard. Every circumstance combined to create an atmosphere fatal to animal life, and the consequence of the unaccountable disregard of all precaution on the part of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... young man—well, he is a good soldier—has fought a lot against Napoleon, and will fight again. To look at?—Oh, he is big and round and rosy, with yellow moustaches and cheeks like apples, nice plump red apples. He goes 'Hum-hem-hum' in his throat when he speaks to me, and he always kisses my hand. Generally he calls me 'Most Noble Lady,' and then I wonder how many hundred yards I could give him and beat him in a mile race along the sands. I daresay he would be quite nice ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... string for my fiddle, And call to the neighbours to come, And partners shall dance down the middle Until the old pewter-wares hum: And we'll sip the ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... experimental, to a more perfect stage of co-operative life, a marvelous change for the better is noted. New factories have been built, new industries instituted, and organized. The busy hum of industrial prosperity, everywhere claims attention. Meanwhile, the demands for a better esthetic culture, have not been neglected. The interiors of both factory and workshop, have been made additionally attractive, by a more artistic, educative class ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... But don't try to talk while it's in your mouth. I've had patients who've bitten it in two. There—that's enough. (Extracts it deftly from patient's mouth and examines it.) Hum, hum, yes. A point below normal. Nothing violently wrong there. (He now performs the usual rites and mysteries.) I'll make you out a little prescription which ought to put you all right. And if you can spare a week, and spend it at Eastbourne, I don't think ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... sunshine, now fading away like a dream into the violet vapor bands that mantled the horizon. The weather would have been oppressively sultry but for the gentle breeze which constantly drifted landward with coolness in its wings. The hum of the old town came to her ear softened by distance and mingled with the patter of the fountain and the music of birds singing in the trees overhead. Agnes tried to busy herself with her spinning; but her mind constantly wandered away, and stirred and undulated with a thousand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... to the gravel and lay there. He uttered no sound. The wind had died down and save for the droning hum of a billion mosquitoes the silence was absolute. A thin column of smoke streamed from the bowl of the neglected pipe. In profound fascination Wentworth watched it flow smoothly upward. An imperceptible air current set the column swaying and wavering, and a light puff of breeze dispersed it in ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... opened and closed, a glare of light showed her a crowded room; a monotonous hum like the swell of the sea fell on her ear; then stifled ejaculations, to which succeeded a sudden, deathlike hush. The officer placed a chair for her in front of the platform where the magistrate sat, and retired to the rear of the room. With some ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Rickerl's horse from the stables; there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!" And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing, incredulous, half-whispered, ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... haste to do so, but heard in silence the hum of insects and the distant song of one bird. Then Sunday spoke, but so dreamily that he might have been continuing a conversation ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... him a long good-by. It was the summer time, and he remembers that the old elm under which he sat was just in the fullness and glory of its foliage; the hour, too, is distinctly in his memory; the dreary and sad twilight, and the breeze's soft play over the waving grass, and the hum of the insects, and the murmur of the city's noise that came pleasantly from the distance, like the moving of far-off waters. Oh! these things can never die out of his remembrance. How can they! Doesn't he cherish them religiously, coming always at the vesper ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... going on with her work, sent her a smile and loving look, that said just as plainly as words could speak it, "You're trying hard, Polly, my girl, and Mother knows it." So Polly began to hum at her task, and presently the kitchen became the very cheeriest place possible. What they would have done if any of them had happened to spy out what was on the upper shelf of the cupboard, covered carefully with a clean old towel, cannot ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... hour had come, Yet came, mo stor, in vain, And left thee but the wailing hum Of sorrow and of pain. My light of life, my lonely love, Thy portion sure must be, Man's scorn below, God's wrath above ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... of Mr. Dombey; a stout gentleman, with a tendency to whistle and hum airs at inopportune moments. Mr. Chick is somewhat henpecked; but in the matrimonial squalls, though apparently beaten, he not unfrequently rises up the superior and gets his ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... adjoining rooms. The play chosen was "The Caprice." Henri, who revealed rare talent, took the part of the husband; Noemi of the neglected wife. The curtain fell upon enthusiastic applause, and Madame Bourjot, who had feared that her daughter would be a fiasco, was delighted with her success. Amid the hum of voices she heard the lady sitting next to her say to her neighbour, "His sister, I know ... but for the part he is not sufficiently in love with her ... and too much with his wife. Did you notice?" she ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... stand still, and it obeyed him!" There was a low hum of applause in the schoolroom, a triumphant expression on McSnagley's face, a grave shadow on the master's, and a comical look of disappointment reflected from the windows. Mliss skimmed rapidly over her astronomy, and then shut the book with a ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... we can be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... calling of domestic animals, and of busy housewives at their duties, carried on half out of doors, in the homeliness of country custom. Presently the instrument began to tell the gathering of a crowd, with bee-like hum, and the crossing of voice with voice—but, at a distance, the sounds confused and obscure. Swiftly then they seemed to rush together, to blend and lose themselves in the unity of an imploring melody, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... continued forest of pine we were accustomed to in the route from York Factory. On the 14th of October we reached the settlement, consisting of a number of huts widely scattered along the margin of the river; in vain did I look for a cluster of cottages, where the hum of a small population at least might be heard as in a village. I saw but few marks of human industry in the cultivation of the soil. Almost every inhabitant we passed bore a gun upon his shoulder and all appeared in a wild and hunter-like state. The colonists ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... in his. From somewhere about the garments of one of them a little cloud of faded rose-leaves fell, and lay strewn on the floor behind them. He opened the door, and the lights shone on a multitude of eager faces turned toward it. There was a great hum of voices, and, over all, the fiddles wove a wandering air, a sweet French song of ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... mornings for more than a year, but not until the gasolineless Sabbaths supervened were we really able to examine the village and see what it is like. Previously we had been kept busy either dodging motors or admiring them as they sped by. Their rich dazzle of burnished enamel, the purring hum of their great tires, evokes applause from the Urchin. He is learning, as he watches those flashing chariots, that life truly is almost as vivid as the advertisements in the Ladies' Home Journal, where the shimmer of earthly pageant ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the familiar glance! It was all too good to be true. He was blind to the presence of Ramsey. He was alone with her; Ramsey did not exist; the restaurant did not exist. The hum of voices, the clatter of plates, the movements of the waiters, were distant sounds: all he knew was that he ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... and banging of the typewriters, and the hum of voices ceased. Everywhere heads were raised and eyes turned curiously upon ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... was as clean as any down quilt in chambers of the rich. I remember so well how a single ray of sunlight fell on the floor from the little window in the roof, just on the foot that kept turning the spinning-wheel. Its hum sounded sleepy in my ears. I gazed at the sloping ray of light, in which the ceaseless rotation of the swift wheel kept the motes dancing most busily, until at length to my half-closed eyes it became ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... clear that she was going to make a struggle for her life, and to do vicious damage, it might be, before she yielded it up. The watchers behind the arrow-slits recognized this. Their wagers, and the hum of their appreciation, swept loudly round the ring of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... chimney; steam issued from every ill-fitted valve and crevice of the engine. Fulton himself was there. His remarkably clear and sharp voice was heard high above the hum of the multitude and the noise of the engine, his step was confident and decided; he heeded not the fearfulness, doubts or sarcasm of those by whom he was surrounded. The whole scene combined had ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... It was roaring and whistling a minute ago, but now it is not so loud. It grows fainter still, till its sound is no more a roar or a whistle, but only the lightest humming of a wind, and to me all the wind seems gone now and it is the hum of whirling spinning wheels that I hear. And what I see is a room where a dozen girls sit spinning and singing songs about their wheels and about their lovers. But one among them does not spin. She lets her wheel stand idle and only sits and looks at a picture that hangs ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... and sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods, with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine. And all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and how conducive to amiable discussion and the acceleration of friendship. ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... a grip on the tune. He could whistle it and hum it quite correctly after he had heard it six or seven times. But to reproduce it on the cornet required practise, and the weather was remarkably calm and fine. Kerrigan, in spite of his dislike of being heard, was obliged to devote the evening to it after the ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... and the hum of bees, And the breath of flowers, are on the breeze; The purple plum and the cone-like pear, Drooping, hang in ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... a very eloquent acknowledgment of the honour and satisfaction he received from the visit of the representative, and the hospitality of his constituents. The captain's peculiarities were not confined to his external appearance; for his voice resembled the sound of a bassoon, or the aggregate hum of a whole bee-hive, and his discourse was almost nothing else than a series of quotations from the English poets, interlarded with French phrases, which he retained for their significance, on the recommendation ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... effect seemed finer than that of the most skilfully touched organ. Occasionally an irascible humble-bee would dart in, and, after a moment of motionless poise, would dart out again, as if in angry disdain of the quiet people. In its irate hum and sudden dartings I saw my own irritable fuming and nervous activity, and I blessed the Friends and their silent meeting. I blessed the fair June face, that was as far removed from the seething turmoil of my world as ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... rises, 'midst the twilight path Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum: Now teach me, maid composed, To breathe ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum. Now teach me, maid compos'd, To breathe some ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... jolted in a farmer's wagon,—all this without volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping the thoughts in motion, as the mere act of carrying certain watches in the pocket keeps them wound up,—many times, I say, just as my brain was beginning to creep and hum with this delicious locomotive intoxication, some dear detestable friend, cordial, intelligent, social, radiant, has come up and sat down by me and opened a conversation which has broken my day-dream, unharnessed the flying horses that were ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... haven't had much results as yet," said the tramp. "But now things is goin' to hum. The Bishop and his whole gang's coming over ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... and the great boat forged ahead with scarcely any motion, so that every seat was occupied and every one in good spirits. There was a hum of talk and rattle of dishes; the white-coated stewards scuttled back and forth, and the scene was as pleasant as the wholesale human consumption ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... for the queen of night Is throned on high in her beauty bright: 'Tis now the silent hour of even, When all is still in earth an' heaven; The cold flowers which the valleys strew Are sparking bright wi' pearly dew, And hush'd is e'en the bee's soft hum, Then come with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... on his first cross-country flight, need not be troubled by such intricacies. He is flying, one assumes, on a fine day, with the land spread clearly below him. So as he moves through the air, listening always to the hum of his motor, he need have no fear, granted that his observation is ordinarily ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... sound. Could it be the rain? No. It was much more gentle, and even monotonous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The low sweet humming sound went on, sometimes stopping for a little while and then beginning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee that had found a rich well of honey in some globular flower, than anything else I can think of at this moment. Where could it come from? She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was there—then to another. When ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... with glass; the April air was mild; the cry of women selling violets came in from the street and, mingling with the rich hum of Paris, seemed to bring with it faintly the odour of the flowers. There were other odours in the place, warm succulent and Parisian, which ranged from fried fish to burnt sugar; and there were many things besides: little tables for the post-prandial coffee; piles of luggage inscribed (after ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... high above me, and the shadows of the tree-branches danced on my face. I looked up at the sky, with halfclosed eyes to bear the dazzling light. Bees buzzed over me, sometimes a butterfly passed, there was a hum in the air, greenfinches sang in the hedge. Gradually entering into the intense life of the summer days—a life which burned around as if every grass blade and leaf were a torch—I came to feel the longdrawn life of the earth back into the dimmest past, while the sun of the ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... from behind. The hum of bullets could be heard overhead, and there was the sound of splintering wood, as others crashed into the rear of the auto, but the ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... But it was terribly hard waiting. He did not know what was before him. Torture or death? Both, most likely. He tried to be resigned, but how could one be resigned when one was so young and so strong? The hum of the village life came to him, the sound of voices, the tread of feet, the twang of a boyish bowstring, but the guard in the doorway never stirred. It seemed to Dick that the Sioux, who wore very little clothing, was carved out of reddish-brown ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... o'clock in the morning between D'Artagnan and Aramis. At ten o'clock precisely, Porthos had fallen asleep in his chair and snored like an organ. At midnight he woke up and they sent him to bed. "Hum!" said he, "I was near falling asleep; but that was all very ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had leased an expensive suite at an apartment hotel near the Fabians, and much to little Mr. Alexander's joy, although much to Mrs. Alexander's disgust, they settled down to a hum-drum life that winter. She sighed as ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... awake became harder and harder. In vain he sat erect, resolved not to yield. The moment afterwards his head inclined to one side; the lights began to swim before his eyes; the voice of the preacher subsided into a low and undistinguishable hum. Paul's head sank upon the cushion, his bundle, which had been his constant companion during the day, fell softly to the floor, and he fell into ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... window, seeking a breath of air that hot summer's night, though indeed there was none to be found; and if there had been, it could not have cooled the brow's inward fever. The Park lay before him, dark and misty; the lights of the few vehicles passing gleamed now and again; the hum of life was dying out in the streets, men's free steps, careless voices. He looked down, and wondered whether any one of those men knew what care meant as he knew it; whether the awful skeleton, that ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... that Mrs. Howells's didn't go correspondingly down, under the added burden to her cares and responsibilities. Of course I didn't expect to get through without committing some crimes and hearing of them afterwards, so I have taken the inevitable lashings and been able to hum a tune while the punishment went on. I "caught it" for letting Mrs. Howells bother and bother about her coffee when it was "a good deal better than we get at home." I "caught it" for interrupting Mrs. C. at the last moment and losing her the opportunity to urge you not to forget ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and gazed round at the strange-looking walls and mysterious pictures, and up to the chandelier at the ceiling; then rose, and opened the door, and looked down the lighted passage; but only heard the hum from the roomful below, scattered voices, and a hushed ivory rattling from the closed apartments adjoining. I stepped back into the room, and a terrible revulsion came over me: I would have given the world had I been safe back in Liverpool, fast asleep ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Catogan, jacket with scarlet facings, gold-banded hat, huge boots, and all the other appurtenances which one saw during long years on the stage in Adolphe Adam's sprightly but "impossible" opera-comique "Le Postillon de Longjumeau." For an instant, indeed, I felt inclined to hum the famous refrain, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, qu'il etait beau"—but many National Guards and others regarded the equipage with great suspicion, particularly as it was occupied by on individual in semi-military attire. Quite a number ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... the panels apart, and stepped out upon the narrow balcony. Below me lay the street, the lanterns of the passers-by flitting like fireflies through the dark; and from it stole up to me the hum of pleasure life, a perfume of sound, strangely distinct in the ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... multitude, he need not, Asmodeus-like, have unroofed the houses to read the history of human life or the passions of the human heart, for life and passion had gone forth that night from many a tranquil abode to revel in publicity. One so standing above the wild hum of tumultuous enjoyment would in silent thought have marveled at the strange drama performing as it were at his feet,—the sad and fearful mixture of the shadows and lights of life and death, the market-place, and close at hand the burial-ground. Talk of contemplation ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... Quiescence. In order fully to lay open the unconscious to the influence of suggested ideas, the surface mind must be called in from its responses to the outer world, or in religious language recollected, till the hum of that world is hardly perceived by it. The body must be relaxed, making no demands on the machinery controlling the motor system; and the conditions in general must be those of complete mental and bodily rest. ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... back again to his chair and fell into reverie. The tones of the old music box were sweet, like the swelling of rich bells. They pealed through the white corridor "Old Kentucky Home." Every weary wanderer began to hum the air. When the chorus came, one, in a low sweet tenor, sang ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... affair as a mere mercantile speculation, but could he trace out the results he effects in their remotest ramifications he would stand astonished at the changes he produces. With the wizard wand of commerce he touches a lone and trackless forest, and at his bidding cities arise, and the hum and dust of trade collect, away are swept ancient races; antique laws and customs moulder into oblivion. The strongholds of murder and superstition are cleansed, and the Gospel is preached amongst ignorant and savage men. The ruder languages ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... blows. Odds costards! that mayor is a very tiger! But don't you think it would be wiser not to join this procession? Edward IV., an' he ever come back, has a long memory. He deals at my ware, too,—a good customer at a mercer's; and, Lord! how much money he owes the city!—hum!—I would ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... drive off, and then she and Zara sat down to wait for the coming of the train. They sat on the grass, behind a cabin that had been abandoned, where they could see the track while they themselves were hidden from anyone approaching by the road they had come. And before long the rails began to hum. Then, in the distance, there was ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... proven its superiority to any of the seventeen cars which he at present maintained in his establishment. He had got three of these new cars, and while Montague sat upon the quarter-deck of the Triton and gazed at the magnificent scenery of the river, he had in his ear the monotonous hum of Devon's voice, discussing annular ball-bearings and ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... inhabit the haunted walls as a residence; and bold was the urchin from the High School who dared approach the gloomy ruin at the risk of seeing the Major's enchanted staff parading through the old apartments, or hearing the hum of the necromantic wheel, which procured for his sister such a character as a spinner. At the time I am writing this last fortress of superstitious renown is in the course of being destroyed, in order to the modern improvements ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... deckload and invaded the pilot house. "Gimme that glass, you sock-eyed salmon, you," Gibney ordered Scraggs, and tore the telescope from the owner's hands. "There ain't enough real seamanship in the crew o' this craft to tax the mental make-up of a Chinaman. Hum—m—m! American bark Chesapeake. Starboard anchor out; yards braced a-box; royals an' to'-gallan'-s'ls clewed up; courses hangin' in the buntlines an' clew ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... was fixed up in the cabin of the launch for Dick, and the throb of the heavy engines became a steady hum as the boat turned down the stream, with water and spray curling up from its bow and heavy waves from its propeller breaking with a sullen roar on the banks of the river. Dick's bunk must have been uncomfortable, for very soon he crawled up on deck and, going forward ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... or the leeward side of the deck. Once through the canal and all is changed by magic. The air is hot and languid; the ship's company down to the very scullions appear in immaculate white; the saloon chairs and transoms even are put in white coverings; electric fans hum everywhere; the run on lemon squashes begins; and many quaint and curious ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... the two men got out, and Federico was again conducted for some distance on foot. He knew that he was still in Madrid, for he walked over pavement, and in spite of the thick cloth that impeded his hearing, he could distinguish the distant sound of carriages and hum of life. Presently a door creaked, and he apparently entered a garden, for there was a smell of flowers and a rustling of leaves; then he ascended a staircase, and was conducted through cool lofty apartments, and through doors which seemed to open and shut of themselves. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... of the market now, and the hum of voices came to them, with nasal cries, the whine of praying beggars, and the fierce braying of donkeys. At the end of the small street in which they were Domini saw a wide open space, in the centre of which stood a quantity of pillars supporting a peaked roof. Round the sides of the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his soul ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... Behold, the ethereal autumn days Draw near again! In broad array, With a low, laborious hum These ministers of plenty come, That seem to linger, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... plain, and presently the big engine and dusty cars rolled into the station amid the hoarse tolling of the bell. As they ran slowly past him, Edgar saw a police trooper leaning out from a vestibule, and when the train stopped the constable on the platform hurried toward the car. A hum of excited voices broke out and Edgar had some difficulty in pushing through the growing crowd to reach the steps. A constable, who had hard work to keep the others back, let him pass, and he found Flett standing on the platform above, looking rather jaded, with a pistol ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... could hear the little fellow's heart begin to beat quicker as he found himself at length for the first time in his life inside a public school. The rows of caps in the corridors, the distant hum of voices through half-opened doors, the occasional shout from the playground, and the fleeting vision of a master in cap and gown, all had for him the deepest and most mysterious interest. As he sat waiting in the matron's room while that worthy ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... around Palestine fall, And Jerusalem's streets into darkness are thrown; The late-busy hum of men's voices is hushed, And the city is clad in ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... was something amazingly inspiriting in all this, particularly when coming from the solitude and monotony of a long voyage. [5] The very voice that ye-hoed; the hoarse challenge of the sentinels on the rock; the busy hum of the town—made delicious music to my ear; and I could have stood and leaned over the bulwark for hours, to gaze at the scene. I own no higher interest invested the picture—for I was ignorant of Wolfe. I had never heard of Montcalm— the plains of "Abraham" ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... haying party of twenty—ten men and ten women—at six o'clock in the morning and worked until six at night. I never worked so hard, nor did so much. All day long there was a fire of jokes and jolly gibes, interspersed with song, while beneath all ran a gentle hum of confidential interchange of thought. The man who owned the field was there to direct our efforts and urge us on in well-doing by merry raillery, threat, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... They had heard the tiny bugle-horn, They had heard the twang of the maize-silk string, When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn, And the nettle shaft through air was borne, Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing. And now they deemed the courier-ouphe, Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground; And they watched till they saw him mount the roof That canopies the world around; Then glad they left their covert lair, And freaked about in ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... leave his master and the young ladies to decide; his own opinion, in the meantime, being unhesitatingly, No. Further inquiries, on the part of all the female servants in succession, elicited no additional information of any sort. Thomas could hum none of the songs, and could describe none of the ladies' dresses. His audience, accordingly, gave him up in despair; and the kitchen small-talk flowed back into its ordinary channels, until the clock struck eight and startled the assembled servants into ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... all the way of Nature! There's no use to sob or sigh, 'Cause the chin takes on a wobble And the wrinkles wrap the eye; If we heap our hearts with gladness Life with music still shall hum, Though we reach the Land of Forty And ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... evening in Greenwich Park. He asked me, I suppose, by way of trying my disposition, 'Is not this very fine?' Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of Nature, and being more delighted with 'the busy hum of men,' I answered, 'Yes, Sir; but not equal to Fleet-street.' JOHNSON. 'You ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... sir." Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and then nods at me. "Mrs. Lirriper sir" says the Major going off into a perfect steam and introducing me with his hand. "Pleasure of knowing her" says Mr. Buffle. "A—hum!—Jemmy Jackman sir!" says the Major introducing himself. "Honour of knowing you by sight" says Mr. Buffle. "Jemmy Jackman sir" says the Major wagging his head sideways in a sort of obstinate fury "presents to you his esteemed friend that ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy • Charles Dickens
... A hum of voices told us my two anglers were approaching, and with Rebecca's quieting hand on the pusillanimous Robelia we drew into hiding and saw them cross the corner of a clearing and vanish again downstream. Then, hearing the coach, ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... they never missed a chance "to fill." And yet a few, I'm sorry to own, Made side-remarks in an undertone, Like those we hear, when, nowadays, Good-natured friends, with seeming praise, Contrive to damn. In the midst of the hum They heard a loud and slashing thrum: 'Twas the king: and each his breath drew in Till you might have heard a falling pin. Some little excuse, at first, he made, While over the lute his fingers strayed:— ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... and talked of Aunt Agnes. The moon silvered the waving alfalfa, and sifted through the twisted vines that fenced us in, throwing intricate and ever-changing patterns on the smooth flooring. There was a hum of insects in the air, and the soft wind ever and anon blew a fleecy cloud over the moon, dimming for a ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... very gently among the trees, making a soft rustling noise. I could scarcely believe in the difference there is between this quiet sound and the roaring of the wind in a storm. Then I heard the wild bee's hum, and the little tiny noises made by the small creatures that live in the wood. I heard our gardener sharpening his scythe, and the trickling of the ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... a low hum of conversation. Dreamy music is heard, which might be a continuation of the music ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... his great empty house, how Highacres would look after scores of young feet had trampled over its velvety stretches? Perhaps he had liked that picture; perhaps, to him, his halls were echoing even then to the hum of young voices; perhaps he had felt that these young lives that would pass over the threshold of the house he had built out into the world of men and women would belong, in some way, to him who had never had a boy ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... Istra in town, she forgot all her discontent and her everlasting dignity and danced for me then came over and kissed me, she is truly a wonder, can hum a French song so you think you're among the peasants, but she expects absolute devotion and constant amusing and I must stick to my last if a mechanic like me is to amount ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of but few towns either in the old or the new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere. Leipsic is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth. Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his choice would have been well ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... great organization did not take place until a great European power spread over it its protecting hand, i.e., in 1717, when in England the new English system of "Grand Lodges of Free and Accepted Masons" arose. (Keller, D. Soc. d. Hum., p. 18.) We see that Keller arrives by another and surer way than Katsch at the same result, and shows the continuity of the alchemists or rosicrucians and the later freemasons, if not in exactly the same way that Katsch has outlined it. In particular ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... a trumpet, little Micky got a drum, Matsy got a spinning top, you ought to hear it hum, Clarissa got a candy cane, oh, won't we have the fun, When we are marching ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... car shot to the basement Theo noticed a change in the appearance of the factory. On every floor they passed there was a hum of machinery and a glimpse of endless rows of china dishes; they stood on shelves; they covered tables; they were stacked one within another upon ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... pressed it, and I gently squeezed her waist with a trembling, and gradually firmer, grasp. She did not move now, and I touched her cheeks with my lips, and suddenly without seeking them, mine met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still, if I had not heard a hum! hum! just behind me, at which she made her escape through the bushes, and turning round I saw Rivet coming towards me, and standing in the middle of the path, he said without even smiling: "So, that is the way in which you settle the affair of that ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of that race of men who once owned and inhabited the forests and prairies of the Old Colony that have new given place to large and populous villages and the busy hum of civilized man, are, it would seem, somewhat dissatisfied with the manner in which they are governed by the State authority. Communications illustrative of the condition of the Marshpee Indians in the County ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... an air of triumph: "I I suppose, sir, you have travelled?"—"No, really, sir," said the gentleman.—"Ho! then you have practised in the hospitals perhaps?"—"No, sir."—"Hum! not that neither? Whence, sir, then, if I may be so bold to inquire, have you got your knowledge in surgery?"—"Sir," answered the gentleman, "I do not pretend to much; but the little I know I have from books."—"Books!" cries the doctor. "What, I suppose ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... English veteran, who thanks him in the name of his men. The English remnant stand behind at attention; beside them are stores and vehicles for the retreat. The drums roll; the Brazilians are moving; the English are still like statues. So they abide till the last hum and flash of the enemy have faded from the tropic horizon. Then they alter their postures all at once, like dead men coming to life; they turn their fifty faces upon the general—faces not ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... monstrous should exist in this profusion and prodigality of blessings! The herbs, elastic with health, seem to partake of sensitive and animated life, and to feel under my hand the benediction I would bestow on them. What a hum of satisfaction in God's creatures! How is it, Sidney, the smallest do seem ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and his cousins took a walk in the meadow, toward the mill pond. The air was now cool and pleasant, and as the boys moved through the narrow path, among the low grass, thousands of grasshoppers, and other insects, filled the air with their cheerful hum. Thomas, with his companions, passed round the mill, and then climbed a fence which led through a field of corn. The corn was not very high, so that they had to be careful not to tread upon it. When they reached the other side, Samuel saw that the fence was covered with raspberry ...
— The Summer Holidays - A Story for Children • Amerel
... a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as Violet and Peony wrought together with one happy consent. Violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit, while Peony acted rather as a labourer, and brought her the snow from far and ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... to our Barin, the Count. Now the Count is a staunch religionist, and wonderful orthodox; though between you and me, if his heart was looked into, he cares as little for priests and the good of the Church as he does for the Grand Sultan of the Turks. However, whatever that—hum!— Morgatch advises him to do he does. Morgatch brought forward plenty of witnesses to prove that the heretics had been seen in Saveleff's house, and that he and his wife and daughter had served ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... on Sunday afternoon, about a score of visitors were assembled in Mrs. Cosgrove's drawing-rooms—there were two of them, with a landing between. As usual, some one sat at the piano, but a hum of talk went on as undercurrent to the music. Downstairs, in the library, half a dozen people found the quietness they preferred, and among these was Mrs. Widdowson. She had an album of portraits on her lap; ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity; While everything around was calm and still Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he Heard—and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over with ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... early years, I studied the rudiments of education; and what a host of almost forgotten memories of the past came thronging back upon my mind, as I stood alone—in that well remembered room. I seemed again to hear the hum of youthful voices as they learned or recited their daily tasks, and, as memory recalled the years that had passed since we used there to assemble, I could not avoid saying mentally: "My schoolmates, where are they?" Even that thought called to mind an amusing story related by a much ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... dinner, sang Der liebe Gott. She had a sweet, clear voice, and it seemed to float to heaven. I sang low, merely to sustain her. Aunt Gredel, who could never rest doing nothing, began spinning; the hum of her wheel filled up the silences, and we all felt happy. When one song was ended, we began another. At three o'clock, Aunt Gredel served up the pancake, and as we ate it, laughing, like the happiest of ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... might an Australian writer, in speaking of Bendigo, term it "The Carthage of the Tyre of Forest Creek." The rattle of the cradle, as it swayed to and fro, the sounds of the pick and shovel, the busy hum of so many thousands, the innumerable tents, the stores with large flags hoisted above them, flags of every shape, colour, and nation, from the lion and unicorn of England to the Russian eagle, the strange yet picturesque costume of the diggers themselves, ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... led me first to the boys' school, for Hatiheu is the university of the north islands. The hum of the lesson came out to meet us. Close by the door, where the draught blew coolest, sat the lay brother; around him, in a packed half- circle, some sixty high-coloured faces set with staring eyes; and in the background of the barn-like room benches were to be seen, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... such hearers some one would have laughed, and then would have burst forth a storm of derision. But the keenest critic had never found Franklin Marmion wrong yet, and he had far too great a reputation to permit himself to say in such a place that which he did not seriously mean. So the hum died down as he went to the black-board, and Nitocris looked at Merrill with something like ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... replied the Captain. And he proceeded to hum through the tune of "The Bay of Biscay," and beat a ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... ladder on to the gravel walk, the king began to step its whole length. "Hum!" he said; "you say it ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I can hum a little to myself; there is yet some pleasure in that. But in opera, no, never again. Has not Mrs. Coldfield told you? No? Imagine! One night in Dresden, in the middle of the aria, my voice broke miserably and I ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... describing the smaller vessels of Malacca which he calls balos in ch. 13, De Embarcacoes, says: "At the poop they have two rudders, one on each side to steer with." E por poupa dos ballos, tem 2 lemes, hum en cada lado pera o governo. (Malacca, l'Inde merid. et le Cathay, Bruxelles, 1882, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... down and read the dial for her (there were some miles which stand for records to this day), but the seventy-foot car never changed its long steamer-like roll, moving through the heat with the hum of a giant bee. Yet the speed was not enough for Mrs. Cheyne; and the heat, the remorseless August heat, was making her giddy; the clock-hands would not move, and when, oh, when would they ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the huge lobby waiting the return of the boy, the hum of many voices about him rose almost to a roar, varied by the rustling of many newspapers. The place was filled with men, talking over the thrilling events of the night before, the nomination and the nominee, while ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... instantly, and, so delicate is the perceptiveness of the ear, he could almost follow the trend of the detective's unspoken thought by a hiss of breath or a muttered "Hum," as a name was mentioned or a reason ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... was so interested by this discovery of a superficial northern flora, that I began to watch for other forms of temperate-appearing life, and for a long time my ear found nothing out of harmony with the plants. The low steady hum of abundant insects was so constant that it required conscious effort to disentangle it from silence. Every few seconds there arose the cadence of a passing bee or fly, the one low and deep, the other shrill and penetrating. And now, just as I had become wholly absorbed in this fascinating ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the great range of buildings began to hum like a hive of bees. The soldiers still half asleep, rushed hither and thither shouting. The officers also, developing the characteristic excitement of the Abati race in this hour of panic, yelled and screamed ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... exhaustion his brain had stopped its tormenting work. He lit a fire and sat by it, huddled in his coat, smoking, dozing, not able really to sleep for cold and hunger. The bright stars, flung all about the sky, mildly regarded hum. Coyotes mourned their loneliness and hunger near and far, and once, in the broken woods above him, a mountain lion gave its blood-curdling scream. Prosper hated the night and its beautiful desolation, he hated the God that had made ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... touch of humour. Thus we have seen that he mischievously persisted in addressing Professor Lodge as "Captain." On another occasion he is a long time in finding a person's name—Theodora. Then he adds, mockingly, "Hum! it is a fine name once one has got hold of it." This does not prevent Phinuit from altering Theodora into Theosophy, and calling the person in question Theosophy! I could easily give other examples of Phinuit's wit. But on this point I must remark that the ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... an infinity of time, she heard the hum of talk and laughter drift out of the room . . . the sound of footsteps retreating . . . the closing ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... an imperative sign of silence, for there was a faint stir and subdued hum of expectation in the crowd. Another moment,—and Lotys stepped quietly and alone on the bare platform. As she confronted her audience, a low passionate sound, like the murmur of a rising storm, greeted her,—a sound that was not anything like the customary applause ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... ends and mistake disorder for vitality is not unnatural to minds that hear the hum of mighty workings but can imagine neither the cause nor the fruits of that portentous commotion. All functions, in such chaotic lives, seem instrumental functions. It is then supposed that what serves no further purpose can have no value, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... his enemy, the muscles not having been brought out by unremitted exercise. Yet under that bulk of flesh there lay no man might tell how much of awful vigour. The loop of the war club would not slip over his great hand. He caught it in his fingers and made the weapon hum about his head, as some forgotten ancestor of his, tall Navajo, or forgotten cave dweller, may have done before the Spaniard came. The weapon seemed to him like a toy, and he cast his eye about for another more commensurate with his strength, but, seeing none, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... bet that it will be six hundred Jovian years before any of them ever come within a hundred kilometers of it again. I'm glad of it, too, because they'll let our power plant alone now. Well, let's get going—we've got to make things hum ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... Sir Hum-phrey Gilbert was one of the first men who tried to make a set-tle-ment in A-mer-i-ca. Twice did he bring men and ships over the sea, and twice did he fail, and sail back for England. The second time, he was on a little ship called ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... go. What delight would there be to him in playing piquet with such a face opposite to him as that of Captain Vignolles, or with such a one as that of old Moody? There could be none of the brilliance of the room, no pleasant hum of the voices of companions, no sense of his own equality with others. There would be none to sympathize with him when he cursed his ill-luck, there would be no chance of contending with an innocent who would be as reckless as was he himself. He looked round. The room was gloomy and uncomfortable. ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... gulped a glass of champagne. Presently I knew myself descending, leaving, as I felt rather than saw, the stark horror of the gorge and its glimmering snow patches above me. Puffs of a warmer air purred past my face with little friendly sighs of welcome, and the hum of a far-off torrent struck like a wedge into the indurated fibre of the night. As I dropped, however, the mountain heads grew up against the moon, and withheld the comfort of her radiance; and it was ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... an unexpected hum of voices; the machinery seemed to stop for a moment, and when it was again continued it had a different melody. The wheels, if such they were, seemed to turn with smoothness, and they felt a sudden inclination in the seats on which they ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... both tooken in a schooner that was gwine to run the blockade," answered Christy. "We was comin' out'n Pass Christian, and was picked up off Chand'leer [Chandeleur] Island, and fotched over hyer. We didn't feel too much to hum after we lost our wages, and we done took a whaleboat and came ashore here, with only one bottle of whiskey atween us. That's all there is on't. Now, how comes ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... pearly vase of fire,—through the shifting Cloud-halls of calm and storm, Pour down thy blossoms! let me hear them come, Pelting with noiseless light the twinkling thickets, Making the darkness audible with the hum Of many insect creatures, grigs and crickets: Until it seems the elves hold revelries By haunted stream and grove; Or, in the night's deep peace, The young-old presence of Earth's full increase Seems telling thee her love, ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... whole heavens towards the south-east and west appeared to irradiate a soft grey-tinted light with a quivering motion. As the day was calm, the hum produced by the vibration of so many millions of wings was quite indescribable, and was more like what people call a ringing in one's ears than any other sound that ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... speak. He therefore got as near O'Grady as he could, and, pretending to stumble, put his finger against his friend's lips. O'Grady passed on the signal soon afterwards to Reuben. This matter arranged, they quietly followed their captor—O'Grady doing his best to hum a tune which he had heard Rosalie sing, and forgetting that he pretended to be deaf as well as dumb. There was still sufficient light for them to see that their captor was a gendarme, a discovery far from pleasant, as ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... difficult to do, with the boom of the guns travelling to their ears along the grass, mingled with the buzz of insects. Yet that hum of summer, the innumerable voices of tiny lives, gossamer things all as alive as they, and as important to their frail selves; and the white clouds, few and so slow-moving, and the remote strange ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... slit of brightness below a door, and without a question the drenched and bewildered Dawson lifted the image and hammered on the door with it. A hum of voices within abated as he knocked, and there was silence. He hammered again, and he heard bolts being withdrawn inside. The door opened slowly, and a man ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... "EDGING. Hum—he takes no notice of me yet—I'll let him see I can take as little notice of him. [She walks by him gravely, he turns her about and holds her; she struggles.] ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... originale, original sinne; capias, a catch to a sad tune; alias capias, another to the same (sad tune); habeas corpus, a trooper; capias ad satisfaciend., a hangman: latitat, bo-peep; nisi prius, first come first served; demurrer, hum and haw; scandal. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... my lady to do the deed. It can cost me nothing except her good opinion, which I can afford. But I'll lay you anything to nothing, if she knew the weight of my four quarters, she would have me herself after all! I don't quite think myself a lady-killer: by George, my—hum!—entourage is against that, but where money is money can! Only I don't want her, and my money is for her betters! What damned jolly fun it will be to send her out of the house in a rage!—and a good deed done too!—By George, I'll do it! See ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... ready for the frequent fray. "They won't have your hum-drum old church fregot[3], perhaps, but you come and see, and hear Hughes Bangor, Price Merthyr, Jones Welshpool. Nothing to give them, indeed! Why, Price Merthyr would send your old red velvet cushion at church flying into smithireens in five minutes. Haven't I heard him. He ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the poor child's mind seemed to be was inconceivable to the maiden, who had been bred up in the busy hum of men, where the constant resort of strange merchants, the daily interests of a self-governing municipality, and the numerous festivals, both secular and religious, were an unconscious education, even without that which had been bestowed upon her by teachers, as well as by her companionship with ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Had she been able to see through the walls of the cottage she would have found the old man seated in his private apartment opposite his daughter. Could she have heard their conversation—the low, continuous hum of Old Swallowtail's voice, broken only by an occasional question from Nan—she would surely have been astonished. Nan was not much astonished, save at the fact that her father had at last voluntarily ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... the embankment by the weight of the dense mass surging along its center. And then to add to the terror of the moment there was heard above the shouts and oaths of the struggling mob a low, foreboding hum, the characteristic drone of Austrian aeroplanes. It is hard to see what could have come of the situation but complete and bloody disaster if it had not been for the decided action of some Italian officers. By main force they thrust into the middle of the entrance ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Patrick Gass, Cruzatte's sergeant, who stood near by. "Wait until time comes for my squad on the line—'tis thin we'll make the elkhide hum! There's a few of ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... swerved, staggering along, brushed against the tables, kicked over the empty chairs. He passed Rojas and his gang, and out of the tail of his eye saw that the bandit was watching him, waving his hands and talking fiercely. The hum of the many voices grew louder, and when Dick lurched against a table, overturning it and spilling glasses into the laps of several Mexicans, there arose a shrill cry. He had succeeded in attracting attention; almost every face turned his way. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... along, I began to be impressed by the weird stillness. No sound greeted me from the ripening orchards, save the carol of birds; from the fields came no note of harvest labor. No animals were visible, nor sound of any. No hum of life. All nature lay asleep in voluptuous beauty, veiled in a glorious atmosphere. Everything wore a dreamy look. The breeze had a loving, lingering touch, not unlike to the Indian Summer of North America. But no Indian ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... West-country dance or a dance in Scotland at Hallowe'en. But it must be remembered that the Bon dance during the first nights is in the nature of a lament for the dead. There is something haunting in the strange little refrain, though it is difficult to hum or whistle it. Perhaps the whole festival is too intimately racial to be fully understood by a stranger. By the end of the festival, on the night of merrymaking in honour of the village guardian spirit, things were livelier. Some of the lads had evidently had sake and even the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... me not of joy,—a hum! Now the British Sparrow's come. Sent first was he Across the sea, Advisers kind did flatter me, When he winged way o'er Yankee soil, My caterpillar swarms he'd spoil; And oh, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... is dead. The pang's not there, Nor in the City's many-coloured bloom Of swift black-lettered posters, which the throng Passes with bovine stare, To say He is dead and Is it going to rain? Or hum stray snatches of a rag-time song. Nor is it in that falsest shibboleth (Which orators toss to the dumb scorn of death) That all the world stands weeping at his tomb. London is dining, dancing, through it all. And, in the unchecked smiles along the street Where men, that ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... weight of sunlight upon their heads and shoulders. A truck ploughed a furrow through push-carts that rolled back to the curb like a wave crested with crude yellow, red, green, and orange merchandise. She caught the hum of voices, many tongues mingling, while the odours of vegetables and fruit and human beings came faintly to her nostrils. She was looking down upon one of the busiest streets of the city that people sometimes call the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... on their spirits rose—and indeed the British soldier is always at his gayest when there is a prospect of fighting—the hum of voices rose along the column, jokes were exchanged, and there was laughter and merriment. The pace was not rapid, and there were frequent stoppages, for a long column cannot march at the same pace as a single regiment; and it was ten o'clock when they halted at Mount St. Jean, fourteen miles ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against the dark shadows of the ilex. Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was conscious that the path from his father's house had led him into an undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence, that was neither man nor beast, neither the living ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and with the politicians at the St. James's. In the morning, he often listens to the hum of the Exchange; in the evening, his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... you sink, I seem the higher. In Pope I cannot read a line, But with a sigh I wish it mine; When he can in one couplet fix More sense than I can do in six; It gives me such a jealous fit, I cry, "Pox take him and his wit!" [4]I grieve to be outdone by Gay In my own hum'rous biting way. Arbuthnot is no more my friend, Who dares to irony pretend, Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it first, and shew'd its use. St. John, as well as Pultney, knows That I had some repute for prose; And, till they drove me out of date Could maul ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... pleased, but he was always a silent man, very pious, and not saying much as he sat at his bench, for he had been brought up to the shoemaking and was very respected among Pevensey folks. He would hum a hymn or two at his work sometimes, but he was never a man of words. When young Barber went back to London, Ellen, she began to lose her pretty looks. I had never thought much of young Barber. There was something common about him—not like the labouring men, ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... in sod, may deem himself lucky. The reader need not draw a sigh of relief when I tell him that I mean merely the "white grub," the larva of the May-beetle or June-bug, that so disturbs our slumbers in early summer by its sonorous hum and aimless bumping against the wall. This white grub, which the farmers often call the "potato worm," is, in this region, the strawberry's most formidable foe, and, by devouring the roots, will often destroy acres of plants. If the plow turns up these ugly customers in large numbers, the only ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "and if I were placed under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the—hum!— the forbidden ground—and should be able to study it, and master it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... familiar to me. There were three or four old men with grey hair sitting in the first row of stalls (most uncomfortable seats) who followed every note of the music, turning around and frowning at any unfortunate person in a box who dropped a fan or an opera-glass. It was funny to hear the hum of satisfaction when any well-known movement of Beethoven or Mozart was attacked. The orchestra was perfect, at its best I think in the "scherzos" which they took in beautiful style—so light and sure. I liked the instrumental part much better than the singing. French voices, the ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... but two cents left!" he groaned. "Thet won't buy no supper nor nuthin! It's lucky I've got a train ticket back. But I'll have to walk to hum from the station, unless they'll tick me ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... seemed to be a-journeyin' through foreign countries, a-carryin' the thought with us that we took our breakfast in our own hum, and that we should sleep there that night, but for all that we wuz in Turkey, and Japan, and Dahomey, and ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... rigging I ever seen. Somehow—not having the comfort of being able to get drunk half as often as he wanted to—it seemed like he give himself the let-out he needed in them queer antics; and, for certain, he managed 'em always so they went with a hum. When him and the Sage-Brush Hen played partners in rigging anybody—as they was apt to, the Hen being much such another and so special friends with Charley she'd come on after him from Santa Fe—there mostly was a real down ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... funks! H'm! champagne! That was an interesting item of news, at all events!—Twelve bottles! Dear me, that's a very respectable little stock indeed! I bet anything Lebedeff lent somebody money on deposit of this dozen of champagne. Hum! he's a nice fellow, is this prince! I like this sort of man. Well, I needn't be wasting time here, and if it's a case of champagne, why—there's ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... from the Cedars: he carried a broken bough to use as a walking-stick in the difficult ascent, and was panting with the exertion; yet the lightness of his heart impelled him to hum broken snatches of a song as he climbed. The wet verdure under foot had so deadened sound that neither suspected the presence of the other till we suddenly stood, on this slightly widened, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... about with Vick—apparently sharing my depression—trotting subduedly, with tail half-mast high, at my heels, and at length sit down on a bench under a mulberry-tree. The scentless flame of the geraniums and calceolarias fills, without satisfying my eyes; the gnats' officious hum offends my ears; and thoughts in comparison of which the calceolarias are sweet and the gnats melodious, occupy ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... not only an Heretic, but an Heathen; nay, worse, they fear'd he was a Witch, and that he had bewitch'd his Majesty into that unaccountable Fondness for a Pudding-Maker. They assured the King, that on a Sunday Morning, instead of being at Mattins, he and his Trigrimates got together hum jum, all snug, and perform'd many hellish and diabolical Ceremonies. In short, they made the King believe that the Moon was made of Green-Cheese: And to shew how the Innocent may be bely'd, and the best Intentions misrepresented, they told the King, That he and his Associates offered Sacrifices to ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... more gentle, and even monotonous than the sound of the rain, which now she scarcely heard. The low sweet humming sound went on, sometimes stopping for a little while and then beginning again. It was more like the hum of a very happy bee that had found a rich well of honey in some globular flower, than anything else I can think of at this moment. Where could it come from? She laid her ear first to one of the doors to hearken if it was there—then to another. When ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... (not new red brick, of course) shall hum for ever below giant poplar-spires, which bend and shiver in the steady breeze. On its lawn laburnums shall feather down like dropping wells of gold, and from under them the stream shall hurry leaping and laughing into ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... how that afternoon's lessons were got over in Eden Valley Academy. The hum of disturbance reached even the juniors, skulking peacefully under little Mr. Stephen, the assistant. Only Miss Huntingdon, in the Infant Department, remained quiet and neat as a dove new-preened among her murmuring ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... that neither sight nor sound had occurred during his watch to disturb him. We now began to feel really refreshed, and during the next hour some of the men in my watch actually found superfluous energy enough to hum under their breath a snatch or two of a forecastle song as they paced vigilantly to and fro over the short stretch of ground which ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... in A Princess of Thule. I pulled the book from my pocket, and, lighting a pipe, sat down to read that delightful chapter over again. The breeze played softly down the valley. The warm sunlight was filled with the musical hum of insects and the murmur of falling waters. I thought how much pleasanter it would have been to learn salmon-fishing, as Black's hero did, from the Maid of Borva, than from a red-headed gillie. But, then, his salmon, after leaping across the stream, got away; whereas ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... became at last so accustomed to these slight noises from the other part of the house that he almost could witness the scenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up Thomasin rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing the baby to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the picture of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's heavy feet crossing the stone floor of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key, betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... that followed, broken only by the hum of the arithmetic-tape, Sam wondered at himself. As kids went, Mark had never been a nuisance. Certainly Rhoda had never had any trouble with him. But Rhoda had been altogether different. Sam was tough and he had always ...
— Dead Man's Planet • William Morrison
... interrupts him—a quick rag. The patients brighten, hum, whistle, sway their heads or tap their feet in time to the tune. Doctor Stanton and Doctor Simms appear in the doorway from the hall. All ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... was a continual round of merriment, and every one was enjoying himself to the fullest extent. But now the hum of voices ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Hungry Folk attested the truth and fell each to telling his neighbor of the Sunlanders and their ways. There were mutterings from the younger men, who had wives to seek, and from the older men, who had daughters to fetch prices, and a low hum of rage ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... quickly about with cheerful hum. Where they go, these busy buzzy flies, when the cold calls them away for their winter vac. is a mystery. Can they hibernate? for they show themselves again at the first ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... moment it seemed to Edith as if all the world were blotted out, and then again the hum of bees, the chirrup of birds, the fall of a fir-cone, the call of the cock-pheasant in the wood sounded obtrusively, making the girl's voice as she continued speaking appear ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Alatta, spake to his eldest son: "I bequeath to thee my city of Zoon, with its golden eaves, whereunder hum the bees. And I bequeath to thee also the land of Alatta, and all such other lands as thou art worthy to possess, for my three strong armies which I leave thee may well take Zindara and over-run Istahn, and drive back Onin from his frontier, and leaguer the walls of Yan, and beyond that spread ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... of all that man labours to perpetuate. This state of things existed at the date of our story; now, alas! the race of its former possessors is extinct, their name only remains a relic of things that were—their former mansion standing,[20] as if in mockery, amidst the hum of wheels, and in melancholy contrast with the toil and animation of this manufacturing, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... stamped down the long grasses at one side of the gap, and then bent nearly double and seemed to be pressing against something with his hands and his knee. The barbed wire began to hum, to buzz excitedly; there was the groan of cracking wood, and the grunt of his deep, straining breath. She found herself running her hands over her face and down her body and thinking, "Since he is like that, and I am like this, all will be well." That ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... the world more charming than England for seven months of the year, and none so abominable for the remaining five. If it were not for my work I would always winter abroad, but I am obliged to be in the hum of things. How do you manage to amuse yourself in ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... thus deserted by her companions, Shoofly began a low, musical hum of a wail and walled large eyes up at Everett, at whose feet she was seated. In instant sympathetic response he applied the toe of his shoe to the small of the whimpering tot's back and proceeded awkwardly, ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... of Ink, O Street of Ink, Where printers and machinsts swink Amid the buzz and hum and clink; By night one cannot sleep a wink, There is no time to stop or think, One half forgets to eat or drink, One's brains are knotted in a kink, One always lives upon the brink Of "happenings" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... In order fully to lay open the unconscious to the influence of suggested ideas, the surface mind must be called in from its responses to the outer world, or in religious language recollected, till the hum of that world is hardly perceived by it. The body must be relaxed, making no demands on the machinery controlling the motor system; and the conditions in general must be those of complete mental and bodily rest. Here is the psychological equivalent of ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... gentleman went slowly out of the room without answering; passing his hands through his hair, and saying, "Ah! Hum!" and nodding with an air ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the quietness of the solemn hills, far removed alike from the ambitious strife of cities and the bloody spectacles of war. Lying amid the solitudes of the mountains, where no sounds fall on the ear but the bleating of flocks, the lowing of cattle, the hum of bees, the baying of a watch-dog from the lonely homestead, the murmur of hidden rills, the everlasting rush of the waterfall as it plunges flashing into its dark, foaming pool, pastoral are eminently peaceful scenes. Indeed, the best emblem of peace ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... and refilled it. Nearly all the tables in the room were now occupied, and the general hum of talk gave security to intimate dialogue. Flushed and bright-eyed, the young man presently ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... does your captain treat you, eh? RALPH. A better captain don't walk the deck, your honour. ALL. Aye; Aye! SIR JOSEPH. Good. I like to hear you speak well of your commanding officer; I daresay he don't deserve it, but still it does you credit. Can you sing? RALPH. I can hum a little, your honour. SIR JOSEPH. Then hum this at your leisure. (Giving him MS. music.) It is a song that I have composed for the use of the Royal Navy. It is designed to encourage independence of thought and action in the lower branches of the service, and to teach the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... hopeful feature may be noted in connection with this time of trouble. While the Secession war lasted, "the cotton famine" had full sway in Lancashire; unwonted and unwelcome light and stillness replaced the dun clouds of smoke and the busy hum that used to tell of fruitful, well-paid industry; and the patient people, haggard and pale but sadly submissive, were kept, and just kept, from starving by the incessant charitable effort of their countrymen. Never had the attitude of the suffering ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... rattle of musketry and the thunder of heavy cannon shook the island. The regiments in line in front of the cleared space before the battery, returned the fire with energy, and the marine howitzers also responded. Soon a shell from the enemy's work came flying through the woods with a hum, which increased to a howl, and burst with a startling explosion within a few rods of the hospital. Nobody was hurt; but the incident had a very marked effect on Jack Winch. He got better at once, and moved ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... the capstone on his social success by asking Frona to sing the touching ditty, "I Left My Happy Home for You." This was something beyond her, though she had him hum over the opening bars so that she could furnish the accompaniment. His voice was more strenuous than sweet, and Del Bishop, discovering himself at last, joined in raucously on the choruses. This made him feel so much better that he ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... was most unpleasant. The chaplain did not care very much, either, for Mr. Johnsen. That apparently helpless young man had shown that he knew how to look after himself only too well. "Invited nearly every day to Sandsgaard! Hum!" muttered Martens, as he went ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... agreeable hum of chatter from these early comers when I found myself welcoming Mrs. Judge Ballard and half a dozen members of the Onwards and Upwards Club, all of them wearing what I made out to be a baffled look. From these I presently managed to gather ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... foreheads from the main. High o'er their heads on pinions broad display'd The feather'd nations shed a floating shade; Pair after pair enamour'd shoot along, And trill in air the gay impassion'd song. With busy hum in playful swarms around Emerging insects leave the peopled ground, 380 Rise in dark clouds, and borne in airy rings Sport round the car, and wave their golden wings. Admiring Fawns pursue on dancing hoof, And bashful Dryads peep from shades aloof; Emerging Nereids rise from coral cells, Enamour'd ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... he was also stubborn. He spent the day in a creek on the northern shore of the gulf, listening to the weird hum which came over the waters out of the haze. He cursed the delay. Up on Kallidromos would be clear dry air and the path to Delphi among the oak woods. The Hellenes could not be fighting everywhere ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... operation of civilization, and all efforts were mainly directed to the maintenance of friendly relations and the preservation of peace and quiet on the frontier. All this is now changed. There is no such thing as the Indian frontier. Civilization, with the busy hum of industry and the influences of Christianity, surrounds these people at every point. None of the tribes are outside of the bounds of organized government and society, except that the Territorial system has not been extended ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... middle of July Wade had settled down comfortably into the quiet life of Eden Village. Quiet it was, but far from hum-drum. On the still, mirrored surface of a pool even the dip of an insect's wing will cause commotion. So it was in Eden Village. On the placid surface of existence there the faintest zephyr became a gale that raised waves of excitement; the tiniest happening was an event. ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... important thing. The sky is free, the fields limitless; and the sun merges them into one blazing whole. In the midst of this, man seems so trivial. He comes and goes, like the ferry-boat, from this shore to the other; the babbling hum of his talk, the fitful echo of his song, is heard; the slight movement of his pursuit of his own petty desires is seen in the world's market-places: but how feeble, how temporary, how tragically meaningless it all seems amidst the immense aloofness ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... a few soldiers traversing the square drew the eyes of all in their direction, and caused a brief pause in the hum of conversation. Our friends, the captives, were in the midst of these soldiers, and beside them marched the negro interpreter whom they had first met with ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... Finola blue in the daytime, but which put on a hundred changing colors as the sun went down. Nowhere was a house to be seen, nor a tree, nor a flower, nor sign of any living thing. From morning till night, nor hum of bee, nor song of bird, nor voice of man, nor any sound fell on Finola's ear. When the storm was in the air the great waves thundered on the shore beyond the mountains, and the wind shouted in the glens; but when it sped across the moor it lost its voice, and passed as silently as the ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... just in front of an empty loophole twenty feet from where he actually squatted, and where he had probably been a few seconds before I had arrived. The snipers saw this and promptly fired, bang, bang, bang, a long line of shots following one after the other in quick succession. Hum! they must be reloading now, said the little Jap plainly by the expression on his face; and jumping straight on top of the wall in front of him he hastily snapped at one of his enemies. Then down he came again, but hardly quick enough, for ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... seal-skin cap clustered tumultuous round the lintels of the gin-shop doors. Here ballad-bellowing, and organ grinding, and voices of costermongers, singing of poor men's luxuries, never ceased all through the hum of day, and penetrated far into the frowzy repose of latest night. Here, on Saturday evenings especially, the butcher smacked with appreciating hand the fat carcasses that hung around him; and flourishing his steel, roared aloud to every woman who passed the shop door with a basket, to come ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... The roll of vehicles and hum of voices filled the air, a mighty morning-choir mingled with the footsteps of the pedestrians, and the crack of the hack-drivers' whips. The clamorous traffic everywhere exhilarated me at once, and I began to feel more and more contented. Nothing was farther ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Faintness. — N. faintness &c. adj.; faint sound, whisper, breath; undertone, underbreath[obs3]; murmur, hum, susurration; tinkle; " still small voice." hoarseness &c. adj.; raucity[obs3]. V. whisper, breathe, murmur, purl, hum, gurgle, ripple, babble, flow; tinkle; mutter &c. (speak imperfectly) 583; susurrate[obs3]. steal on the ear; melt in the air, float ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... her nest, in a deep, still tarn, shut in, to all appearance, on every side by huge rock barriers. Of the furious storm but a moment before howling and raging all around them, nothing remained but an all-pervading, thunderous hum, causing the deck to vibrate beneath them, and high overhead the jagged, leaden remnants of twisted, tortured cloud whirling past their tiny oblong of sky. Just a minute's suspension of all faculties ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... behind was an ordinary four-wheeled vehicle, with springs, and very strong wheels, a framework being arranged, so that when necessary it could be securely covered. To guard against the danger of upsetting it was very broad, with low wheels, which it may be safely said were made to 'hum' when the gentleman got fairly ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... the spring its earliest freshness, whose autumn dying tints are richer than the clouds, sunset, whose life-stream is sweeter than honey, and whose branches are drowsy through the long summer with the scent and the hum of bee and flower! Still the long line of the Canadas admits of a varied spring. When the trees are green at Lake St. Clair, they are scarcely budding at Kingston, they are leafless at Montreal, and Quebec ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... aerated, and the principle of the insect's flight is the extremely rapid striking of the air by means of the lightly built elastic wings. Many an insect has over two hundred strokes of its wings in one second. Hence, in many cases, the familiar hum, comparable on a small scale to that produced by the rapidly revolving blades of an aeroplane's propeller. For a short distance a bee can outfly a pigeon, but few insects can fly far, and they are easily blown away or blown back by the wind. ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... a bold piece of strategy, had gained entrance to the express robbers' asylum and had been offered the right hand of fellowship. The evening wore on, cards were produced, and the click of the ivory poker chips was heard above the low hum of conversation. The doctor did not care to take a hand, and Scip, apparently tired out with his day's journey, had thrown himself on a buffalo-robe in a corner, and seemed ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... which would hardly be possible at all. One who has watched the installation of a dynamo, knowing that there is nowhere near any ordinary source of electricity, and has seen its armature begin to whirl and hum, and then in a few moments the violet sparklings of the brushes and the evident presence of a powerful current of electricity, is almost justified in the common opinion that the genius of man has devised a machine ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... whispered sulkily in the ears of the Grand Vizier, "Guggly ka ghee, hum khedgeree," said he, "the oil does not boil yet—wait one minute." The assistants blew, the fire blazed, the oil was heated. The Vizier drew a few feet aside: taking a large ladle full of the boiling liquid, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... transmuted by distance into tawny velvet, seeming only the more spacious because of the straight, thin lines of barbed-wire fences lined with goldenrod, and solitary houses in willow groves. The dips and curves of the rolling plain drew him on; the distances satisfied his eyes. A pleasant hum of insects filled the land's wide serenity ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... and musketry heard northeast of the city, which either ceased or receded out of hearing at 12 M.; or else the hum of the city drowned the sounds of battle. Up to 3 P.M. we have no particulars. Beauregard is on the right of our line; Lee's headquarters was at Yellow Tavern. He is sufficiently recovered to ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... grape-vine over a trellis," said Anne softly. She spoke in a rapt way, as if she had said, "There are angels choiring under the trees. We can hum their songs." ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... her wrist, holding his stop-watch in his other hand. "Hum!" he grunted, "just as I expected. You're a trifle low—a little run ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... ... and stage-smiles fit to turn the heads in the front boxes. When Lily appeared on the stage, she transfixed every white shirt-front, every opera-glass. She took a real delight in it all. Her beauty captivated the audience. In her pink tights, Lily turned and turned and turned, to the hum of the orchestra, against the "wood" back-drop of purple and gold. Then she returned to the wings, all excited by her show, received bouquets, chatted freely with the comrades. She met old friends: the green-eyed female-impersonator, for instance, pressed her closely. He, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... been said; the covers were taken off; the loud, cheerful hum of conversation was just beginning, when Mr. Streatfield's eyes met the eyes of a young lady who was seated opposite, at the table. The guests near him, observing at the same moment, that he continued standing after every one else had been placed, glanced at him inquiringly. To their ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... high in her beauty bright: 'Tis now the silent hour of even, When all is still in earth an' heaven; The cold flowers which the valleys strew Are sparking bright wi' pearly dew, And hush'd is e'en the bee's soft hum, Then come with me, sweet ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... whole military force of wa, This force now consisted of 35,000 musketeers, 700 Cassay cavalry, and other troops, amounting in the whole to 60,000 men. On the 30th of November this great force assembled in the forest of Rangoon, fronting the great Shoedagon pagoda. On the following night the low hum of voices proceeding from the encampment suddenly ceased, and it was succeeded by the distant but gradually increasing sounds of a multitude moving stealthily through the woods. The British commander soon became aware that the enemy's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... natural operation of her female charms, and adjusting the accounts of some great firm with as much facility as grace. I wonder whether he who designed that figure had ever sat or stood at a desk for six hours; whether he knew the dull hum of the brain which comes from long attention to another man's figures; whether he had ever soiled his own fingers with the everlasting work of office hours, or worn his sleeves threadbare as he leaned, weary in body and mind, upon his desk? Work is a grand thing—the grandest thing we have; ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... knocking her head ostentatiously in the dust as she did so. We followed suit instantly. Then Hilda rose and began walking slowly round the big drum in the nave, saying aloud at each step, in a sort of monotonous chant, like a priest intoning, the four mystic words, "Aum, mani, padme, hum," "Aum, mani, padme, hum," many times over. We repeated the sacred formula after her, as if we had always been brought up to it. I noticed that Hilda walked the way of the sun. It is an important point in all these mysterious, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... ambrotype and held it close to her eyes, then her hand sank until the picture dropped back into its place, and the lonely desolate woman buried her face in her palms. The pretty guilt clock on the mantle ticked monotonously, and the hum of life, and the busy roll of vehicles in the vast city, was borne in through the window, like the faint roar of yet distant Niagara; and after awhile when the sharp stroke of the clock announced four the bowed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... more alone, with only the hum of voices from the reception- room as company, she fell silent, and I could ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... stairs into the healing warmth of the afternoon sun; and the breath of the earth came as sweet as a cow's into his nostril; and he heard again (and could have laughed for pleasure) the concord of delicate noises that we call the hum of life. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... came up to me again, followed by a square man, middle-aged, and hum-drum, who, I found was Lord Say and Sele, afterwards from the Kirwans, for though they introduced him to me, I was so confounded by their vehemence and their manners, that I did not hear ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... for appearances outside. Within, there was the uneasy hum, the anxious look, the subdued movement which marks an universal suspense. Announcement had been made that the jury had reached their verdict, and counsel were resuming their places and the ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... then impressed on her the necessity in future life, when she grew up, of always having the price of her fare ready before it was wanted, to prevent unnecessary delay. Having delivered himself of this good advice, he began to hum, keeping time by drumming with his thick Malacca cane. He was still proceeding with this amusement—producing some of the most acutely unmusical sounds I ever heard—when the omnibus stopped to give admission to two ladies. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... enough," said Bob. "Everybody come around here then and we'll make things hum. There's still plenty to do, but we ought to get ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... every home throughout the whole South could be heard the old "hand spinning wheel" humming away until far in the night, as the dusky damsel danced backwards and forwards, keeping step to the music of her own voice and the hum of the wheel. The old women sat in the corners and carded away with the hand-card, making great heaps of rolls, to be laid carefully and evenly upon the floor or the wheel. Great chunks of pine, called "lite'ood," were regularly thrown into the great fire place until the whole scene was lit ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... George's partner was Emmeline. They talked of Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling and the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was very agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms. He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... what was the matter, when, at last the bride's party walked up the aisle with a bright April sun shining on them through the broad old windows. The bride's rare beauty, and stag-like carriage of her head, imperial in its loveliness and orange wreath, drew a hum ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... one. But even now, and on mere everyday grounds, we are finding reason to think otherwise. You are about to make an observation at table and some member of your family makes it before you; you are thinking of a certain tune and someone begins to hum it; you have a certain purpose in mind and, lo, the same thought finds expression in someone else, despite all probabilities. Oh, you may remark, This is only thought transference. Precisely, but what are you except ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... bad Parliaments, and bad Judges was equal to the misery caused in a single year by bad crowns and bad shillings. Whether Whigs or Tories, Protestants or Papists were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to market, the grocer weighed out his currants, the draper measured out his broadcloth, the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the towns; the cream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed in the presses of Herefordshire; the piles of crockery glowed in the furnaces of the Trent, and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the timber railways of the Tyne. ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... lived. He replied: "When I'm to hum, I lives on a ranch in Colorado; but I've been to Chicago sellin' of my steers, and them thar fellows came nigh gettin' the best of me with some of their new-fangled games; but they gave me some of their tickets, and when I get home I'll ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... should fear, but lo! amid the press, The whirl and hum and pressure of my day, I hear Thy garment's sweep, Thy seamless dress, And close beside my work and weariness Discern Thy gracious form, not far away, But very near, O ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... love is only the accident of circumstance. But though that is the sensible view, there are cases like those of Dante and Beatrice and Abelard and Heloise, in which the passion does seem to touch the skies. In those cases, however, it rarely ends happily. A more hum-drum way of falling in love seems better fitted to earthly conditions. The method of Sir Thomas More was perhaps the most original on record. He preferred the second of three sisters and was about to marry her when it occurred ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat—lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars, as he walks on a First Day loafe, and looks at the oats and rye, The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum, a confirmed case, He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... saw Billy Bunny hopping along, he said, "Ha, ha. Ho, hum, I'll eat that little bunny as sure as I'm a foot high!" And as he was twenty-one feet high less or more, ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... Butterfly," the play, was made. In two weeks all was ready, and a day after the first performance at the Herald Square Theatre, on March 5, 1900, the city began to hum with eager comment on the dramatic intensity of the scene of a Japanese woman's vigil, of the enthralling eloquence of a motionless, voiceless figure, looking steadily through a hole torn through a paper partition, with a sleeping child and a nodding maid ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... passed forth with ecstasy up the cellar stairs into the healing warmth of the afternoon sun; and the breath of the earth came as sweet as a cow's into his nostril; and he heard again (and could have laughed for pleasure) the concord of delicate noises that we call the hum of life. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... growing appetisingly beside the sweet-williams, the woodbine climbing over the brown stone wall, the wicket-gate, and the cherry-tree with its fruit hanging red against the whitewashed cottage? Ah, if I could only paint it so truly that you could hear the drowsy hum of the bees among the thyme, and smell the scented hay-meadows in the distance, and feel that it is midsummer in England! That would indeed be truth, and that would be art. Shall I paint the Bobby baby as he stoops to pick the cowslips and the ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... tube trains on the way to the office. They all looked more friendly. And as he pushed through the second glass door into his offices he liked the clean shine of the glass and the rich blended colors and soft rugs and gray textured desks and the soft efficient hum of ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... water's din was heard, As down it fell into the other round, Resounding like the hum of swarming bees: When forth together issu'd from a troop, That pass'd beneath the fierce tormenting storm, Three spirits, running swift. They towards us came, And each one cried aloud, "Oh do thou ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... open, and we sat enjoying the noblest of all scenes, a glorious sunset, to full advantage. The fragrance of the garden stole in, a "steam of rich distilled perfumes;" the son of the birds, in those faint and interrupted notes which come with such sweetness in the parting day; the distant hum of the village, and the low solemn sound of the waves subsiding on the beach, made a harmony of their own, perhaps more soothing and subduing than the most refined touches of human skill. We wanted nothing but an Italian moon to realize the loveliness of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... the past and in New York he had been known as a waiter, or should I say steward, he was known here as a manufacturer of patent medicine designed to rejuvenate the human race. He had not been long in town and was somewhat of a stranger yet, but he wouldn't be so long. He was going to make things hum, he was. Money for this, money for that, a horse where another man would walk, and mail—well, that alone would make this post-office worth while. Then the drugs ordered by wholesale. Those boxes over there were his, ready to be carted out to his manufactory. Count them, some ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... Rogers; "and we'll have to leg it or he'll slip us. Jove! he's captured a wheel with a vengeance. Hear it hum." ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... NOTES."—Sir ARTHUR SULLIVAN sat next to Sir HENRY HAWKINS during part of the recent sensational trial at the Ancient Bailey, making, of course not taking, notes. Sir HENRY occasionally conversed with the Knight of Music. Did the latter hum, sotto voce, "And a good Judge too!" with other selections from Trial by Jury? Everyone glad Sir ARTHUR is so well. Perhaps after this he will return to Real Eccentric Gilbertian Opera, and go away for "change of air." The "Carte" is at the door, ready to take him, but his original "Gee ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... voice, sweet as the wildbird's song; She comes to tell me I have tarried long: I hear her now an old love ditty hum, And now she calls—I ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... Karnikaras and Vakulas and Divya Patalas and Patalas and Narikelas and Chandanas and Arjunas and similar other beautiful and sacred trees resplendent with fragrant flowers and sweet fruits. And the whole forest was maddened by the sweet notes of the kokila and echoed with the hum of maddened bees. And the king became possessed with desire, and he saw not his wife before him. Maddened by desire he was roaming hither and thither, when he saw a beautiful Asoka decked with dense foliage, its branches covered with flowers. And the king sat ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... doubt as to what was the plant originally known as Soma. That described in the Vedas and Brahmanas is said to grow on the mountains and to have a yellow juice of a strong smell, fiery taste and intoxicating properties. The plants used as Haom (Hum) by the modern Parsis of Yezd and Kerman are said to be members of the family Asclepiadaceae (perhaps of the genus Sarcostemma) with fleshy stalks and milky juice, and the Soma tested by Dr Haug at Poona was probably made from another species ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... ranks with our boys. If I can't fight at least I'm going to help our men in other ways. I'll work with my hands as a slave. I'll sew and knit and nurse. I'll breathe my soul into the souls of our men. I sing Dixie when I rise in the morning. I hum it all day. I sing it with my last thoughts as ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Buz, buz!" Drones the bee on the wing: "Fret not, my baby, but croon in your bed, I'll bring you honey to eat on your bread,— Hum, hum! ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... her, gave his promise eagerly. It struck her, afterward, that she had done a wicked thing, but, like most girls, she had not the heart to wrestle with an uncomfortable thought; she shook it off and began to hum a snatch of an ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and safety. But the cordon set about him was drawn too close. Each time a loose-seated rider lounging in the saddle with a rifle in his hands drove them back. The second attempt was almost disastrous, for the convict was seen. The hum of a bullet whistled past his ears as he and his prisoner drew back into the chaparral and from thence ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... no terror like the terror of that sound to me. When I hear a trumpet or a drum or the clash of steel or the hum of the catapult as the great stone flies, fire runs through my veins: I feel my blood surge up hot behind my eyes: I must charge: I must strike: I must conquer: Caesar himself will not be safe in his imperial seat if once that spirit gets loose in me. Oh, brothers, pray! exhort me! remind ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... ready her goose-quill, Sir Godfrey would say, "Write, Chateau Lafitte, 1187;" or, "Write, Chambertin, 1203." (Those, you know, were the names and dates of the vintages.) "Yes, my lord," Mistletoe always piped up; on which Sir Godfrey would peer over her shoulder at the writing, and mutter, "Hum; yes, that's correct," just as if he knew how to read, the old humbug! Then Mistletoe, who was a silly girl and had lost her husband early, would go "Tee-hee, Sir Godfrey!" as the gallant gentleman gave her a kiss. Of course, this was not just what he should have done; but he was a widower, you must ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... the weariness of eight hours in the saddle, began to tell, and conversation flagged and finally died out utterly. The squeak-squeaking of the saddles grew very distinct; occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up; now and then a horse sneezed. These things only emphasised the solemnity and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and I longed to keep the place forevermore. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... left anywhere through which could enter the song of birds, the murmur of leaves, or the hum of the ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... thanks nor any other thing from La Calibana. That she remain out of my sight when possible, that she hold her tongue when we must be together,—that is all I demand. Reasonable, I hope? If not—" She shrugged her shoulders and began to hum ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... her; and she at this moment certainly mistrusted him most grievously. Could she fail to mistrust him? And she, absolutely conscious of purity, had been so grievously suspected! As she looked round on the dresses and diamonds, and heard the thick hum of voices, and saw on all sides the pretence of cordiality, as she watched the altogether unhidden flirtations of one girl, and the despondent frown of another, she began to ask herself whether her father had not been wrong when he insisted that she should be taken to ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... highbrow: some old maid, most likely, with a bony throat and a beaky nose. If Woman is going to come into the fight she will have to use her own weapons. If she is prepared to do that she'll make things hum with a vengeance. She's the biggest force going, if she ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... corner of the room, and took down an old, quaintly-shaped silver cup, which had been an heirloom in their family, and was the only piece of plate which their modern domestic establishment could boast; and with this, down cellar she tripped, her little heels tapping lightly on each stair, and the hum of a song coming back after her as she sought the cider-barrel. Up again she came, and set the silver cup, with its clear amber contents, down by the fire, and then busied herself in making just the crispest, nicest square ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... There is a busy hum surging out of the factory as we approach, and the noise of it rings out on the still air; then, as the white men appear in a little knot in the doorway, there is a dead pause, a silence so sudden ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... across in our boat to Tell Hum, where the ancient city of Capernaum stood, the sun was shining with a fervent heat and the air of the lake, six hundred and eighty feet below the level of the sea, was soft and languid. The gray-bearded ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Bishop's daughter) to the air of "Marching Through Georgia." The rousing strains rose in unison from thousands of earnest throats. The majesty of the song cannot be comprehended unless the reader will permit himself to hum to the familiar tune:— ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... of great length detailing an account of Gen. Washington's visit to Springfield's farm, (for such is its name,) with speculations on the site of the Federal seat. On this letter Gen. Williams has endorsed the words "All a Hum," and Williamsport has remained to this day, rather a village than a city ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... sorry I can't shake hands. Mine are all milky; but Mrs Vincey is going to teach me butter-making this summer.' 'Ah! I'm going to London this summer,' the girl said, 'to my aunt in Bloomsbury.' She coughed as she began to hum, '"Oh, what a town! What ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... there but a little while, when—snap! buzz! buzz! buzz! ziz! ziz! and electricity began to pull my hair and hum around my ears. The electricity passed off shortly, but in a little while it caught me again by the hair for a brief time, and this time my right arm momentarily cramped and my heart seemed to give several lurches. I arose and tramped on and downward, but every little while I was in for shocking ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... Yankee, very coolly, after being perfectly satisfied that it was himself that stood in such imminent danger of assault, "I guess, since you talk of kicking, you've never heard me tell about old Bradly and my mare to hum?" ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... mother, was as clean as any down quilt in chambers of the rich. I remember so well how a single ray of sunlight fell on the floor from the little window in the roof, just on the foot that kept turning the spinning-wheel. Its hum sounded sleepy in my ears. I gazed at the sloping ray of light, in which the ceaseless rotation of the swift wheel kept the motes dancing most busily, until at length to my half-closed eyes it became a huge Jacob's ladder, crowded with an innumerable company of ascending ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... not prepared for what was soon to happen. There came a hum of wheels along the old roadway, and a carriage pulled up at the walk. There alighted quickly the figure of a young girl, tall, slender, round, full-chested, abounding in health and vigor. So much could be seen at a glance. As to the face of ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... speak the words, she shrank from them and left them hanging in their self-polluted atmosphere. "Learn me!" The words were vibrant with a low-pitched hum, that smote and bored like the impact of an electric ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... uproar of boredom and mischief of which most of us have familiar memories, but a sort of eager uproar, in which every child was intensely interested in the same thing; and did little rustling things because of this interest; something like the hum at a football game or ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... and new cap were both in his chamber, for he had been trying them on and asking me which looked the best. Hector winked his eye, lolled his tongue, and said to me—'That's the way, d——n me, to hum the old ones.' ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... star or two high up in a dark sky; one seemed to be falling in a great half-circle—it was only an airplane keeping watch over the sleeping city. Clerambault followed its sweep with his eyes, and seemed, to fly with it, the distant hum of the human planet coming faintly to his ear, like a strange music of the spheres not foreseen by ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... see. When the veil dropped from before her features and she stepped into the full sight of the expectant crowd, it was not the beauty of her face, notable and conspicuous as that was, which roused the hum of surprise that swept from one end of the room to the other, but the calmness, almost the elevation of her manner, a calmness and elevation so unlooked for in the light of the strange contradictions offered by the evidence to which we had been listening for a day and a half, that all were ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... in a large circle, the people were assembled, the proud chieftain rose with the little baby in his arms. The noisy hum of voices was hushed. Not a tinkling of a metal fringe broke the silence. The crier came forward to greet the chieftain, then bent attentively over the small babe, listening to the words of the chieftain. When he paused the crier spoke ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... morning she was prompt at her post, and after watching them ride up the valley, and standing for a moment at the open door for a breath of the scented wind, she seated herself at her sewing-machine. A steady whirring hum presently filled the room, rising to the floor above and quickening the movements there. Elsie, running rapidly downstairs half an hour later, found her sister with quite a pile of little cheese-cloth squares and oblongs folded on the table ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... it, the Greek captains awaited the coming of Pausanias. A low and muttered conversation was carried on amongst them, in small knots and groups, amidst which the voice of Uliades was heard the loudest. Suddenly the hum was hushed, for footsteps were heard without. The thick curtains that at one extreme screened the door-way were drawn aside, and, attended by three of the Spartan knights, amongst whom was Lysander, and by ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... delightfully substantial and familiar. The resiny pines are types of health and steadfastness; the robins feeding on the sod belong to the same species you have known since childhood; and surely these daisies, larkspurs, and goldenrods are the very friend-flowers of the old home garden. Bees hum as in a harvest noon, butterflies waver above the flowers, and like them you lave in the vital sunshine, too richly and homogeneously joy-filled to be capable of partial thought. You are all eye, sifted through and through with light and beauty. Sauntering along the brook that meanders ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... purity, but always clear, often lively, and sometimes rising to solemn and fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which were delivered without any note, was heightened by a noble figure and by pathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in vanity; and so deeply, that at his public suppers—all the Court present, musicians also—he would hum these self-same praises between his teeth, when the music they were set to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... glitter of water dazzled and bewildered his sight: below, and at the foot of the steep woods opposite, the river lay cool and shadowy, or vanished for a space beneath a cliff, where the red plough-land broke abruptly away with no more warning than a crazy hurdle. Distinct above the dreamy hum of the little town, the ear caught the rattle of anchor-chains, the cries of an outward-bound crew at the windlass, the clanking of trucks beside the jetties; the creaking of oars in the thole-pins of a tiny boat below ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lawyer's speech was favorable, as was evident from the looks of the audience, and the approving hum that filled the room, and prepossessed as they were in favor of Holden, they would undoubtedly have acquitted him, but, alas! they were not the tribunal to decide his fate. We have already dilated on the proceedings of the little court of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... can hardly avoid referring to the use of praying wheels and the celebrated formula Om mani padme hum. Though these are among the most conspicuous and ubiquitous features of Lamaism their origin is strangely obscure.[1049] Attempts to connect the praying wheel with the wheel of the law, the cakravartin ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... A low hum in the theatre awakened the queen from her reveries; she raised herself up and leaned forward, to see what was going on. Her glance, which was directed to the stage, fell upon the singer Clairval, who was just then beginning to give, with his ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... as if it boasted of its freshness; though the truth is, it had gone at such a pace, and worked itself to such a pitch of competition with the dancing, that it never could have held on, half a minute longer. The apple- pickers on the ladders raised a hum and murmur of applause, and then, in keeping with the sound, bestirred themselves ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... miles long—the largest rifle range in the world—was constructed. . . . . Camp and army leaped to life in the same hour. Within four days of the opening of the camp nearly 6,000 men had arrived in it. The cloth mills of Montreal began to hum with the manufacture of khaki, which the needles of a great army of tailors converted into uniforms, greatcoats and cloaks. The Ordnance Department equipped the host with the Ross Rifle. Regiments were shuffled and reshuffled into battalions; battalions into brigades. The whole force was inoculated ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... reflected on its surface; stately swans with arched necks which glided by leading their troops of cygnets. The only sounds heard were the splash of the fish as they leaped out of their watery home, the various notes of birds, and the subdued hum of insects flitting in the sunshine, where here and there an opening in the foliage allowed it to penetrate into ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... heard the shot and his cry, and though we made things hum about them, they took time to look into it and bear the ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... but Clutton and Lawson talked of the multitude with enthusiasm. They described the seething throng that filled the various fairs of Paris, the sea of faces, half seen in the glare of acetylene, half hidden in the darkness, and the blare of trumpets, the hooting of whistles, the hum of voices. What they said was new and strange to Philip. They told him ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Si," remarked the one they supposed was Ed Harkness, as he swayed slightly to and fro, while coming to a halt. "I guessed as haow yuh must a be'n mistook w'en yuh said it mout be ther hull outfit. Les sit down, Si, an' make us tuh hum." ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... beautiful morning, sunny, calm, inspiriting, and presently Tom began to hum. After a time Henry perceived that Tom was humming the same phrase again and again: 'Some streets are longer than others. Some ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... just a repetition of yesterday's, with the stumps and the mud holes rather worse. The 'Corner' with its single sawmill and store, offered no inducement for a halt; and a tedious two miles farther brought them to 'hum.' ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... All the nearer plain is green with the olive-orchards, and the road which approaches the front entrance is flanked with two lines of cypresses, and carob-trees grow up the rocky heights overlooking the convent, where no other tree will grow. The hum of bees filled the air, and mingled with the notes of nightingales (poetically fabled to sing only by night), the chirping of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of swallows. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... Didron's Christian Iconography (Lond. 1886, II. 210) there is a woodcut of a miniature in the Speculum hum. salv. (circ. 1350), in the library of Lord Coleridge, portraying Daniel among the lions. The appearance of Habakkuk guided by the angel in the background, carrying food, identifies the scene with Bel and the Dragon, and not with the history of Dan. vi. Even in representations ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... the gnarled roots of the big tree. As had been their custom this contingent managed to escape the hum and confusion of the "first day" just long enough to whisper hello and buzz a few unclassified other words. Rooms and corridors were in commotion; the campus was like a bee farm, and it was only over in a remote corner, where a poplar and three hemlock trees formed ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... after she had dismissed the driver with orders to call for them later in the day. They walked on over the crisp dry grass, and seated themselves on a bit of the fallen masonry. The reaches of the placid river lay before them, and the hum of the alert cricket was in their ears. Now and then a bird flew surreptitiously from one bush to another, with the stealthy, swift motion of flight in autumn, so different from the heedless, fluttering, hither-and-yon ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... people, was no doubt an impressive spectacle, not soon to be forgotten. To many the thought of galleried churches will revive a different set of remembrances. Dusky corners, a close and heavy atmosphere, back seats for children and the scantily favoured, to which sound reached as a drowsy hum, and where sight was limited to the heads of people in their pews, to their hats upon the pillars, and perhaps an occasional half-view of the clergyman in the pulpit, seen at intervals through the interstices of the gallery supports—such are the recollections ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... seemed to have its own speshul whissel tied onto it. Some of them rumbled along like a fast train hittin a down grade. Some would just sing an hum to themselves sort of quiet an happy while others would go yellin an screamin across like the fire department on an exhibishun run. There was one bunch that squealed like a trolly goin round a turn on dry rails. You sort of felt as if someone ought ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter
... of civilization—the Ohio. Here the soldier lived to see the wilderness blossom like the rose, and here he died, grieving that infirmity prevented his flying from the din of the sledge hammer, and the busy hum of mechanical life. Mr. Duncan's father, in the vigor of manhood, crossed the Mississippi, and settled at the Cold Springs, a region then isolated from civilization, as the Ohio was many years before the white man had planted his foot west ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... she replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being told that ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... the line of pentatonic character is sometimes seen in our own children when they follow their natural bent in singing. It has been my observation that children with some musical creative ability, but unaccustomed to hearing modern music with its half steps, almost invariably hum their bits of improvised ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... he, with folded arms, slowly pacing to and fro—"Had I, sir, entertained the smallest possible intention of addressing the House on the present occasion—hum, on the present occasion—I would have endeavoured to prepare myself in a way that should have at least shown my sense of the greatness of the subject before the House's consideration, and the nature of the distinguished audience I have the honour to address. I am, sir, a plain man—born of ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... voicewrite to a comfortable position in front of the view wall and began composing another of the series of letters that had begun months ago in time and parsecs away in space. His voice was a fluid counterpoint to the soft hum of the machine. ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... afternoon more than twenty years after this tragedy a visitor to Colorado stood on the site of the massacre under a sky whose intense blue rivalled that of Italy. With the peaceful flow of the river murmuring in the air and the hum of insects in the purple-flowered alfalfa, the tragic scene seemed to rise again and impressed its lesson,—the ethical lesson of apparent defeat, disaster, and death in the outer and temporal world, while, on the spiritual side, it was triumph and glory and the entrance to the life more abundant. ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... May your days be clear sunshine; and may a gentle rain give balm to your nights, that the flowers and birch-trees may salute you in the morning with all their fragrance! May the kids frisk and play tricks before you with unusual sprightliness; and may the song of birds, the hum of bees, and the distant waterfall, with now and then the shepherd's horn resounding from the mountains, entertain you with a full chorus of Highland music! My imagination had parcelled out the lovely little glen into a thousand little paradises; ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... heard. Luckily a ward had just been evacuated that evening and the wounded and dying were brought in immediately. It was horrible to see little children, torn and maimed, being carried past our door into the ward. The hum of the Gotha's engines could still be ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... delighted. I hope that in five years' time you will be supporting me and my family. Your sister-in-law will be speechless with jealousy. I congratulate you. Hum—The Blank and Dash Avenues Company? Well, you won't have to send John very far with your copies of the pleadings. Pope was appointed attorney for the company last week, in place of old Slyther, who resigned, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... coincidence of his delirium, that he should have chosen this for his song? With moist eyes his friends looked back through the darkness, for well they knew that home was very near to this wanderer. Gradually the voice died away into a hum, and was absorbed once more into the masterful ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Ho hum!" yawned Garman. "I must follow the ladies. Especially, Annette—magnificent, tender, fiery little Annette!—Damn her! Something has happened; she's bold, defiant! She needs taming. Great sport, woman taming—in the swamp. Good night, Payne. ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... pleasure began to hum in my head, my knees gradually gave way beneath me, until I was on my knees before the two women. My hands were unconsciously extended as if to fend them off, and each of them seized a hand, pulled me ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... that we should foregather this mornin', Mr Mabberly," said the skipper, after greeting the young men; "for Shames an' me was jist speakin' aboot ye. We will be thinkin' that it iss foolishness for hum an' me to be stoppin' here wastin' our time when we ought ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... that is true, though all "religions" do not sing. There is no voice of sacred song in Islamism. The muezzin call from the minarets is not music. One listens in vain for melody among the worshippers of the "Light of Asia." The hum of pagoda litanies, and the shouts and gongs of idol processions are not psalms. But many historic faiths have lost their melody, and we must go far back in the annals of ethnic life to find ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... slouched by, and ragged little girls walked gingerly through the confusion with foaming buckets of beer in their hands. There was a clatter and garble of foreign tongues and brogues, shrill cries, quarrels and wrangles, and the Pit pulsed with a great and steady murmur, like the hum of the human hive ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... lies between the "Gate" and the cove-head. Around the wells sat at squat a small gathering of the filthy "Moghrebin" (Allah yakharrib-hum!). About 260 of these rufffians were being carried gratis, by some charitable merchant, in a Sambk that lay at the harbour-mouth. A party had lately slaughtered a camel, of course not their own property; and yet they wondered that the Bedawin ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... of the lines by heart," said I. And having lighted my pipe, I took up the book, and once more began to read. Yet I was conscious, all the time, of Charmian's flashing needle, also she had begun to hum again. ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... flowers, the bright dresses and the flashy scarfs of the cowboys furnished a gay enough scene to a man of lonesome and stern life like mine. During the dance there was a steady, continuous shuffling tramp of boots, and during the interval following a steady, low hum of merry ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... chapel of the monastery there floated forth into the fair evening stillness, from the bars, of a window, while yet not really stirring that stillness, a hum of gruff, lazy, peevish ejaculations. Apparently they were uttered by two persons who were engaged in a dispute, since ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... scurried over to one side of the vast machine shop and flipped on the wall switch. There was an audible hum of power and then slowly the machine Astro had just worked on began to speed up, soon revving up to ten ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... prejudicial to our order. She lived in prayer alone, would remain in ecstasy before the altar of the virgin, which is on the side of the fields, and pretend so distinctly to hear the angels flying in Paradise, that she was able to hum the tunes they were singing. You all know that she took from them the chant Adoremus, of which no man could have invented a note. She remained for days with her eyes fixed like the star, fasting, and putting no more nourishment into her body ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... hurry, they would be very likely, when coming to one of the many lovely valleys on the banks of the Holstein, or the Clinch river, to be enticed to some days of delay. Where now there are thriving villages filled with the hum of the industries of a high civilization, there was then but the solitary landscape dotted with herds of buffalo ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... Musical is with hum of tiny things Held idly, struggling there, As if the golden mist entangled were About the viewless wings, That beat out music on their ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... truly Christian, who had dealt such rude blows to the false Church. Rodin waited for some moments with angry impatience, thinking the voice would continue; but Rose-Pompon was silent, or only continued to hum, and soon changed to another air, that of the Good Pope, which she entoned, but without words. Rodin, not venturing to look out of his window to see who was this troublesome warbler, shrugged his shoulders, resumed his ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... on his weary horse with the hum of an outlandish host about him, himself very weary and very sick at heart. For the utter folly of it all had come on him like the waking from a dream. These men were no allies of the West. They were children of the Blue Wolf, as the Constable had said, a monstrous brood, swarming from the unknown ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... of the straight, thin lines of barbed-wire fences lined with goldenrod, and solitary houses in willow groves. The dips and curves of the rolling plain drew him on; the distances satisfied his eyes. A pleasant hum of insects filled the land's ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... taken as favorable specimens:—"Breve originale, original sinne; capias, a catch to a sad tune; alias capias, another to the same (sad tune); habeas corpus, a trooper; capias ad satisfaciend., a hangman: latitat, bo-peep; nisi prius, first come first served; demurrer, hum and haw; scandal. magnat., down with ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... this sort that they attach the cords that support those canvas bags or cradles, called hammocks. Four tier of these hanging nests were made to hang, one above the other, between these stalls, or stanchions.... The general hum and confused noise from almost every hammock was at first very distressing. Some would be lamenting their hard fate at being shut up like negro slaves in a Guinea ship, or like fowls in a hen-coop, for no crime, but ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... horn-blowings and noises had died away in the direction of the mill; there was no leisure for stags to bray, as they crouched now far away in the bracken, listening large-eyed and trumpet-eared for the sounds of pursuit; only the hum of insect life in the hot evening sunshine filled the air; and Ralph began to fall asleep, his back ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... the clink of glass and china, the low hum of merry chat, the sound of half-smothered laughter, fell upon the ear and vexed her with its careless jollity. Impatiently she threw herself upon the other—the left—side, and then—sat bolt ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... in their faces, the hum of the cordage overhead was in their ears, and their thoughts had gone back to that day, now nigh upon eight years back, when they, as unknown and untried boys, had started forth to ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... yourself; tides cannot always fit in with dinner-hours, you know. And as for poor Renny, I believe after all you are as fond of him, at the bottom of your heart, as I am. Now what good fare have you got for me to-day?" bending from his great height to inspect the refection, "Ah—hum, excellent." ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... until the hum of the motor grew dim in the distance, and was about to descend when he detected the sound of a second approaching car! Acutely conscious of danger, he remained where he was. Almost before the hum of the retiring limousine had become inaudible, a second car entered the lane and turned ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... anti-aircraft guns are called on the British front, get into noisy action. (Their name, it is said, came from a London music-hall song which was exceedingly popular at the beginning of the war. When the shells from the German A. A. guns burst harmlessly around the British airmen they would hum mockingly the concluding line of the song: "Archibald, certainly not!") Unable to keep their fliers in the air, the Germans are to all intents and purposes blind. They are unable to regulate the fire of their artillery or to direct their infantry ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... before Yussuf announced that he thought they might venture to make a new attempt. The snow had pretty well gone, and the guards were returning to their stations at the great gate. There was an unwonted hum in the settlement, and when the chief came he seemed to take more interest in his prisoners, as if they were so many fat creatures which he had been keeping for sale, and the time had nearly come for him to realise them, and take ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... I stand before you tonight to report that the state of our union is strong. Now, America is working again. The promise of our future is limitless. But we cannot realize that promise if we allow the hum of our prosperity to lull us into complacency. How we fare as a nation far into the 21st century depends upon what we do ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... heart of a girl and gets mixed up in the tangle that such interference is bound to bring on anybody who attempts it. I didn't know, and therefore I should have thrown up the job as soon as I began to get wound in it. You have heard that gentle hum of the buzz-saw? You have seen how still it runs and how its feathery edge seems calm during the lull in the sawmill? You also noticed that no one who understands the sawmill business ever goes near it to give ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... rippling sound Under the boughs. The tinkle of the brook is there, And cow-bells wandering through the fern, And silver calls From waterfalls, And echoes floating through the air From happiness I know not where, And hum and drone where'er I turn Of little lives that buzz and die; And sudden lucent melodies, Like hidden strings among the trees Roofing the ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... "He isn't ter hum just now," replied Amos, in tones that were unnecessarily feeble, while at the same time an idea entered his brain that almost made him chuckle; but the sound which was quenched in his throat only came to Maria as an uncomfortable struggle for breath that hastened her exit to the woodpile by the ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... of Donna Violetta was far from the scene of general amusement. Though so remote, the hum of the moving throng, and the higher strains of the wind-instruments, came, from time to time, to the ears of its inmates, mellowed and ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... most populous cities in the United States with tall office buildings, broad busy streets, and sumptuous private residences. I used to have excellent trout-fishing in what is now the centre of a great town. Where the air to-day is filled with the hum of wheels and the roar of machinery, then was only open prairie innocent of any evidence of human occupation beyond some three or four things like dog-kennels badly built of loose lattice-work on the river's bank. These were the red Indians' ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... place where the resounding of the water that was falling into the next circle was heard, like that hum which the beehives make, when three shades together separated themselves, running, from a troop that was passing under the rain of the bitter torment. They came toward us, and each cried out, "Stop thou, that by thy garb seemest to us to be one from ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... be seen of the land but the twinkle of the fires in the camp, they were lying in a deep washout under a bluff, which overlooked the hostile camp. Long and silently they sat watching the fires and the people moving about, hearing their hum and chanting as it came to them on the still air, together with the barking of dogs, the nickering of ponies, and the hollow pounding on a log made by old ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... ar a o ar ir 3 pe lohe oe lai lai loi la la lei 4 puon pun(pon) phun pon saw thaw sia so so 5 pfuong pan phan hpawn(fan) san than san san san 6 tol tal to laiya(lia) (hin)riw thro thrau ynro threi 7 kul pul phu a-laiya (hin)iew (hum)thloi ynthla ynniaw ynthlei (alia) 8 ti ta ta s'te(su'te) phra humpya humphyo phra humpyir 9 kash tim tim s'ti(su'ti) (khyn)dai hunsulai hunshia khyndo khyndai 10 kan kel ken(ko) kao (shi)phew ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... game appears originally to have come from China, where a top (Kouengen), made of two hollow pierced cylinders of metal or wood, joined by a rod—and often of immense size,—was made by rotation to hum with a loud noise, and was used by pedlars to attract customers. From China it was introduced by missionaries to Europe; and a form of the game, known as "the devil on two sticks," appears to have been known in England towards the end ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... turned up—men's heads in every direction were popping up and down from their holes. Well might an Australian writer, in speaking of Bendigo, term it "The Carthage of the Tyre of Forest Creek." The rattle of the cradle, as it swayed to and fro, the sounds of the pick and shovel, the busy hum of so many thousands, the innumerable tents, the stores with large flags hoisted above them, flags of every shape, colour, and nation, from the lion and unicorn of England to the Russian eagle, the strange yet picturesque costume of the diggers themselves, all contributed ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... procession of cars plowed, then out across the railroad tracks and toward the open country beyond. When it came to a halt, as it frequently did, above the hum of idle motors could be heard the clank of pumps, the fitful coughing of gasengines, the hiss of steam. This, of course, was soon drowned in a terrific din of impatient horns, a blaring, brazen snarl at the delay. The whole line roared metallic ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... though tired with their travelling, found That the first night in Paris one's sleep is not sound, For the hum of the streets makes one dream all the night Of the wonderful sights that will come with ...
— Abroad • Various
... God knows, and they do make things hum, but they charge her—some of them—fat fees for the privilege of entertaining them. Funny things have happened at her card tables. So Walter and I have been scheming to find some way to protect her without rousing her resentment by seeming to interfere. If we ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... of the jungle. I was so interested by this discovery of a superficial northern flora, that I began to watch for other forms of temperate-appearing life, and for a long time my ear found nothing out of harmony with the plants. The low steady hum of abundant insects was so constant that it required conscious effort to disentangle it from silence. Every few seconds there arose the cadence of a passing bee or fly, the one low and deep, the other ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... from the floor and took their places at the table, and lit cigarettes again. But they were listening. We listened to the loud hum of airplanes, the well known "zooz-zooz" of the Gothas' double fuselage. More bombs were dropped farther into the town, with the same sound of explosives and falling masonry. The anti—aircraft guns got to work and there was the shrill chorus of shrapnel shells winging ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... ceased, and we thought that most of the men slept. After that was no sound but the wash of the waves, and the hum of the sail, and the creak of the great steering oar as Asbiorn met the luff of the ship across the long, smooth sweep ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... the starless darkness and the icy night air, and the fierce silent two hours' race, his senses reeled on sudden entrance into warmth, and light, and the cheery hum of voices. A sudden unforeseen anguish assailed him, as now first he entertained the possibility of being overmatched by her wiles and her daring, if at the approach of pure death she should start up at bay transformed to a terrible beast, and achieve a savage glut at the ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... [She bursts into song] Hide me in the meat safe til the cop goes by. Hum the dear old music as his step draws nigh. [She goes ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... minutes that of hours. Thus seated in his lonely chair, Bridgenorth could catch at a distance the stately step of Sir Geoffrey, or the heavy tramp of his war-horse, Black Hastings, which had borne him in many an action; he could hear the hum of "The King shall enjoy his own again," or the habitual whistle of "Cuckolds and Roundheads," die unto reverential silence, as the Knight approached the mansion of affliction; and then came the strong hale voice of the huntsman ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
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