"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Hum!" mused the judge. "The specific charge only mentions one book, of the value of two hundred dollars, but I understand there are other charges to follow. I will fix bail at one thousand dollars, the prisoner to stand committed until ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... at first sight, (which is, perhaps, always the case of love in its highest sense,) is yet an act of the will, and that too one of its primary, and therefore ineffable acts. This is most important; for if it be not true, either love itself is all a romantic 'hum', a mere connection of desire with a form appropriated to excite and gratify it, or the mere repetition of a daydream;—or if it be granted that love has a real, distinct, and excellent being, I know not how we could attach blame and immorality to inconstancy, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... trees. They are of no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,—as of a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry was not as in knots and ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... peregrinate the district, telling the farmers who were not on the Board themselves, but were given to gossiping with those who were, that though he could slumber pleasantly in the school so long as the hum of the standards was kept up, he immediately woke ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... look you now, you are angry, uncle, why, you know, an a man have not skill in hawking and hunting now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him; he is for no gentleman's company, and (by God's will) I scorn it, ay, so I do, to be a consort for every hum-drum; hang them scroyles, there's nothing in them in the world, what do you talk on it? a gentleman must shew himself like a gentleman. Uncle, I pray you be not angry, I know what I have to do, I trow, ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... that were very cruel, dear Buzz," said little Hum; "let us take him to our Queen, and she will tell us how to show our anger for the wicked deeds he did. See how bitterly he weeps; be kind to him, he ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... adventure worthy of record, on a certain hot and steamy afternoon, when the boat, under sail, was doing little more than barely stem the current, they gradually became aware of a low, faint roar, at first scarcely distinguishable above the rustle of the wind in the trees aloft and the buzzing hum of the innumerable insects which swarmed in the forest and hovered in clouds over the surface of the water. But as the boat continued to creep upstream the roar gradually increased in intensity, until at length, as they rounded a bend and entered another ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... full of contrasts; for everlasting toil goes on, and the hum of industry ever resounds. Magnificent self-reliance is continually exhibited, and self-denial of no mean order is ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... flight of steps leading to the Temple of Jupiter, at the other a triumphal arch; on one side the Temple of Venus and the Basilica; on the other the Macellum, the Temple of Mercury, the Chalcidicum; overhead the deep blue sky. Mingled with the hum of many voices and the patter of feet on the travertine pavement are the ringing sounds of the stonemasons' chisels and hammers, for the Forum is undergoing a complete restoration. Although fifteen years have elapsed since the city ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... "Hum! You don't care what sort of trouble th' old man gits into; do you, Bud?" and he smiled a toothless smile at his employer's son. "Well, it's all in th' day's work, I reckon. But I'm not expected t' come with you to-night; am I? Slim said I was to report ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... me just the same. There comes a time in the affairs of a girl when the love-bee gets a buzzing with a very loud hum in her pretty noddle. Then is the time she mustn't make a mistake and start in loving the wrong man. You haven't fallen in love with Evan Graham yet, and all you have to do is just not to fall in love with him. He's not for you, nor for any young thing. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... read him is to understand the discredit that fell upon the manner. He held extreme Catholic views and wrote on the most risque subjects, he gave himself aristocratic airs and hinted at a mysterious past, though his parentage was entirely bourgeois and his youth very hum-drum and innocent. In the 'fifties d'Aurevilly became literary critic of the Pays, and a number of his essays, contributed to this and other journals, were collected as Les Oeuvres et les hommes du XIX^e siecle (1861-1865). Other literary studies are Les Romanciers (1866) and Goethe ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... doctor went away and the two women made the sewing-machine hum, and cut and basted and threaded needles. Together they managed to put together all that was indispensable and to discard the frivolous, as became the ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... 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 the "Squirrel." Another ship, called the "Golden Hind," was not ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... heard the shot and his cry, and though we made things hum about them, they took time to look into it ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... in the garden, in the old apple-tree," said Brother John. "I was walking there, and my wits were running around in the grass like a mouse. What heard I but a wonderful sound of singing, and it was like the hum of a great bee, only sweeter than honey. So I looked up into the tree, and there I saw two sparks. I thought at first that they were two stars that had fallen out of heaven; but what think ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... was just an accompaniment to that low, earnest whispering; the soft strains of the violins made it still seem like a voice that comes through a veil of dreams. Instinctively Crystal began to hum the waltz-tune and her little head with its quaint coronet of fair curls beat time to the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... 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 ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... Englishman must ever swell with pride as he contemplates his country's greatness. He looks around him, and his eye every where meets with the signs of increasing opulence and prosperity, while his ear is filled with the busy hum of an industrious, and, despite the idle babblings of the ignorant, and the empty declamation of interested, selfish, and disappointed men, a contented population, happy in the enjoyment of comfort, beyond that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... "Hum!" mused the cowboy. "It might be a burglar tool for all I'd know the difference. But now, if it's agreeable t' you fellers, let's have a look around. Maybe some of them burglars got a chunk of lead in him and ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... "Hum! I know all that already," said I, interrupting my fellow-traveller. "You are narrating history to me, while I want only chronicles. In other words, I want to hear those more private and particular details of Morelos' life which ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... altogether. Freeman's Falls had never known a more severe season and among the mill employees there was much illness and depression. Prices were high, business slack, and the work ran light. Nevertheless, the Fernalds refused to shorten the hours. There were no night shifts on duty, to be sure, but the hum of the machinery that ceased at twilight resumed its buzzing every morning and by its music gladdened many a home where anxiety might ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Hum! I'll have to see about that," said Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I suppose the circus people will want him back, for he must be valuable. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... facades of 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 water-melons sing out their ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... its way under verdant banks, 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 ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... were sounds of movement, the low staccato chatter of typers, occasional bits of conversation, and the hum of electronic equipment. ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... out, Roger found that the streets were as crowded as when he entered. He was received with a long quavering cry of welcome by the women, and by a deeper hum of applause by the men. All bent to the ground before him and his companions, before whom a party of soldiers moved to ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... manito said, "to take you from flower to flower that you may gather honey with ease. You shall be called honey bees, and, as you fly, you shall hum so that mortals may hear you and take pattern from your industry. All your life long, ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... shadows, had a strange effect upon Graham. The huge ears of a phonographic mechanism gaped in a battery for his words, the black eyes of great photographic cameras awaited his beginning, beyond metal rods and coils glittered dimly, and something whirled about with a droning hum. He walked into the centre of the light, and his shadow drew together black and sharp to a ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... "Hum!" he thought; "if there's to be a lot of 'entertaining,' the more there are to be entertained the better it ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... 1787 the society had just begun operations on a paid-up capital of L35,000. One of the directors, Isaac Hawkins Browne, M.P., was actually down in Scotland choosing the sites for the villages; and Wilberforce was already almost hearing the "busy hum" of the little hives of fishermen, coopers, boat-builders, and ropemakers, whom they were settling along the ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Flam. Hum! thou art a soldier, Followest the great duke, feed'st his victories, As witches do their serviceable spirits, Even with thy prodigal blood: what hast got? But, like the wealth of captains, a poor handful, Which in thy palm thou bear'st, ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... leaves in which they had been baked, were portions of beef, pork, veal, fish, chickens and other viands usual to a banquet in our own land. Bands of native boys with stringed instruments played continuously' during the feast, making music of a peculiar character, that rose and fell as the busy hum of conversation and mingled with the joyous laughter of the men and maidens that were gathered about ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... spinning all day long; To her wakening sense the first sweet warning Of daylight come is the cheerful song To the hum of the wheel in the early morning. Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy. On his way to school, peeps in at the gate; In neat white pinafore, pleased and coy, She reaches a hand to her ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... another hum and rustle. And into the hall swept Lentulus Crus, in robes of office, with Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompeius, at his side. Before him strode his twelve lictors bearing their fasces erect. Not a word was spoken while Lentulus Crus seated himself in the ivory curule chair of office. No sign ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... "Hum! Ha! My good friend—Fielder—I remember him. He was always a scholar. So he hath sent thee here with his commendations. What should I do with all the idle country lads that come up to choke London and feed the plague? Yet stay—that lurdane Bolt is getting intolerably lazy and insolent, and methinks ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a touch of it sometimes when I am below par. [absently, again strolling about] Yes, yes. [He begins to hum again, and ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... united hum, the old man paused, looking at first a little distraught, but settling at last into his usual self as he started forward upon his course. Did some whisper, hitherto unheard, warn him that it was the last time he would tread that weary round? Who can ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... was not yet eleven o'clock, the streets of the little capital were deserted, and the handsome blazing cafes round about the theatres contained no inmates. Ah, what a pretty sight is the Parisian Boulevard on a night like this! how many pleasant hours has one passed in watching the lights, and the hum, and the stir, and the laughter of those happy, idle people! There was none of this gayety here; nor was there a person to be found, except a skulking commissioner or two (whose real name in French is that of a fish that is eaten ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the school, bisected longitudinally, had one of its halves open, and by it outflowed the gentle hum of the honeybees of learning. Malcolm walked in, and had the whole of the busy scene at once before him. The place was like a barn, open from wall to wall, and from floor to rafters and thatch, browned with the peat smoke of vanished ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... "Hum," said I, "I wouldn't rub it in, if I were you. I seem to recall a public day when old Gilman Temple, the committee man, asked you what was the largest bird that flies, and ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... to go to work, do you? Hum, well, that's right. It's work makes the man. What do you propose to do, now ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... "Hum!" said St. Aldegonde; "Duke of Brecon, I know, will come, and Hugo and Bertram. My brother Montairy would give his ears to come, but is afraid of his wife; and then there is the monsignore, a most capital fellow, who ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... The hum of night life was about them, and from the house came faintly the mellow notes of a piano, where the Colonel and Bob were watching out of shadow the enraptured light in Dale's face as Ann introduced him for the first time in his life to ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... 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 ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... "Hum!" said he, when his eyes fell upon Nat, and he looked at our hero more closely. Nat at once recognized the newcomer as the gentleman he had met on ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Kichaka's outrageous acts, the glistening eyes of the Brahmin ladies as they listen to Draupadi's entreaties, their scorn of Yudhistira's tameness, their admiration of Bhima's passionate protests, and the deep hum of satisfaction which approves ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... dockyard and arsenal suddenly revealed themselves—rising like an exhalation—where ship-builders, armourers, blacksmiths, joiners, carpenters, caulkers, gravers, were hard at work all day long. The din and hum of what seemed a peaceful industry were unceasing. From Kalloo, Parma dug a canal twelve miles long to a place called Steeken, hundreds of pioneers being kept constantly at work with pick and spade till it was completed. Through this ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... "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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... it was 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. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... moment, ringed And bright; then flung itself out, a thin blade Of spotted lightning, and its tail was winged With chipped and sparkled sunshine. And the shade Broke up and splintered into shafts of light Wheeling about the fish, who churned the air And made the fish-line hum, and bent the rod Almost to snapping. Care The young man took against the twigs, with slight, Deft movements he kept fish and line in tight Obedience to his will with ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... girl a lover! How peacefully the old man sleeps, thinks Abbot, as he glances a moment around the room. There are flowers on the table near the open window; books, too, which, perhaps, she had tried to read aloud. The window opens out over Pennsylvania Avenue, and the hum and bustle of thronging life comes floating up from below; a roar of drums is growing louder every minute, and presently bursts upon the ear as though, just issuing from a neighboring street, the drummers were marching forth upon the avenue. Abbot glances at his patient, fearful lest the noise should ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... crowded with the lower followers of the puissant chief; and the eye rested on many idle groups of sturdy swash-bucklers, some half-clad in armour, some in rude jerkins of leather, before the doors of these resorts,—as others, like bees about a hive, swarmed in and out with a perpetual hum. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of bird or hum of bee, there's no sign of spring for me Like the jolly little dancers and the frolic melody; And my heart shall catch the rhythm of the happy little feet Dancing round the organ-grinder at the corner ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... with notes, of the life of Apolloninis, of Tyana. This work was suppressed. During the same year, he gave the world "Great is Diana of the Ephesians; or, the Original of Idolatry." By able critics this is considered one of bis ablest works in 1683, "Religio Laici" appeared, which is published hum a Latin work of Lord Herbert's. In 1688 he wrote "A Vindication of Learning, and of the Liberty of the Press." This tractate sparkles with wit and argument. But by far the most important work he was connected with, was published in the year he died, and mainly ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... torrent of 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 ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... her feet, Where highest 'mong hoar climbing peaks, uprose A mountain crest. It was the third day's close. In those untrodden ways there was no sound, No sight of living thing, the barren heights around. No hum of insect life, no whirring wing of bird. Bare rocks alone, all fissured, blotched and blurred As with red stain of battle-fields unseen. Far, far below, still vales were shining green. And leaping downward swift, a mountain stream Crept soft to sleep, where meadow grasses dream. Wan, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... I seen the poster. I had the price—why shouldn't I go?" he demanded brusquely; and with another sardonic laugh the real motive came out,—"I wanted to see what you folks who go to the opery see—how you enjoy yourselves. Well, the opery ain't so bad—it ain't one bit bad," and he attempted to hum the Rheingold music. "I believe I'll go to the opery again when I'm on the loose and don't know any better way to blow my money. I like music," he added inconsequentially. "Mother used ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... horseshoe magnet, 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
... Herne Bay. Hum. I suppose it's no worse than any other place in this weather, but it is watery rather—isn't it? In my mind's eye, I have the sea in a perpetual state of smallpox; and the chalk running downhill like town milk. But I know the comfort of getting to work in a fresh place, and proposing pious projects ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... entered the house: and the hum of the wheel and the singing Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold, Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome, Saying, "I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage; For I was thinking of you, as I sat there ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... two great Silences, the hum of all our spinning cylinders, Trades-Unions, Anti-Corn-Law Leagues and Carlton Clubs goes on. Stupidity itself ought to pause a little and consider that. I tell thee, through all thy Ledgers, Supply-and-demand Philosophies, and daily most modern melancholy ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... 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 ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... yanub al-Whidu min-hum nisf haffn." [I cannot explain this sentence satisfactory to myself, but by inserting "ill" after "min-hum." Further I would read "nassaf"libavit, delibavit degustavit (Dozy, Suppl. s. v.) and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... battery. The blue spark that flies from an overhead trolley or a third rail, multiplied a hundredfold, broke in Marta's face. It was dazzling, blinding as a bolt of lightning a few feet distant, with the thunder crash at the same second, followed by the thrashing hum of bullets and fragments against ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... of the fifth day, and Andreas Hofer sat in silence, as usual, in the gloomy room. Every thing was still without. All at once this profound silence was broken by a hum of ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... were exchanged between the different groups in a sort of gay and formidable whisper which resembled the warlike hum ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... country seats sprinkled round on every side, some in the modern taste, some in the style of old De Coverley Hall, all smiling on the neat but humble cottage; every village as neat and compact as a bee-hive, resounding with the busy hum of industry; and ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... 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 girls ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... upon 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 ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... isle is full 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
... 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 ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... beloved friend, and go my way in utter heart-sickness and hopelessness; for Nature would but mock me to-day with her fulness of summer life. These forest-clad mountains, that waving grain, those woods, pulsating with the hum of insects and with the song of birds, all speak of life, while we stand here at the close of a precious and useful human life, to lay in the dust all that remains of what was so dear, and so ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... tide like a flood to get her off them flats. But when I'm aboard or putterin' around her, I'm happy—happier, I mean. It makes me forget I'm a good-for-nothin' derelict, stranded in an old woman's job of lightkeepin'. Ah, hum-a-day, young feller, you don't know what it is to have been somebody, and then, because you was a fool and did a fool thing, to be nothin'—nothin'! You don't know what ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... spread with the rapidity of an electric telegraph; and an excitement was produced such as is seen among bees when their hive has received a sudden shock. The mountain pathways became immediately alive with human beings, and noises arose like the hum of a city heard at a distance during the busiest hours of the day. In the villages immediately adjoining the place of resort, the excitement was wholly confined to youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and young, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... Buz. Hum, it will not be safe to dreame of a knave shortly. Are you so good at a gun? if you use this too often your birding piece will ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... enormous hotel, lifting up into the hot darkness an immense array of open, brightly lighted windows. At the base of this populous structure was an eternal jangle of horsecars, and all round it, in the upper dusk, was a sinister hum of mosquitoes. The ground floor of the hotel seemed to be a huge transparent cage, flinging a wide glare of gaslight into the street, of which it formed a sort of public adjunct, absorbing and emitting ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... sometimes a shepherd's cote gleamed far off above the pale wattlings of a fold: but as he wound on—and on into the Plain there was no sign of man in all the hot landscape, and no motion but the bicker of the stream over its stony bed, and the hum of insect life busy on its millions of dark and tiny vibrant wings. Not a breath of wind stirred among these grassy valleys, and Lawrence, feeling warm, had sat down by a pool under a sapling birchtree, when he heard a step on the path. It ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... confused from the agitating moments I had passed. I was unable quite to collect my thoughts, and felt as if I had just awakened from a long heavy sleep. It was now dark; lights streamed from the open windows of the gambling-rooms; the voices of the croupiers, the stir and hum of the players and jingling of money were distinctly heard in the street without. I have already told you I am no gambler, not from scruple, but choice. Nevertheless, I used often to stroll up to the Cursaal for an hour of in evening, when the play was at the highest, to look on and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... comfortable and quiet that he closed his eyes for a moment. At least it seemed only a moment to him. All at once he heard a loud hum. He opened his eyes and there was Ah-mo the Honey Bee just before his face. When Ah-mo saw that little Luke was watching him, he flew down toward the spring and lit upon ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... nose thrust through a Deep cut that had a curve to it. At their feet the rails began to hum. The Little Doctor turned hastily to see if Chip were coming. The agent came out with a handful of papers and stood waiting with the rest. Stragglers moved quickly, and the discharged waitress appeared ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... a slight touch of rheumatism, did not join in the ringing of the bells this morning, and, looking on with some contempt at these informal greetings which required no official co-operation from the clerk, began to hum in his musical bass, "Oh what a joyful thing it is," by way of preluding a little to the effect he intended to produce in ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... This hum-drum over, a great cry is raised for Forfeits!—and a desire that a lady should go out in a very great hurry, as it would appear, almost in a state of destitution; for every young lady and gentleman proffers to stand for some article of dress. Having settled what ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... him the plan of a very moral and aristocratical novel she was preparing for the press, and continued holding forth, with her eyes half shut, till a long-drawn nasal tone from the reverend divine compelled her suddenly to open them in all the indignation of surprise. The cessation of the hum of her voice awakened the reverend gentleman, who, lifting up first one eyelid, then the other, articulated, or ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... is one little dream of a big sugar plum, And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum, And a ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... entered the front hall he could hear a low hum of conversation on the other side of the parlour doors. They were partly open, and he hurried past lest someone call for him to come in. He went upstairs, into the ell bedroom, and took off his coat. He looked at himself in the glass of the bureau. His ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... the edge of the road were shoved down 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 ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... seat beside her, and dreamily watched the yellow rays of the sun casting their receding tints along the bushes opposite them. It was strangely quiet, and the hum of insects seemed like a soft orchestral accompaniment to the ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... along yard by yard and soon could see through the intervening trees and bushes the light of the great camp, from which came a monotonous hum. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... different times found to contain everything from clean linen to Sanskrit poetry for father. To-day I found the manuscript score of a new opera by no less a person than Hurter himself, which he insisted on having me hum through with him while we ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and presently 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 at them, beating them with their fists and swords till some kind of control ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... full of 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 over the whist and reserves her smiles for her ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... one or the other; at all events, there was some fracas or other. I believe her mother was—hum, hum—you understand—she couldn't be swallowed by the Kynastons at any price; they must have been thankful to get out ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... ripe, red yaupon berries, and now and then parties of pigeons circled round and round the house. Charon lay on the doorstep, blinking at the setting sun, with his sage face dropped on his paws. Afar off was heard the hum of the city; but here all was quiet and peaceful. Beulah looked over the beds, lately so brilliant and fragrant in their wealth of floral beauty; at the bare gray poplars, whose musical rustling had so often hushed her to sleep in cloudless ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... mentioned that Parkhurst stood some two or three miles above the point at which the River Colven flows into the sea. From the school-house we could often catch the hum of the waves breaking lazily along the shore of Colveston Bay; or, if the wind blew hard from the sea, it carried with it the roar of the breakers on the bar mouth, and the distant thunder of the surf on the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... country all my life, ef I wouldn't know better'n to git caught out in such weather's this!" And as he put the crying babe into his wife's arms, he said half impatiently, "Ef I'd knowed 't wuz Mexicans, Ri, I wouldn't ev' gone out ter 'um. They're more ter hum 'n I ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... have no other engagement. All ready, Dale?" for the chauffeur was in his seat, and the engine was purring with the placid hum of ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... hum, and buzz of undertones was checked to a very unusual degree, the Amphitheatre became ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and 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 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... las' week, an' pawned his coat for my back room to sleep in. He eat nothin' then: I seen that. An' he used to go out an' look at the dam for hours: but he never throwed himself in. Since he took to bed, we keep him up with broth and sech as we have,—Sally an' me. Sir? Afford it? Hum! We're not as well off as we have been," dryly; "but I'm not a beast to see a man starvin' under my roof. Oh, certingly, Ma'am; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... Beechdale, where it was a chance if the noonday traveller saw anything alive except a youthful family of pigs enjoying an oasis of mud in a dry land, or an intrusive dog rushing out of a cottage to salute the wayfarer with an inquiring bark. The children were still in school. The hum or their voices was wafted from the open windows. The church door stood open. The village graves upon the sunward-fronting slope were bright with common flowers; the dead lying with their feet to the west, ready to stand up and see their Lord at the ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... the blue car was the one note of modernity; but hardly had we turned in at a great gate worthy to open in welcome for Queen Jeanne of Naples, or Bertrand du Guesclin, than we were in the hum of twentieth-century life. I resented the change, for one expects nothing, wants nothing, modern in Avignon; but in a moment or two we had left the bright cafes and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... silence, forcing their way between the trees, with the forest appearing darker than ever, save here and there, where, so sure as a little light penetrated, with it came sound. Now it was the hum of insect life in the sunshine far above their heads; now it was the shrieking or twittering of birds busy feasting on fruit, and twice over an angry chattering told them that they had monkeys for their companions high ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... presenting a paper at his elbow, and as he read it his face changed, but by no means cleared. "Hum—ha!" he muttered, "it seems you have some fancy status here—political trick, I suppose—some quibble about Habshiabad lying outside Granthistan. But it's all one. If you ain't under my command, you don't get mentioned in ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... gasped her way painfully back to life. All was very peaceful now; the water fell with its soft tinkling sound, there was a low hum of insects; beside her stony pillow grew some stars of Bethlehem, and in between their delicate white and green she could see the arena and the tiers of seats opposite, and out beyond the green encircling ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... "Hum! I am not so sure; her pulse is weak and quick, and for some reason she is extremely excited. What is she sitting up in bed for? she ought to have been in the land of ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... the air. They grew in tone and volume and then dwindled away to nothing. The hum of the buffalo gun and the sobbing pi-in-in-ing of the Winchesters were liberally mixed with the sharp ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... 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 heard. Polite ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... and found me in my field, and finally I heard, as though the sounds were then made for the first time, all the vague murmurs of the country side—a cow-bell somewhere in the distance, the creak of a wagon, the blurred evening hum of birds, insects, frogs. So much it means for a man to stop and look up from his task. So I stood, and I looked up and down with a glow and a thrill which I cannot now look back upon without some envy and a little amusement at the ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... one stride,' and the vast ocean plain was only illuminated by the pale claritude that falls from the stars. Logan and Bude (they had not dressed for dinner, but wore yachting suits) were smoking on deck, when, quite suddenly, a loud, almost musical, roar or hum was heard from the direction of ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang |
