"Tinkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (2)And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. (3)And though I bestow all my goods in food, and though I give up my body that I may be burned, ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... thin and reedy even to her ears, compared with that divine resonance in St. Paul's: a tinkling apology, timidly disconnected from the congregational singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the service—she read afterwards that it was only a harmonium—yet it brought a strange exaltation, and there was an uplifting even to tears in ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... me that, being very fond of music when he was small, he stole down one morning at six to play the piano. His father, a very early riser, was disturbed by the gentle tinkling, and coming out of his study, asked him rather sharply why he couldn't do something useful—read some Shakespeare. He never played on the piano again for months, and for years never until he had ascertained that his father was ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... unrest, Up starting quickly to pursue Their intermitted game anew. It was a lovely sight to see Those fair ones, as they played, While fragrant robes were floating free, And bracelets clashing in their glee A pleasant tinkling made. The anklet's chime, the Koil's(82) cry With music filled the place As 'twere some city in the sky Which heavenly minstrels grace. With each voluptuous art they strove To win the tenant of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... winter; visualised the tall, shy, overgrown girl who danced with him and made no complaint when her slim foot was trodden on. And again he remembered the sleigh and the sleighbells clashing and tinkling under the moon; the light from her doorway, and how she stood looking back at him; and how, on the mischievous impulse of the moment, he had ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... seated in summer evenings to enjoy the balmy twilight or the serenely clear moon light. Each family had a cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of the town. In the evening the herd returned all together ... with their tinkling bells ... along the wide and grassy street to their wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at their master's doors. Nothing could be more pleasing to a simple and benevolent mind than to see thus, at one ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... bow flew like lightning. His long fingers drummed and slid along the strings of the violin with bewildering swiftness. The little instrument jetted and effervesced its melody. The continuous and resounding noise poured out of it in tuneful bubbles. The air was filled with tinkling fragments of sound. The Lad's body swayed to and fro. His face glowed. His eyes flashed. The sweat stood in drops on his forehead, but still the bow snapped and crinkled, and the instrument continued to burst in musical explosions, while the floor shook, the windows rattled, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... dinner, a lonely, silent mockery of a meal. And back the question came, booming over the soft tinkling of glass and silver. He realized, with his salad, that four nights out of seven, Nellie dined like this, alone. His lower lip protruded, and lines of conscience fell in ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... between the rock; and as it ran it would eat that hole wider and wider year by year, and make a swallow- hole—such as you may see in plenty if you ever go up Whernside, or any of the high hills in Yorkshire—unfathomable pits in the green turf, in which you may hear the water tinkling and trickling ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... bell again close to his ear, and grunted his satisfaction. The missing article must be found. To carry out the incantation more effectually, all the men were sent for to sit in the open air before the hut, when the old doctor rose, shaking the horn and tinkling the bell close to his ear. He then, confronting one of the men, dashed the horn forward as if intending to strike him on the face, then smelt the head and dashed it at another, and so on, till he became satisfied that Speke's men were not the thieves. He then ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the bridge—our bridge—ran the path. As I turned my face to the mountain, there was a strange constricted feeling about one corner of my mouth, to which I put up a mittened hand. A small icicle fell tinkling down. My feet were now beginning to get a little warm, but I felt uncertain whether my ears were hot or cold. There was a strange unattached feeling about them. Had I not been reading somewhere of a mountaineer who had some such feeling? ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Fowler. Mary had seen it with her own eyes on the 'Royal Oak' kitchen table. She must not allow her mind to dwell upon it. Now Wynn was dead, and everything connected with him was lumping and rustling and tinkling under her busy poker into red black dust and grey leaves of ash. The thing beneath the oak would die too. Mary had seen death more than once. She came of a family that had a knack of dying under, as she told Miss Fowler, 'most distressing circumstances.' ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... at a book in the basement parlour of "Cannon's Boarding-house" in Preston Street. She heard, through the open window, several pairs of feet mounting wearily to the front door, and then the long remote tinkling of the bell. Within the house there was no responsive sound; but from the porch came a clearing of throats, a muttering, impatient and yet resigned, and a vague shuffling. After a long pause the bell rang again; and then the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... bath tonight," said the dirty little boy as he heard the water splashing in the tub. The water was still the singing water that had sung all the way from the far-away hills. It had sung a bubbling song when it gurgled up as a spring; it had sung a tinkling song as it rippled down hill as a brook; it had crooned a flowing song when it bore the talking boats; it had muttered and throbbed and sung to itself as it ran through the big, big pipe. Now as it splashed into the dirty little boy's ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... whom his lot was cast—that he must see them, talk to them, day in, day out, all the round of the seasons.... Vassie's beauty seemed dimmed to him; Phoebe became an annoyance like a musical-box that will not leave off tinkling out the same tune. He bent his head lower as he sat, aware, with a misery of shame, that tears were burning perilously near his eye-lids. Life was sordid, and his position, over which he had not been guiltless of sometimes dreaming as romantic, held ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— From the jingling and the tinkling of ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... tinkling the thoughts of the young woman lost themselves in old memories of her youth and school-days. She remembered the great candlesticks that rose above the vases full of flowers on the altar, and the tabernacle with its small columns. She would have liked to be once more lost in ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... two young Americans that they stared foolishly agape for a space. Then a tinkling laugh from the tall stranger set them once ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... definitions enumerated, we must give to the word learning the broadest signification. It is safe to accept the statement of the great poet, that a man may be acquainted with many languages, and yet not be learned; even as the apostle said he should become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, if he had not charity, though he spoke with the tongues of men and angels. Learning includes, no doubt, a knowledge of the languages, the sciences, and all literature; but it includes also much else; and this much else may be more important than the enumerated branches. The term ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... hermits and Holy Fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas magna solitudo ("A great town is a great solitude"), because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... procession, headed by a priest, holding high in the air a glittering cross; there are old men with bowed heads, young men erect, with shaven crowns, and boys in scarlet and white robes, carrying silver censers; there is a clanking of silver chains, a tinkling of little bells, and an undertone of oft-repeated prayer. The effect is startling, and brilliant; the sunlight glances upon the white robes of the men, in alternate stripes of soft shadow and dazzling brightness, ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... upon Bumsteadville, and her one eye to be seen in profile, the moon, glared upon the helpless place with something of a cat's nocturnal stare of glassy vision for a stupefied mouse. Midnight had come with its twelve tinkling drops more of opiate, to deepen the stupor of all things almost unto death, and still the light shone luridly through the window-curtains of Mr. BUMSTEAD'S room, and still the lonely musician sat stiffly at a dinner-table spread for three, whereof only a goblet, a curious antique black bottle, a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... correspondent. You don't write your letters with your pen, or with your tongue, you write them with your heart. Hearts are different; some, I suppose, are born sound and musical, others are born uncertain and unmusical, and are at best a mere tinkling cymbal. Yours, I have no doubt, has blessed and cheered and delighted the soul of the mother who bore you from the very first opening of your eyes upon the world, and that dear heart has gone on with that cheering influence from that time to the present, and it will ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... a clear sunny space, he dropped on a thick, velvet mat of moss and sobbed himself to sleep. When he awoke, Jack was licking his face and he sat up, dazed and yawning. The sun was dropping fast, the ravines were filling with blue shadows, luminous and misty, and a far drowsy tinkling from the valley told him that cows were starting homeward. From habit, he sprang quickly to his feet, but, sharply conscious on a sudden, dropped slowly back to the moss again, while Jack, who had started down the spur, circled back to see ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... pane nearest the lock, and there was a sharp crackling noise, the splintered glass being caught by the blind inside; but as the man thrust his hand through the great hole he had made, to draw the blind on one side, a fragment or two fell, making a musical tinkling. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... were dead, And vexed no more," the Old Year said: "In vain may the preacher pray and warn; The tinkling cymbals in your ears Turn every gracious word to scorn; Ye care not for the orphan's tears; Your sides are fed, and your bodies clad Is there anything ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... and at once the tinkling of bells was heard, playing sweet music. Yet, look where she would, Dorothy could discover no bells at all in the ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... Venus and her revellers vanish, and Tannhaeuser finds himself in a meadow, hears the tinkling herd-bells, ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... than felt the swift movement of the canoe. There was no perceptible tremor to its progress. The current and a perfect craftsmanship with the paddles were carrying it along at six or seven miles an hour. He heard the rippling of water that at times was almost like the tinkling of tiny bells, and more and more bell-like became that sound as he listened to it. It struck a certain note for him. And to that note another added itself, until in the purling rhythm of the river he caught the murmuring monotone of a name Boulain—Boulain—Boulain. The ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... woman plodding slowly along the road. Her rusty beaver hat, tied down over her ears, and her faded gown, were in singular contrast to the shining new scarlet shawl upon her shoulders. As she stopped and turned, at the sound of his tinkling bells, she showed a hard red face, not devoid of a certain coarse beauty, and he recognized Deb. Smith, a lawless, irregular creature, well ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... revelation to the girls, her room was. Not fine, and it didn't cost much, but you felt nicer and kinder the minute you went in it. And it made Mrs. Reagan's grand parlors seem like shining brass and tinkling cymbals. I wonder why? ...
— Mary Cary - "Frequently Martha" • Kate Langley Bosher
... real to me. If I have been reading Ford or Kinglake, or Warburton or Lane, I have but to lay the volume down and close my eyes, and all that I have been reading about seems to take shape and sound, and colour and life. I hear the tinkling of the mule-bells and the guttural cries of the muleteers, and I see the Spanish market-place, with its arcades and its ancient cathedral; or the delicate pillars of the Parthenon, yellow in the clear Athenian air; or Stamboul, ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... inquired if the family were at home, hired a guide, and arrived at length by a rugged path which wound itself round steep rocks, to the summit of them, and finally to the castle, which was perched there like an eagle's nest. The tinkling of the bells on Edward's sledge attracted the attention of the inmates; the door was opened with prompt hospitality; servants appeared with torches; Edward was assisted to emerge from under the frozen apron of his carriage, out of his heavy pelisse, stiff with hoar-frost, and up a comfortable staircase ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... silver trumpet blared from the battlements of the City of God; no crimson flag was unfurled on those high, secret walls; no thrilling drum-beat echoed over the smooth meadow. Only the sound of the brook of Brighthopes was heard tinkling and murmuring among the roots of the grasses and flowers; and far off a cadence of song drifted down from the inner courts of the Palace ...
— The Spirit of Christmas • Henry Van Dyke
... from each other as they had promised, and now without speaking they glowered unwinking into each other's eyes. Nor did either ask a question when the little teacher, with two towels over one arm, led the way down the road, up over a little ridge, and down to a grassy hollow by the side of a tinkling creek. It was hard for the girl to believe that these two boys meant to shoot each other as they had threatened, but Pleasant had told her they surely would, and that fact held her purpose firm. Without a word they listened while she explained, ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... both names. I am a true Frenchman!" and he struck his breast a resounding blow with the hand that still held the watch. A huge horn button on his buckskin jerkin came in contact with the crystal, and there was a smash, followed by a scattered tinkling of glass fragments. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... approach the rent in the stuff, and her mother defending the position with angry obstinacy. On the other side there was a lull in the conversation, but the breathing of several men, the occasional light tinkling of some ornaments, the clink of metal scabbards, or of brass siri-vessels passed from hand to hand, was audible during the short pause. The women struggled silently, when there was a shuffling noise and the shadow of Almayer's burly form fell ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... about the where)—comes the sound of music, soft, rhythmical, and sweet. Perhaps it is from one of the rooms outside—dimly seen through the green foliage—where the lights are more brilliant, and forms are moving. But just in here there is no music save the tinkling drip, drip of the little fountain that plays idly amongst ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... are coming tinkling home in the twilight—the green ducks swim under the willows. And they are longer and broader because of the lights and shadows. That's the way you saw them ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... directly before me and raised her arm in formal greeting like a man. The chain made a tinkling sound in the hushed square as her other hand was pulled up tight against the silken loop at her waist. She stood surveying me for some moments, and finally I raised my head and returned her gaze. I don't know why I had expected her to have hair like spun black glass ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... shingled and clapboarded, with plots of bright asters and marigolds about the door. Adjoining was an equally tidy barn, and in front one of the best-kept, most luxuriant gardens I had ever seen in Canada. Farther away was an acre of ripening oats and another of potatoes. A Jersey cow with her tinkling bell was feeding at the borders of the clearing. Such evidences of care and thrift were so unusual in that northerly region that I spoke of it to ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... was playing irreverent tricks with the pages of Bibles, and proof could still be brought forward that he would stop deliberately in the aisle to lift up a piece of paper, say, that had floated there. After the first psalm had been sung it was Hendry's part to lift up the plate and carry its tinkling contents to the session-house. On the greatest occasions he remained so calm, so indifferent, so expressionless, that he might have been present the night ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... fine sparkling sand, against which the water broke in tiny wavelets, and all around a perfect bower of every variety of fern and moss, kept green by streams no thicker than a silver thread trickling down here and there with a subdued tinkling sound. We all sat quite silent, the boat kept back just inside the entrance by the steersman holding on to a branch. It was a sudden contrast from the sparkling sunshine and brightness outside, all life and colour and ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... air, 70 And view the winged cloud all blackening from afar; While shady coverts and fresh streams they choose, Milfoil and common honeysuckles bruise, And sprinkle on their hives the fragrant juice. On brazen vessels beat a tinkling sound, And shake the cymbals of the goddess round; Then all will hastily retreat, and fill The warm resounding hollow of their cell. If once two rival kings their right debate, And factions and cabals embroil the state, 80 ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... deep as death, and we heard the crickets sing and the drowsy tinkling on the distant hill. I spoke not another word, for when a great Scotch soul is in revolution, I would as soon have offered to assist at the creation as seek then to interfere. But I heard his wife Elsie sobbing gently and ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... pool beneath the force. And now, what with the failing day and the tall trees well-nigh meeting overhead, it was dusk in the ghyll; and moreover as Osberne drank (and he was in no hurry about it) with his face to the force and his back to the length of the ghyll, the tinkling and splashing of the force deafened his ears to any sound but a somewhat big one. So he drank and thought no evil; but of a sudden he felt a sharp pain in his left side, and ere he could say that he knew he had been smitten, another and another, and he rolled over ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... lights of the great gay city twinkled and danced and veered and fluttered like fire-flies in the damp, dewy shadows of some moist meadow in summer. The sound of clattering hoofs and rumbling wheels, of tinkling guitars and gay roundelays, rose out of that obscure distance, seeming far off and plaintive like the dream of a life that is past. The great church seemed a vast world; the long aisles of statued pinnacles with their pure floorings of white ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... and tinkling brook Wear in their dainty livery Drops of silver jewelry; In new-made suit they merry look; And Time throws off his cloak again Of ermined frost, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... sleepy and slow that Borgrevinck impatiently gave him a kick, and got for response a short snort from the Buk, and from Sveggum an earnest warning, both of which were somewhat scornfully received. The tinkling bells on the harness had been replaced, but Borgrevinck wanted them removed. He wished to go in silence. Sveggum would not be left behind when his favorite Ren went forth, so he was given a seat in the horse-sleigh which was ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... made of sacks Hangs from their loins; bright blankets drape their backs; About their necks are twisted tangled strings Of gaudy beads, while tinkling wire and rings Of yellow brass on wrists and fingers glow. Thus, to assuage the anger of the foe The cunning Indians decked the captive pair Who in one year have known ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the stillness of the morning. Ere came the second stroke, another and nearer clock was striking. And now there were others chiming in. The air was confused with the sweet babel of its many spires, some of them booming deep, measured sequences, some tinkling impatiently and outwitting others which had begun before them. And when this anthem of jealous antiphonies and uneven rhythms had dwindled quite away and fainted in one last solitary note of silver, there started somewhere another sequence; and this, almost at its last stroke, was interrupted ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of the trumpet Athelstane sprang from his place and came up the course, his lance at rest; a tinkling sound and the first ring slipped down the knight's spear and when he swept past the last post there was a clapping of hands, for he held three rings triumphantly aloft. And thus they came, one by one, until each had run the course three times, the Discarded jousting next to ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... I heard you practising so nicely yesterday," came to her across the room. So, with a tinkling ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... the mill, upon the stream, A busy murmur swells; On to the pasture go the cattle, Lowing, with tinkling bells, And ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... North From storm and silence drave me forth Down to the blue and tideless sea. I do not fear the tinkling sword, For I am a great battle-lord, And love the horns of chivalry. And I have brought thee splendid gold, The strong man's joy, refined and cold. All hail, thou Prince ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... things, not envy those that had them. Then men were had in price for learning; now letters only make men vile. He is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a contemptible nick-name: but the professors, indeed, have made the learning cheap—railing and tinkling rhymers, whose writings the vulgar more greedily read, as being taken with the scurrility and petulancy of such wits. He shall not have a reader now unless he jeer and lie. It is the food of men's natures; the diet of the times; gallants cannot sleep else. The writer must lie and the gentle ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... indeed, suits not all persons. Geniuses must be explored, and the manner of instructing proportioned to them. But there is one thing which suits all persons, and without which knowledge is nothing but "a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal": this is the supernatural culture of the soul, or the habitual endeavor of man of rendering himself more pleasing in the sight of God by the acquisition of solid Christian virtues, in order thus to reach his last end—his eternal happiness. ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Croizeau), wished to see him. Cerizet's declaration of war had so far taken effect that he of the yellow kid gloves was studying the position of every piece, however insignificant, upon the board; and it so happened that at the mention of that 'nice old man,' an ominous tinkling sounded in his ears. One evening, therefore, Maxime seated himself among the book-shelves in the dimly lighted back room, reconnoitred the seven or eight customers through the chink between the green curtains, and took the little coach-builder's ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... affected pace, are most powerful enticers, and which the prophet Isaiah, a courtier himself, and a great observer, objected to the daughters of Zion, iii. 16. "they minced as they went, and made a tinkling with their feet." To say the truth, what can they ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... impossible to be shut out of the enchanting lights and shades which her silver beams reflected on the rude rocks above, beneath, and on all sides of us.—Every thing was as still as death, till the sonorous convent bell warned the Monks to midnight prayer. At two o'clock, we heard some of the tinkling bells of the hermits' cells above give notice, that they too were going to their devotion at the appointed hour: after which I retired to my bed; but my mind was too much awakened to permit me to sleep; I was impatient for the return ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... to its hiding-place, swept the floor gracefully with his sombrero, then placing the spangled head- piece at an exact angle upon his raven locks, lounged out, his silver spurs tinkling ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... world. Old Barytone told me that he had never heard such a voice from a woman's mouth since the days of Malibran; and if there is a man who knows one voice from another, it is Barytone. He can taste the richness of the instrument down to its lowest tinkling sound." ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... of everything but ornaments. Ottawa Indians usually wore brilliant blankets, while Wyandots of Sandusky and Detroit paraded in painted shirts, their heads crowned with feathers, and their leggins tinkling with little bells. The Ojibwas, or Chippewas, of the north carried quivers slung on ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... exchanged, and the slight misunderstanding which existed between the two steamers at first was quickly removed. The shouts and orders, the tinkling of the engineer's bell, and even the sound of hurrying feet, were heard on one ship as distinctly as ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... to and fro, with the result that when nearest, I made a dash with one hand to tap on the window opposite to me; but being unable to govern the force exercised, my hand went right through the pane, and the glass fell tinkling to the ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... good things, stopped vp, and the mouth downewarde, hir left hand fastned and harde holden to hir naked brest. This Image and stature was with euery blast of wind turned, and mooued about with such a noyse and tinkling in the hollownes of the metaline deuise: as if the mynte of the Queene of England had being going there. And when the foote of the phane or Image in turning about, did rub and grinde vpon the copper ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... him hers and he kissed it, and so went his ways smiling kindly on them. Then the carle cried to his kine, and they bent down their heads to the yoke; and presently, as he walked on, he heard the rumble of the wain mingling with the tinkling of their bells, which in a little while became measured and musical, and sounded above the creaking of the axles and the rattle of the gear and the roll of the great wheels over the road: and so it grew thinner and thinner till it all ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... that she said, and she did not say it to them. She disregarded them all, and yet by some magic, through the medium of the jerky, empty sentences she made them see the vulgar, gaudy thing as she was seeing it. The subdued music, the tinkling of plates and glasses, they themselves made a background for her swift picture. They watched it—the old third-rate circus—trail its cheap glitter and flare and bang out of darkness and across the stage and into darkness again—tawdry and sordid, and yet ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... PUNCH, "that at present they are too busy smiting the Socialistic big drum, or tickling their sonorous native tongue into tinkling triolets. In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... toilet of the people was performed with care. I cannot describe just how I was attired or painted, but I am under the impression that there was but little of my brown skin that was not uncovered. The others were similarly dressed in feathers, paint and tinkling ornaments. ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Clothes as with net-work: here will couch my limbs, Close by this river, in this silent shade, As safe and sacred from the step of man As an invisible world—unheard, unseen, And listening only to the pebbly brook That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound; Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me, Was never Love's accomplice, never raised The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... Guiomar was one of the party, but the negro was not among them; for upon the first alarm he had run off, hugging his guitar, and hid himself in his loft, where he lay huddled up under the bed-clothes, sweating with terror; in spite of which he could not forbear from tinkling the guitar from time to time, so inordinate—may Satanas confound him!—was his love of music. The soft speeches of the amorous duena were distinctly heard by the group outside the door; and there was not one of them but bestowed a ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... now he remembered the Beautiful Wicked Witch and the bird she had caged in there. He saw a door in the tree trunk ajar, and swinging to and fro with tiny tinkling music. He peeped in, and between the swingings caught glimpses of little blue and yellow flowers arranged in tight bunches in hanging vases. He could smell their sweetness even out there ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... bygone days. Snatches from Italian opera, and old well-known songs followed each other as we sat in the twilight and listened, conjuring up pictures of opera-house and concert-hall in this far-away land. Then the music ceased, and the tinkling of coins on a plate proclaimed the status of our serenader. In a few minutes a ragged, fair-haired boy stood before us, wearily holding a plate in his hand. As we dived into our pockets the doctor asked him in Serb, who he was and whence he came. He gazed blankly ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... bare, black rocks jutted out; here and there shrubs peeped forth from under the snow; but not a single withered leaf stirred, and amid that dead sleep of nature it was cheering to hear the snorting of the three tired post-horses and the irregular tinkling of ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... invaluable single women, not uncommon in the middle rank of society in England, whose sterling excellences are more widely felt than openly appreciated. She was not one of those active ladies who carry little bells on the skirts of their good deeds, so as to make a loud tinkling in the ears of the world. Hers was a quiet and unobtrusive work. Her views of usefulness and duty were, in the eyes of some of her acquaintance, old-fashioned and behind the age. Standing on one side, as it were, out of the ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... at express speed during a cold weather. He visited the Museum, he walked through the Elephant Gate into the bazaar, he was rowed over the lake to the island palaces; he admired their marble steps and columns and floors and was confounded by their tinkling blue glass chandeliers. He did the correct thing all through that morning and early in the afternoon climbed into the little train which was to carry him back to Jarwhal Junction and the night mail ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... up a straight, long street, with houses just alike on both sides and bits of grass before them, that sometimes were gay with late autumn flowers. A horse-car track ran up the middle, and the cars seemed to be tinkling by all the time, and people getting on and off. They were mostly ladies and children, and they were very well dressed. Sometimes they stared at Barker, as they crossed his way in entering or issuing from the houses, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... before she felt equal to talking about Davenant again. This time it was to the tinkling silver, as she and Drusilla Fane sorted spoons and forks at the sideboard in the dismantled dining-room. Olivia was moved to speak in the desperate hope that one stab from Drusilla—who might be in a position to deliver ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... Before half-past seven Charles Eugene was harnessed, and Maria, still wearing a heavy winter cloak, had carefully deposited in her purse the list of her mother's commissions. A few minutes later the sleigh-bells were tinkling, and the rest of the family grouped themselves at the little square window to watch ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... tinkling nearer and nearer on the road ahead. Now a heavy wagon, filled with sacks of ore, came into view, drawn by four mules. As they stood aside to let it pass he scanned her face for any sign it might show, but he could see ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... holiday visits to the parsonage, which stood out as bright spots in the memories of their younger days—the journey thither in summer by moonlight through the woods, and in winter over the crisp white snow, with accompaniment of tinkling sledge-bells. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Opposition is no longer mentioned: yet there is not a half-witted prater in the House but can divide with every new minister on his side, except Lyttelton, whenever he pleases. They actually do every day bring in popular bills, and on the first tinkling of the brass, all the new bees swarm back to the Tory side of the House. The other day, on the Flanders army, Mr. Pitt came down to prevent this: he was very ill, but made a very strong and much admired speech for coalition,(1009) which for that day succeeded, and the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... changed her embroidery hoop from her right hand to her left, laid her fingers in his palm, blushed when his hand closed upon them eagerly, and laughed again when her gold thimble slipped and rolled tinkling down ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... slackened his bridle-rein. The tinkling rowels of his spurs resounded against the ribs of his horse. The trial of speed had commenced. The plain appeared to glide past him like the current of a river. The bushes and ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... but full of living meanings. Many an hour the young painter enjoyed while he made such studies as his lambs on the pleasant slopes about Basel; the mountains scalloping the horizon, and all the sweet fresh winds vocal with tinkling bells or the chant of the deep-throated Rhine. Many of "the long, long thoughts" of youth,—those thoughts that ring like happy bells or sweep like rushing rivers, kept him company as he laid these delicate strokes and washes that seem to exhale ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... vented his ill-feeling on David and the Dalesmen. In return, Tammas, whose forte lay in invective and alliteration, called him behind his back, "A wenomous one!" and "A wiralent wiper!" to the applause of tinkling pewters. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... in week out, from year to year, Rubinstein's Melody in F streams up for ever. These school pieces are like the Latin ritual before the Reformation, they link all Christendom by a common use. As the earth spins, and the sunlight sweeps ever westward, that melody passes with the day. Now it is tinkling in a grey Moravian school, now it dawns upon the Adige and begins in Alsace, now it has reached Madrid, Paris, London. Then a devotee in some Connemara Establishment for Young Ladies sets to. Presently tall ships upon the silent main resound with it, and they are at it in the Azores and in Iceland, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... threw up her hands with a gesture that caught away the chain of her eye-glass and sent it dangling in her lap, and her side-combs tinkling to ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... ceased their tinkling, and the long covered van, with its four horses, drew up in front of our "House of Many Gables," in Lake City. Watty, then a tall lad of eighteen, over-coated, fur-capped, and gloved, went quickly out, banging the front door after him, while his younger brothers and sisters made ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt. Long, sparkling aisles of steel stemmed trees Mending to counterfeit a breeze; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... music started tinkling he caught the French doll's hand, and danced 'way across the nursery floor before he discovered that her soft brown eyes remained closed as they were when she lay upon ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... "and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am became as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... back East," he began, "and in the country, just about this time of year. We would wait until the afternoon—why! just about this time, when the sun is getting low. We would push through the bushes at the edge of the woods where the little tinkling birds sing in the fence corners, and would enter the deep high woods where the trees are tall and still. The moss is thick and soft in there, and there are little pools lying calm and dark, and there is a kind of a hush in the air—not silence, you know, but like when a big ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Little Jack Rabbit, as he and the little squirrel hurried down the Old Cow Path to the Shady Forest. Just then they met Mrs. Cow. She was wagging her head back and forth to brush off the flies and the little bell on her leather collar made a pretty tinkling sound. ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... the room. The only thing in the place worth a man's consideration, save a few water-colours, was the honest grand piano, which, because it did not aesthetically harmonize with his squeaky, pot-bellied theorbos and tinkling spinet, he had hidden in an alcove behind a curtain. He turned an eye of disgust on the vellum backs of his books in the closed Chippendale cases, on the drawers containing his collection of wall-papers, on the footling peacocks, on the ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... cold and deeper stillness; you put on your overcoat and turn up the collar; you count the nestling snow-patches and then you cease to count them; you pause, as you trudge before the lumbering coach, and listen to the last-heard cow-bell tinkling away below you in kindlier herbage. The sky was tremendously blue, and the little stunted bushes on the snow- streaked slopes were all dyed with autumnal purples and crimsons. It was a great display ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... interior of the two vermilion avenues so closely with all their fineries and embroideries that not the slightest space remained vacant among them. Not so much as the caw of a crow struck the ear. All that was audible was the report of jingling and tinkling, and the sound of the gold bells and jade ornaments slightly rocked to and fro. Besides these, the creaking noise made by the shoes of the inmates, while getting up ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... out, bare-headed and in their indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement, especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken soldier, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of the cellar turned into a complex odour of grilled meats, savoury sauces, rich wine, and spring fruits, which the companions snuffed and breathed in with greedy delight; sounds of laughing voices were heard, the stairs were better lighted, and now and then the idle tinkling of a lute or of a deep-voiced, double-stringed guitar made an improvised accompaniment ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... shone white under the moonlight, and dotting it were large shellfish and moving crabs that scuttled away from them. Bordering the beach were forest and undergrowth with interlacery of flowering vines. A ridge of rocks near by disclosed caves and hollows, some filled by the water of tinkling cascades. Oranges snowed in the branches of trees, and cocoa-palms lifted their heads high in the distance. A small deer arose, looked at them, and lay down, while a rabbit inspected them from another direction and ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... moon poured down its silver light over the whiteness of the sloping roof-tops, and upon the ghostly white, silently drooping trees. A heaviness hung in the frosty air—a stillness broken only by the tinkling of sleigh-bells or sometimes by the ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... cup to the table, and began tinkling the spoon against its side, softly, but in a way which bespoke a world of impatience. Ralph understood ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... the cows home in the evening, Bessie enjoyed many a long walk in search of them. One evening she had some difficulty in finding them. It was one of those evenings when everything is quiet and sound travels a long distance. After listening carefully for the tinkling of the cow-bells, Bessie was bewildered, for she could seemingly hear them in every direction. At last, thinking she had located the sound, she set out in that direction. When she had walked about two miles, she stopped to listen again. The bells were still tinkling, but they ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... and Music have most power over the mind; and how do you apply this influence? In what direction is it forced? Why, for the last, you sit in your drawing-rooms, and listen to a quantity of tinkling of brazen marches of going to war; but you never see before your very eyes, the palpable victory of leading nature by her own power, to a conquest of blessings; and when the music is over, you turn to each other, and enthusiastically whisper, "How fine!"—You point out to others, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... later I would hear Sis coming softly up the stairs, accompanied by a tinkling of china and glass. I would ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... it be? I wondered); it might conceivably have been a large bird some distance off, just as by a reverse illusion men are said to have fired at bumble bees when grouse driving. Also, it was within the bounds of possibility that the tinkling stones might not have been thrown down by some one above in order to draw me under that face. Everything had been so vague that all these alternatives were conceivable. But my own mind was quite and finally determined now that my adventure with the stranger on the shore had been no figment of my ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... the parlour," Tommy replies impressively. "The parlour, Grizel, now begins to stir. Elspeth has disappeared from the kitchen, we three men know not whither. We did not notice her go; we don't even observe that she has gone—we are too busy looking at the fire. By and by the tremulous tinkling of an aged piano reaches us from an adjoining chamber, and Aaron looks at me through his fingers, and I take a lightning glance at Mr. David, and he uncrosses his legs and rises, and sits down again. Aaron, in the most unconcerned way, proceeds to ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... bubble of waters swooned dreamily about my ears, and far off it seemed I heard the wild, sad songs of her native land, that now in tinkling tune, and now in long, slow rise and fall of mellow sound, swathed me with sweet satiety to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... fibers, and joined to the notes of the mandolin, its weird, cicada-like harshness. The duet moved Bently to clear a miscellaneous collection of articles from the lid of a spinnet of the time of Louis XIV., upon which be-powdered and be-patched dames, long forgotten, had strummed pretty little tinkling tunes, while all about them other marionette-like ladies and gallants played at little tinkling loves, as pretty ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... sing. Griselda was quite astonished. She had had no idea that her friend was so accomplished. It wasn't "cuckooing" at all; it was real singing, like that of the nightingale or the thrush, or like something prettier than either. It made Griselda think of woods in summer, and of tinkling brooks flowing through them, with the pretty brown pebbles sparkling up through the water; and then it made her think of something sad—she didn't know what; perhaps it was of the babes in the wood and the robins covering them up with leaves—and then ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... Germaine's thoughts fly to the flowery mountain paths, the haunt of children and bees, where she played so often last year. Alfred too remembers the beautiful ways, and the woods, and the springs, and the mules that climbed up and up on the brink of precipices with a sound of tinkling bells. ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... it up, and held it close to the light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible that any ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had called my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on Ears,') I profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish Square, deducing my remoter origin from Italy. But who does not see, except this tinkling cymbal, that in that idle fiction of Genoese ancestry I was answering a fool according to his folly—that Elia there expresseth himself ironically, as to an approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, and can be no fit ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... with much-needed supplies. Picturesque appearance of the dainty-footed mules descending the steep hills. Of every possible color. Gay trappings. Tinkling bells. Peculiar urging cry of the Spanish muleteers. Lavish expenditure of gold-dust for vegetables and butter. Potatoes forty cents a pound. Incense of the pungent member of the lily family. Arrival of other storm-bound trains, and sudden collapse in prices. A horseback-ride on dangerous ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... to madness. It seemed a favourite on board the schooner, for it was played most of all. Brown, hungry and thirsty, half out of his head from weakness and suffering, could lie among the rocks with equanimity and listen to the tinkling of ukuleles and guitars, and the hulas and himines of the Huahine women. But when the voices of the Trinity Choir floated over the water he was beside himself. One evening the cracked tenor took up ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the Dame, to rise at four, Sought early rest, and, capped and gowned, did droop Fast as a church, to judge from nasal snore, That broke the silence with a hoarse hor-hoop: When all at once with fitful start she woke; For that same tinkling Dutchman on the stair Had told the hour of four with clattering stroke, And waked the sleeper ere she was aware. "Odd drat the clock!" she sighed; but, knowing well The cackling thing struck two at least a-head, She turned; and back to such deep slumber fell, But for her snore you might have thought ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... bringing fresh enjoyment has something to do with it, no doubt; the accompaniments of the motion, the change of scene, the mystery that lies beyond the next hill or the next turn in the road, the breath of the summer wind, the scent of the pine-trees especially, and of all the earth, the tinkling jangle of the harness as you pass the trees on the roadside, the life of the horses, the glitter and the shadow, the cottages and the roses and the rosy faces, the scent of burning wood or peat from the chimneys, these ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... scene around him. They were walking along the quays at Naples; and it so happened that at this moment all the picturesque squalor and lazy life of the place were lit up by the glare reflected from a wild and stormy sunset. The tall, pink-fronted houses; the mules and oxen with their brazen yokes and tinkling bells; the fruit-sellers, and fish-sellers, and water-carriers, in costumes of many hues; the mendicant friars with their cloak and hood of russet-brown; the priests black and clean-shaven; the groups of women, swarthy of face, with head-dresses of red or yellow, clustered ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... disturbing influences abroad to-day." He waved his hand toward the green-and-white gardens. "Old friend, you permit disreputable trespassers about Halvergate. 'See you not Goldy-locks there, in her yellow gown and green sleeves? the profane pipes, the tinkling timbrels?' Spring is at her wiles yonder,—Spring, the liar, the queen-cheat, Spring that tricks all ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... me. She yielded to my encircling arms as does the Indian liana, with a gentleness so sweet and so sympathetic that I seemed surrounded with a perfumed veil of silk. At each turn there could be heard a light tinkling from her metal girdle; she moved so gracefully that I thought I beheld a beautiful star, and her smile was that of a fairy about to vanish from human sight. The tender and voluptuous music of the dance seemed to ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the tinkling music there now came Daniel's protest, Rupert's persuasions, and Miriam's laughter: then these all died away and the waltz called out plaintively ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... women keep time to it with their heads, and the fourth with the child. If Antonio has brought any money in with him, I am afraid he will never take it out, and it even strikes me that his jacket and guitar may be in a bad way. But, the look of the young man and the tinkling of the instrument so change the place in a moment to a leaf out of Don Quixote, that I wonder where his mule is ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... in the dark silver of the star-light to the cabin in the pines and the hours that Joan had spent with Mr. Abbott or the books she loved, fell tinkling now with new melody into the lap of time. In the rude room, bright with lamplight and the trophies of childhood, the girl listened tirelessly to a musical Irish voice that read to her with brogue and tenderness enough to insure her interest in the reader no less than in his task. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... lazy eddies, and the Moon slides down towards the horizon. Seated with both elbows on the parapet of the tower, one can watch and wonder over that heat-tortured hive till the dawn. 'How do they live down there? What do they think of? When will they awake?' More tinkling of sluiced water-pots; faint jarring of wooden bedsteads moved into or out of the shadows; uncouth music of stringed instruments softened by distance into a plaintive wail, and one low grumble of far-off thunder. In the courtyard of the mosque the janitor, who lay across ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... hillside. The setting was all that we could have hoped for,—great moss-grown rocks wet and slippery, deep shade which almost made us doubt the existence of the hot August sunshine at the edge of the forest, cool water dripping and tinkling. A half-dozen great trees had been so undermined by the action of the water long ago that they had tumbled headlong into the stream bed. There they lay, heads down, crisscross—one completely spanning the brook just below the spring—their tangled roots like great dragons ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... Jewish picture dealer, there were few intrusions upon their solitude. Occasionally a party of Americans rang at the little door in the garden wall, but usually they departed speedily for the Moorish hall and tinkling fountain of the great show studio of ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... scene with sad anxiety; while the whole repast was simply a form, as their Majesties touched nothing, and no sound was heard but the regular movement of plates placed and carried away, varied sadly by the monotonous tones of the household officers, and the tinkling sound made by the Emperor's striking his knife mechanically on the edge of his glass. Once only his Majesty broke the silence by a deep sigh, followed by these words addressed to one of the officers: "What time ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... silent. She seemed to be listening to something a long way off. Through the open windows of her softly shaded drawing-rooms, odourous with flowers, came the rippling of water falling from a fountain in the conservatory, the lazy hum of a mowing machine on the lawn, the distant tinkling of a hansom bell in the Square. But these were not the sounds which for a moment ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to his head, and his mouth grew feverish at the thought. As he licked his cracking lips, he caught a faint, tinkling, rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right. Of a sudden his sufferings of mind and body were merged into one burning desire to drink, and he turned ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... fingers, with a touch that doubts and lingers, Sets athrill the saddest wire of all the six; And the girls sit in a tangle, and hush the tinkling bangle, While the boys pile the flame ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... I slept I am unable to say, perhaps not more than an hour, when I was suddenly awakened. I listened. The noise of the horses, of which there were several hundred grazing in the valley, with the tinkling of the bells on their necks, were the only sounds that at first met my ear; all else was silent. Presently I heard a noise as if made by the stealthy tread of a man; then a voice, or perhaps the cry of some animal. It was repeated. I heard it in the grove, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... had not guessed what wealth could be got from the needs of a public anxious for its life; nor that sleeping children could be bombed in a noble cause. Yes, it had seemed to us even farther off than our memories of the happy past. Yet here it is, its coffee-cups tinkling below, and I welcome its early shafts of gold like the fortune they are. The fortune seems innocent and unaware of its nature. It does not know what it means to us. I had often been with soldier friends across the water when with mock rapture they ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... whistled merrily as he trudged along the road beyond Stanton, with his heart as free from care as the yolk of an egg is from cobwebs. At last he came to where a little stream spread across the road in a shallow sheet, tinkling and sparkling as it fretted over its bed of golden gravel. Here Robin stopped, being athirst, and, kneeling down, he made a cup of the palms of his hands, and began to drink. On either side of the road, for a long distance, stood tangled thickets of bushes and ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... had passed in quiet reflection before the library fire. How vividly it all rose up before me. My sudden awakening from a stupid slumber, my firm conviction that some one else was in the room, my timid whispering question, the tinkling sound of something falling upon the floor, and my subsequent surprise on finding this queer, unfamiliar trinket lying at my feet. Now that it was proven to be Ernest Dalton's, the mystery was thicker than ever. How had it come there? ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... way things always have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maid forget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law of nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had read in church last Sunday about the curls and veils and tinkling ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that, of those wicked daughters of Zion in old times. Women always have been too much given to dress, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the morning the whole house was in silence, when there was heard the rattle of a latchkey in the stairway door, followed by footsteps in the corridor and then the querulous tinkling of the music-box upon the vestibule-table, ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... hard frost, spangling the meadows with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost tinkling sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses plunged; and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's Walk, opening upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up above, shone morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of the spectators, two vaqueros, dressed in black velvet short-clothes, dazzling linen, and stiff black sombreros, tinkling bells attached to their trappings, jingling spurs on their heels, galloped into the plaza, driving a large aggressive bull. They chased him about in a circle, swinging their reatas, dodging his onslaughts, then rode out, and ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... sweet the cadence of his lyre! What melody of words! They strike a pulse within the heart, Like songs of forest birds, Or tinkling of the shepherd's bell ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... large, hard, round eyes opposite, and slipping off into solitude and shade, with a low, inner song for their own solace. And in many houses I thought to see angels, nymphs, or at least, women, and could only find broomsticks, mops, or kettles, hurrying about, rattling, tinkling, in a state of shrill activity. I made calls upon elegant ladies, and after I had enjoyed the gloss of silk and the delicacy of lace, and the flash of jewels, I slipped on my spectacles, and saw a peacock's feather, flounced and furbelowed and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... I thought to see angels, nymphs, or, at least, women, and could only find broomsticks, mops, or kettles, hurrying about, rattling and tinkling, in a state of shrill activity. I made calls upon elegant ladies, and after I had enjoyed the gloss of silk, and the delicacy of lace, and the glitter of jewels, I slipped on my spectacles, and saw a peacock's feather, flounced, and furbelowed, and fluttering; ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... don't forget that you live in a parsonage, where 'sounding brass or tinkling cymbals' are not tolerated. All kinds of sorrow come here to be cured, and I fear that lady is in distress. Did you notice ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Dancing in the flue; Old Mr. Santa Claus, What is keeping you? Twilight and firelight Shadows come and go; Merry chime of sleigh-bells Tinkling through the snow; Mother knitting stockings (Pussy's got the ball),— Don't you think that winter's ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... housetop. They would be more in keeping in a glass case before a Nuernberg clock. Above all, at night, when the children are abed, and even grown people are snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly enough may the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old German print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of meaning.] Unmeaningness. — N. meaninglessness, unmeaningness &c. adj[obs3].; scrabble. empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil[Lat]; "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"; "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin[obs3], platitude, niaiserie[obs3]; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae[Lat]; twaddle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget |
