"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spokes, Chris watched him and the reluctant cook go forward into the howling darkness. The Sophie Sutherland was plunging into the huge head-seas and wallowing tremendously, the tense steel stays and taut rigging humming like harp-strings to the wind. A buffeted cry came to his ears, and he felt the schooner's bow paying off of its own ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... one corner lay a poor little Grecian, papa Chrysanthus Demetriades, whom Tom Echo had plied with bishop till he fell off his chair; Count Dennet was safely deposited beside him; and old Will Stewart,{28} the poacher, was just humming himself to sleep with the fag end of an old ballad as ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... of address, invested his personality with what we call quaintness. He was always active, even to apparent restlessness, not from nervous excitement, but from fulness of life and sympathy. You might think of a humming-bird darting from flower to flower, of a honey-bee happy in a garden. He graduated at Harvard, meaning to be a clergyman, but the publicity, the magisterial posture, the incessant constraint of the liberty which he valued more ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... entertain them in His pavilion, to cover them with His feathers, to hide them in His secret place, to hold them in the hollow of His hand or stretch around them the everlasting arms! These men were true children of Nature. As the humming-bird among its own palm-trees, as the ephemera in the sunshine of a summer evening, so they lived their joyous lives. And even the full share of the sadder experience of life which came to all of them but drove ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... did not notice, as they headed for the path, a file of natives, armed with spears and clubs, walk quietly along between them and the water's edge. There they sat down and waited. But not for long, for presently from out the thick, tangled jungle in front came a humming whirr of deadly arrows and in a few seconds the three white men were wallowing in their blood. Then came that bloodcurdling shout of savage triumph, telling those who heard it that all was over. Before ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke
... true. She must know the truth as—" His eye fell at that instant on a humming-bird, a gleaming jewel of changing sapphire that, poised on half-invisible wings, floated in a bar of sunlight before a sprig of pink honeysuckle. "—As that bird knows the flowers where ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Allen Poe had put her into "The Fall Of the House of Usher", she would have fitted it like the paper on the wall. She had the air of one waiting tensely for the approach of some imminent doom. Mortimer, humming gaily to himself as he sand-papered the blade of his twenty-second putter, observed none of this. He was thinking of the ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... meanwhile, weeks and months went by. Two years had passed. Angelique was now fourteen years of age and quite womanly. When she read the "Golden Legend," she would have a humming in her ears, the blood circulated quickly through the blue veins near her temples, and she felt a deep tenderness towards ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... sunshine, Fie, fie, fie! While the bee goes humming, By, by, by! Is there no small task for you,— Nought for lit-tle hands to do; Shame to sleep the morning ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... water, and the active forms of monkeys and even of leopards darted among the trees. But the country—whether forest, mud-flat, or prairie—was always damp and feverish: a wet land steaming under a burning sun and humming with mosquitoes and all kinds of ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... occasionally did she hear some one's voice reading a graduating essay or making a speech—she couldn't tell which. She remembered there was a piano solo, very loud and crashing, it seemed to her, and there was a tremendous humming sound. The sea was growing very rough, she thought. A storm was brewing somewhere. Then the wind died down again, there was a complete and utter silence and she seemed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... cuffs when he began hunting for books. How many times have I seen those cuffs with the patent fasteners sticking up in the air, as if reaching out helplessly for their owner; the owner in the mean time standing high upon a ladder which creaked under his weight, humming to himself as he industriously examined every volume within reach. This ability to live without cuffs made him prone to reject altogether that orthodox bit of finish to a toilet. I have known him to spend an entire day in New York between club, shops, and ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... coarse vegetation of the veratrum, or American hellebore. In moist copses the ferns and osmundas begin to uncurl in April, opening their soft coils of spongy verdure, coated with woolly down, from which the humming-bird steals the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... poor, he was always proud. This hotel was called the "South Carolina Soldiers' Home," and most of the other States inside the lines had similar institutions. In every home throughout the whole South could be heard the old "hand spinning wheel" humming away until far in the night, as the dusky damsel danced backwards and forwards, keeping step to the music of her own voice and the hum of the wheel. The old women sat in the corners and carded away with the hand-card, making ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Samuel Tobin, owner and captain of the "Eb and Flo," was never able to explain with any degree of clearness. He knew that he was on his knees, scrubbing the floor of the little cabin and humming ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... were Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra—as we soon learned. It was wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... features so haggard and drawn, I seemed for the first time to realise fully the condition to which the boy had been brought by his sufferings. And while I stood there, still unobserved, I heard him softly humming to himself: ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... idle sleep, the careless sing; they pretend to cheer others by their humming; they trill: "Hoy! troly lolly!" Piers shall feed every one, except these useless ones; he shall not feed "Jakke the jogeloure and Jonet ... and Danyel the dys-playere and Denote the baude, and frere the faytoure, ..." for, all whose name ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... rose-coloured carpet, and curtains which made me, in my frightened pallor, with my pale yellow hair and my gray travelling dress, feel like a poor little underground celery-stalk flung into a sunlit strawberry-bed, amid a great humming ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... scolding. "What are they about?" He waited patiently. At last all was still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. "How is it they all make such a noise?" flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs when ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in place, and tautly secured. Under its shelter both boys doffed their waterproofs and made things look more shipshape. Jimmie, as usual, was more than ready to get to work with that dandy little Juwel kerosene gas contraption; and its cheery humming soon told that ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... main road the lad sent his machine ahead at a fast pace. He was fairly humming along when, suddenly, from around a curve in the highway he heard the "honk-honk" of an automobile horn. For an instant his ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... hence their attachment to her is unalterable. When a queen dies, the bees immediately cease working, consume their honey, fly about at unusual times, and eventually pine away, if not supplied with another sovereign. The death of the queen is proclaimed by a clear and uninterrupted humming, which should be a warning to the owner to provide the bees if possible with another queen, whose presence will restore vigour and exertion; of such importance is a sovereign to the existence and prosperity of ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the holy Sabbath ever been the day it had been to him; to none of them was it so richly freighted with memories of wonderful sermons and solemn sacraments that were foretastes of heaven. Coming with a party of gentlemanly fellows slowly rowing up the Thames and humming some passionate recitative from an opera, he alone could recall the charmful stillness of a Scotch Sabbath, the worshiping crowds, and the evening psalm ascending from so many ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... of the hand, he went off in the direction of the fountain, humming the charming pastoral of Philippe Desportes beneath ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... that a piano was arriving. After the tramp of the movers died away down the stairs, somebody touched off a few scales and chords on the instrument, and then there was peace. Presently he heard her lock her door and go down the hall humming something; going out to lunch, probably. He stuck his brushes in a can of turpentine and put on his hat, not stopping to wash his hands. Caesar was smelling along the crack under the bolted doors; his bony tail stuck out hard as a hickory ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... again in silence, the other wagons rumbling slowly away into the distance until their sound came only as a low humming ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... name for an instrument made of a small flat slip of wood, through a hole in one end of which a string is passed; swung round rapidly it makes a booming, humming noise. Though treated as a toy by Europeans, the bullroarer has had the highest mystic significance and sanctity among primitive people. This is notably the case in Australia, where it figures in the initiation ceremonies and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... had set Odo's memories humming like a hive of bees, and without heeding his companion's allusions he asked—"And did ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... beautiful queen the world had ever seen, and Prince Harweda was their only child. From the day of his birth, everything that love or money could do for him had been done. The pillow on which his head rested was made out of the down from humming-birds' breasts. The water in which his hands and face were washed was always steeped in rose leaves before being brought to the nursery. Everything that could be done was done, and nothing which could add to his ease or comfort was ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... balance, (whether of good or bad) betwixt chapter and chapter, from whence the just proportions and harmony of the whole work results. For my own part, I am but just set up in the business, so know little about it—but, in my opinion, to write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... all great works of art was followed, fifty years later, by the Period of Purging. All who were denounced for having quoted forbidden poetry, or for humming forbidden music, were executed. Such malefactors, who refused to forget, obviously could not be allowed to live. This gave a long period of peace, in which the Sacred Entity, the Unassailable Authority, took concrete form. Even so, ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... that Nature spoke, And the thoughts that in him woke Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. Therein I hear the Parcae reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain, So sweet and mournful falls the strain. And best can teach its Delphian chord How Nature to the soul is moored, If once again that silent string, As erst it wont, would thrill ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... alarming experience once with bees when cycling between Ringwood and Burley in the New Forest, my present home. As I passed a house close to the road, a swarm crossed my path, rising from their hive just as I reached the hedge before the garden. There was a mighty humming, and I felt the bees, with which I was colliding, striking my hands and face with some violence. I expected a sting each moment, but my greatest fear was lest the queen should have settled on my coat amongst the bees it had collected, and that presently ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... the very 'dead of the year,' when the sap had retired, so that the timber might last longer. The old folk took the greatest trouble to get their timber well seasoned, which is the reason why the woodwork in old houses has endured so well. Passing under some elms one June evening, I heard a humming overhead, and found it was caused by a number of bees and humble-bees busy in the upper branches at a great height from the ground. They were probably after the honey-dew. Buttercups do not flourish under trees; in early summer, where elms or oaks stand in the mowing-grass, there is often a circle ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... vibration. There was a humming, throbbing, hissing sound. Suddenly the boys, and all within the projectile, felt it swaying. A moment later it began to shoot through space like ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... the mouse, so he poured some healing drops over the wounded wing. On the spot the queen bee was cured, and turning to Ferko she said, 'I am most grateful for your kindness, and shall reward you some day.' And with these words she flew away humming, gaily. ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... brought the score of the operetta to Gray Gables last night and we tried it over on the piano. The music is beautiful. It is so tuneful it lingers. I've been humming snatches of it ever since he played it for me. The 'Rebellious Princess' has some wonderful songs. That clever young man, Eric Darrow, composed the libretto and thought out the plot. It's about a princess who grew tired of staying at home in her father's castle and going to ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... humming air, and still the pursuing speck chased us. And minute by minute it became more distinct against the background of the great cloud dome. Presently Edmund called our ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... obeyed. With a purring noise the helicopter shot upward. Then something went off in mid-sky, miles ahead, where a faint humming noise had announced the flight of attack-planes. A lurid, crackling detonation lit up the sky. One of the ships of the night-flying squadron. From the helicopter they could see the rest of the flight limned clearly in the flash of the ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... standing at the top of the granite steps, waiting to greet the Durwards, whose approach was already heralded by the humming of a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... same story of themselves. And this, too, I know, that upon the night in question, Mr. Paul Dangerfield, who was not troubled either with vapours or superstitions, as he lay in his green-curtained bed in the Brass Castle, had as many dreams flitting over his brain and voices humming and buzzing in his ears, as if he had been a poet or ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... part of the ornament of the Protestant clergy, he thought he might not unworthily be deemed, as it were, "a shred of the linen vestment of Aaron." Nor was Roger one of those worthy parish clerks who could be accused of merely humming the psalms through the nostrils as a sack-butt, but much oftener instructed and amused his fellow-parishioners with the amorous ditties of the Waiting Maid's Lamentation, or one of those national songs which awake the remembrance ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... he trouble me with his Verses for? Often when I am to go to Market he has never a Penny of Money to give me, and yet he's a humming ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... she had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie's; but no, Elsie was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... and, casting her weapon from her, to fall upon the soft grass, she ran into the wood. For a moment the King stood still, stupidly conscious of the humming of the bees, stupidly staring after the flying child. Then he stirred himself into pursuit, crying, "Stay, fool, stay!" but desisted instantly, for the girl was as fleet as a fawn, and could run surely where his ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me ... everything was silent—everything. But up in the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent. I listened so long to this ceaseless faint murmur that it began to bewilder me; it was surely a symphony from the rolling spheres above. Stars that intone ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... (said Henry, with a forced laugh,) "we must e'en wed to-morrow, or remain single at our peril," and he walked off, humming the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the song which I had been humming, and listened. It is said that there are steps which have music in them. I am sure, the cadences of that music which the poet has so immortalized sounded distinctly in my listening ear. It was the melody of recognition. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... while his face was overspread with a blush, that improved the glow of youth to a deeper crimson; and I daresay set many a female heart a palpitating. When he made his first appearance, there was just such a humming and clapping of hands as you may have heard when the celebrated Garrick comes upon the stage in King Lear, or King Richard, or any other top character. But how agreeably were we disappointed, when our young gentleman made such an oration as ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... love the people she mostly likes, so I came as far away as I could, and here," his face was irradiated in one of its quick changes, "I've been walking up and down and hearing and seeing things; listening to the quail and the doves; and a while ago there was a humming-bird; and did you ever smell the desert as sweet as it is this morning?" He lifted his head and sniffed ecstatically. "I've been turning the whole morning into music. It's all gold and green and gay with little silver trumpets through it, and now and again the moan of the ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... who dreaded being taxed with negligence, took a humming-bird's wing, and endeavoured to chase it away, but all in vain: it remained quite unconcerned in the same spot, extending its large wings of rose-colour and azure-blue on the face of the princess, appearing rather to caress than to ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... for any signs of awareness of their presence! Wait—" The Ihelian made a third adjustment on the mentacom, and it emitted a slight humming sound, and the orange glow vanished. "This will screen us for a short period, at least," he said. "And if we've not been already detected, perhaps we'll be able to follow. If you'll continue to help ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... relation can be made out between the various animals and the signs for the four directions. There is no definite relation as is seen, for example, in the Vaticanus 3773, 17, 18 where the quetzal is noted perched on the tree of the east, the eagle on that of the north, the humming bird on that of the west, and the jaguar on the tree ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... Prince of WAILES!" and he has disappeared into his bedroom. I never knew a man so quick in unpacking, getting into bed, and going to sleep. He hasn't far to go, or else Morpheus must have caught him up, en route, and hypnotised him. I hear him singing and humming for two minutes; I hear him calling out to me, "All right? Are you all right?" and, once again invoking the spirit of Mark Tapley, I throw all the joviality I can into my reply as I say, through the wall, "Quite, thanks. Jolly! Good-night!" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... but it won't hurt me to walk. Nothing hurts me—Leah Mordecai the despised." Then, averting her face, the young girl gazed abstractedly into the street, and began humming ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... a pair of birds that had never built a nest nor seen a winter. How beautiful was everything! The fields were full of flowers and the grass was growing tall, and the bees were humming everywhere. Then one of the birds began singing, and the other bird said: "Who told you to sing?" And he answered: "The flowers told me, and the bees told me, and the winds and leaves told me, and the blue sky told me, and you told me to sing." Then his mate answered: "When did I tell you ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... temperature of the carbon tips is lower than that of the positive tip of a direct-current arc, with the result that the luminous efficiency is lower. These arcs have been made of both the open and enclosed type. They are characterized by a humming noise due to the effect of alternating current upon the mechanism and also upon the air near the arc. This humming sound is quite different from the occasional hissing of a direct-current arc. When soft carbons ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... see somebody; then fire to hit!' came the orders. Tramp! tramp! Crash! crash! On we walked and stopped. We fired into the underbrush for safety; then in another moment we were under Spanish fire. Balls flew like bees, humming as they went. Soon we found ourselves up against a network of Spanish trickery. Barbed-wire fences, ditches and creeks, too numerous to think of. The only thing left was to go ahead or die; or else retreat like ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... by the harrowing emotions the song always roused in her, but more by the dreadful sensation of walking that crowded Avenue with a man humming German ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... their hind legs were longer in proportion to their size, the exact shape of that harmless little insect. Their colours are brilliant green, slate, and flamingo red, beautifully lined and variegated. The humming noise produced by these insects is very disagreeable, and fills the surrounding air with murmurs, while the wilderness look of the scene of their depredations has a depressing effect on the mind of the traveller. Their visits are much dreaded, as they are followed by the total destruction of foliage ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... this seemed to be the case, for the strange ovoids wafted still lower, dropping until a faint humming of the internal gravity mechanism came to their ears. These were a highly developed people of scientific attainment; civilized beings. But Mado kept firm hold of his torpedo tube, and Carr fingered the ray ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... my friend, the French battery commander, yesterday. He was cantering a showy chestnut mare over the turf, humming a tune aloud. He looked very fit and very much in love with the world. I asked him what he meant by it. He replied that he couldn't help it; everybody was combining to make him happy; his C.O. had fallen down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... explaining to him about the plants, the cats which, as usual, had followed him, employed the time in roaming around among the bushes, searching intently for anything alive which might make fair game. They scattered in all directions, one after a humming-bird, another chasing a butterfly; the third wandered off lazily to a big patch of catnip for a sniff of its delightful aroma; while the fourth began to career to and fro after a dragon-fly, in the wildest fashion. The priest and Benito had moved off to an asparagus bed, to consult about ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... through the Love-path. As I came to the corner of the path, and the Ladegaardsway, the wind blew so violently against me, that I could hardly breathe; and something blew against my veil, fluttering with wings like a humming-bird. I tried to drive it away, for it blinded one of my eyes; but it blew back again. So I caught it and was going to let it fly away over my head, but that moment I saw it was written upon, and read it. It ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... charming manner. Look at the exquisite patterns on a butterfly's wing! look at the various delicate arrangements of colour and pattern in flowers; or look again at the arrangement of colour on a humming-bird—sometimes the tail, sometimes the breast is ornamented, sometimes a splendid crest covers the head, sometimes a jewelled gorget or ruff surrounds the throat; and these are not uniformly coloured, but exhibit metallic and other changes of lustre not to be imitated ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... sick and moulting, so inestimably better than all the brilliant tenants of the bush. We sit up, yawning, and blinking, and stupid, the whole scene swimming before us, and the stories and music humming off into the sound of distant winds and waters. It is not time yet; we are not fatigued; we are good for another hour still, and so protesting against bed, we falter and drop into the dreamless sleep which nature assigns ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... still an hour before nine—when the rural school traditionally "takes up"—when the boys had stored their traps in a shed at the Bronson home, and walked on to the schoolhouse. That rather scabby and weathered edifice was already humming with industry of a sort. In spite of the hostility of the school board, and the aloofness of the patrons of the school, the pupils were clearly interested in Jim Irwin's system of rural education. Never had the attendance ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... is probably one of the small iridescent beetles, of which there are many varieties. As they move about in the light, the color appears to change, like the color of the head and throat of a South American humming-bird. If the appetite of your horny toad is like that of a common toad, it will prefer an insect diet. But it will live weeks without eating anything, and unless you allow it to hunt for itself, it will probably die of ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... not understand it: it may be that the fertility of a cheerful mind crowds everything, so that the tree is entangled in its own branches; or it may be that the cheerful mind cares less whether it is understood or not; as a man is less articulate when he is humming than when he ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... go! I see it in her eyes!" said Margaret. "She is getting to be as much absorbed in all those frantic looms and things—that set me into a fever just to think of, whizzing and humming all day long in this horrible heat—as you are! I believe she expects to help Paul overseer the factory, one of these days, she is so fierce to peer into and understand everything about it. Or else, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... again joined her. He seemed in a better frame of mind, for he came in humming. Alice, having glanced at him, averted her face again and kept silence. She felt a hand smoothing her hair. Her brother, leaning over the back of her seat, whispered ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... d'Exaudet," she said hurriedly; "listen, I'll instruct you as we move; I'll sing it under my breath to the air of the violins," and, her hand in his, she took the first slow, dainty step in the old-time dance, humming the words as they ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... bless your soul! She would never have thought of such a thing. 'Twas me that studied it out, lying awake on windy nights because I knew she couldn't sleep for the roaring and whistling around the corners of the old house, and the wind humming in the chimneys and between the window-sashes like a bumblebee as big as a whale. It made her feel so lonesome and blue that many's the time I've heard her crying to herself when she thought I was sound asleep. ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... humble room in one of the poorest streets of London, Pierre, a faithful French boy, sat humming by the bedside of his sick mother. There was no bread in the closet, and for the whole day he had not tasted food. Yet he sat humming to keep up his spirits. Still at times he thought of his loneliness and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... no mistaking it. It had been too like the low humming of a human voice for him to have been misled. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... sounds deafened an unfamiliar ear: a steady roar, deep and persistent, and through it, like a staccato pulse, a louder, more painful, more penetrating din. The bass to this harsh treble arose from humming belts and running wheels; the crash that punctuated their deep-mouthed riot broke from the drawing heads ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... naked strait of land Blown sleet and surge were humming; But trammelled with the shifting sand, She heard ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... humming around them; a butterfly fluttered over the fence and alighted on a dandelion almost at her feet; meadow larks were whistling their limpid notes in the adjoining fields, while from the trees about the house beneath them came ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... she asked, and looked round on all sides; but the old man was gone, and her little child was gone; he had taken it with him. And there in the corner the old clock was humming and whirring; the heavy leaden weight ran down to the ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... pupil then writes beneath that word various thoughts that are suggested to him by the word. For instance, the word suggested by the teacher is "aeroplane". Pupil A has suggested to him by the word "aeroplane", humming. He writes that on his list. Humming suggests bees. Bees suggest honey; honey, clover, clover summer, summer swimming hole, etc. When all of the pupils have written fifteen or twenty thoughts which have suggested themselves to ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... he had been so happy, and in Haynichen, his native place, had gone out with his father for a walk. An inward warmth roused his heart to quicker pulsation; and suddenly he started and looked about him: he had been humming a tune. ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... during this experiment to place the bobbin quite near the horse's ear, so that he could hear the humming of the interrupter, undertook a second experiment in the following way: Having detached the conductors from the armature, he placed himself in front of the horse (as shown in Fig. 2), and began to imitate the humming sound of the interrupter with his ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... the tub for her Monday morning siesta. She was humming a strange tune over the cascade like another Minnehaha. And from the behavior of the dining-room chandelier and the plates on the sideboard she was ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... so light, so airy, so playful. Sylvia is a demure little dove that has pulled over itself an owl's skin, and is much prouder of its wicked old feathers than of its innocent heart; but Georgiana—what is she? Secretly an owl with the buoyancy of a humming-bird? However, it's nothing to me. She hovers around her mother and Sylvia with a fondness that is rather beautiful. I did not mention the subject of Audubon and her father, for it is never well to let an elder sister know that a younger one has been talking about her. I merely gave her ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... Juliet. The sonnets of Petrarch, that flight of the ideal which soars in the shadow of souls, venture through the twilight towards this abjection and suffering, attracted by one knows not what obscure affinity, even as a swarm of bees is sometimes seen humming over a dungheap from which arises, perceptible to the bees alone and mingling with the miasms, the perfume of a hidden flower. The gemoniae are Elysian. The chimerical thread of celestial unions floats 'neath the darkest vault of the human Erebus and binds despairing hearts to hearts ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... it was exclusively jocose; for du Bousquier, who chanced to march alone in front of the groups, was humming the well-known air,—little thinking of its appropriateness,—"Tender woman! hear the warble of the birds," etc. To some, du Bousquier was a strong man and a misjudged man. Ever since he had been confirmed in his present office by a royal decree, Monsieur ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... deep and with strong banks; it was often filled all over with reeds, and as shallow as a swamp, and poor Shomolekae had to push his way with difficulty through these reeds. Always at night the poisonous mosquitoes came buzzing and humming around him. The evil-tempered hippopotamus would suddenly come up from the bottom of the river with his wicked beady eyes, and great cavernous mouth, with its enormous teeth, yawning at Shomolekae as though he quite ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... firm. He had given the invitation first, he said, and nobody could take the privilege from him. So the others yielded gracefully, and in high good humor the eight, saying much and humming little songs, walked across the fields from the camp and into the town. Robert noticed the bustling life of Albany with approval. The forest made its appeal to him, and the city made another and different but quite as strong appeal. The old Fort Orange of the Dutch was crowded now, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was a humming As clear as the wood wind rings; And here were the air-boats coming And ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... Margaret sitting pale and anxious by the kitchen stove. O'Rourke had not come home at all. Noon came, and night, but not Larry. Whenever Mrs. Bilkins approached her that day, Margaret was humming "Kate Kearney" quite merrily. But when her work was done, she stole out at the back gate and went in search of him. She scoured the neighborhood like a madwoman. O'Rourke had not been at the 'Finnigans'. He had not been at The ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... powder puff, and I'd feel sorry for her if she wasn't so ma-ridden and spineless. But if John enjoys her—" She shut her eyes tight, a trick caught unconsciously from Miss Gibbie, then turned and went indoors. And in the hall Hedwig heard her humming cheerfully as she put on raincoat and overshoes and made ready for ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... listless and dejected, powerless and repining; but gaiety expanded her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet and plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like a humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet cake her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ball-room; elsewhere ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... predecessor, with a golden adze, had chipped the funereal trees and made them smile a welcome. Small fires were burning in the vegetable mould or surface brush, and the opacity of the forest yielded to the pretty flame which danced and almost sang in a household crackle, like a young girl in love humming tunes as she ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... and unsteady; and after clearing the northern end of Luzon the Retriever kicked round in a belt of light and baffling airs for a week. Then the monsoon freshened somewhat and the Retriever once more rolled lazily away on her course, with young Matt Peasley humming chanteys on her quarter-deck and pondering the mystery that confronts all mankind in their first adventure in fatherhood. Would it be a boy or a girl? He was expressing to himself for perhaps the thousandth time the hope that it would be a boy, when from the poop he saw something ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... wings; and then came Ko-ko-kas, the Owl, doing the same; and, Kosqu', the Crane, Wee-sow-wee-hessis, the Bluebird, Tjidge-is-skwess, the Snipe, and Meg-sweit-tchip-sis, the Blackbird, all came sailing proudly after. Even the tiny A-la-Mussit, the Humming-Bird, had a dear little boat, and for him the good Partridge had made a pretty little paddle, only that some thought it rather large, for it was almost an inch long. And Ishmegwess, the Fish-Hawk, who lived on the wing, cried in amazement, "Akweden ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the table. Jacob was helping himself to jam; the postman was talking to Rebecca in the kitchen; there was a bee humming at the yellow flower which nodded at the open window. They were all alive, that is to say, while poor Mr. Floyd was becoming Principal ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... Nancy, I'll be bound, is brewing tea! She's humming at her work the way she will, And, happen so, she maybe thinks of me And wishes she'd another cup ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... spring, the children would delight in gathering the sweet-scented meadow flowers—the water ranunculus, with its golden cups, the modest daisy, the pink cuckoo-flower, and the yellow cowslips; while overhead the bees kept up a constant humming; they have found their way from the straw hives in the garden and are diving into the delicious blossoms of the apple and cherry trees, robbing many a ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... such perfect reliance on his own peculiar gastronomic abilities, that he did not in the least shrink from again testing them. Leaving Michael Rust's presence with an alacrity which bordered upon haste, he descended into the refectory with somewhat of a jaunty air, humming a tune, and keeping time to it by an occasional flourish of the fingers. Having seated himself, his first act was to shut his eyes, thrust his feet at full length under the table; plunge both hands to the very bottom of his breeches-pockets, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... mechanics having assisted her initial progress by pushing the lower stays and then ducking under the planes, as she gathered way, and just missing decapitation. It's a way they have. She took a run for it, her engine humming like a top, and then rose, and gradually climbed the sky. Peter gazed at her wistfully. "And he promised to take me up some day," ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... Gertie could hear the Kid Next Door moving about getting ready for bed and humming "Every Little Movement Has a Meaning of Its Own" very lightly, under his breath. He polished his shoes briskly, and Gertie smiled there in the darkness of her own room in sympathy. Poor kid, he had ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... his usually gentle master's tone that without further thought or effort on his part, he began intoning to himself the words and sounds of Incantation 73, Book One. As he went on, concentrating on becoming a goldfish in the bowl on the table, he became aware of a humming sensation in his head. This grew until it seemed that all his body was filled with the strange new vibration, tingling from his feet to the crown of his head. The sensation spread, faster and faster. His ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... shop where she had left her watch, and I had peace of mind to note how thin and worn she had become, as if her baby was grown too big for her slight arms, even then I was light-hearted. Without attempting to follow her, I sauntered homeward humming a snatch of song with a great deal of fal-de-lal-de-riddle-o in it, for I can never remember words. I saw her enter another shop, baby linen shop or some nonsense of that sort, so it was plain for what she had popped her watch; but what cared I? I continued to sing most beautifully. I lunged ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... inflictions—lightning, thunder, and an overwhelming cataclysm. Behind that frowning Providence there was a smiling face. The good storm, albeit black and angry, behaved benignly. Gentle rain came, and a picturesque little electrical display to a humming accompaniment of far distant thunder, followed by a soothingly cool south-westerly breeze. Just at sundown the weather-god, repenting of his frown, bestowed a ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn dead-hush of his library there, hearing the cinders click in the extinguished fire, and that humming stillness in which one may fancy one hears the midnight Fates busily stirring their embryos. The lamp glowed mildly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... laid her hat aside, and, as it happened, two humming-birds that flashed, bejewelled, in a ray of ruddy light hung poised on invisible wings about the clustered blossoms of an arrow-bush that drooped above her head. She was, however, not looking at them, but watching Nasmyth with thoughtful eyes. Everything she wore was the work of her own ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... that he travelled while he was ill, for at dawn he would hear the camp break up with a mighty noise, and feel his litter lifted by slaves who bore him along for hours across the burning sand, till at length the evening came, and with a humming sound, like the sound of hiving bees, the great army set its bivouac. Then came the night and the pale moon floating like a boat upon the azure sea above, and everywhere the bright, eternal stars, to which went up the constant cry of "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! God is the greatest, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... voices of a number of persons at no great distance, from some of whom he should be able to procure all the aid he required. Having so said, he started off at speed towards the spot from whence he could still hear the humming noise of many voices, indicating an assemblage of a large company of persons no great way off—and so towards this spot he ran at a rapid pace, regardless of the risk he incurred in thus racing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... cherub, but of earth; Fit playfellow for fairies, by moonlight pale, In harmless sport and mirth, (That dog will bite him, if he pulls his tail!) Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey From every blossom in the world that blows, Singing in youth's Elysium ever sunny,— (Another tumble! That's his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he entangled himself, and the fierce spider was preparing to descend that it might weave a shroud about its prey, when a little finger broke the threads and lifted the fly safely into the palm of a hand, where he lay faintly humming his thanks. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... who comes to ruin himself to save his family's honor—all held the audience with a new sensation. As he pushed his palsied arms into his coat and pulled himself fairly off his feeble feet in his effort to button it, turned up to his door humming like a preying bumble-bee, faced slowly about again, his piercing little pink eyes darting with anticipation, and off the trembling old lips droned the telling speech: 'I wonder how his pretty little wife will bear poverty. H'm! We shall see'—the curtain fell to applause ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... generosity is unnecessary. You will never see my husband dusty, if I know it!" cried Esther in disdain, and blushed so prettily at the sound of that magic word that Peggy capered round the room in delight, humming an air the while which was intended to be the Wedding March, but which was, alas! so lamentably out of tune that Esther congratulated herself that, even if overheard, it would never be recognised by the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... house and up to the table. She followed him closely. He attempted to seize the pan in his powerful hands—and, to his horror, discovered that they held nothing. The pan remained on the table and the child was now unconcernedly washing the blue dishes, humming a little folk- song as she worked. As if to add to the irony of the situation, the small laborer quietly lifted the pan and moved it to a position she thought more convenient. This was the last touch. With a stifled murmur ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... knot of people. What are they about? They are congregated to see what passengers embark or disembark (their voyage accomplished) from the gay vessels, the whirligigs or merry-go-rounds (which is the classical expression, let purists decide for themselves) which, gaily painted as a Dutch humming-top, sail overhead, and go round with the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... trench, cut in the sandy down, had looked like a little bit of Paradise to the child-eyes of the pupils of Betty Chivers in summer, when the air was honey-sweet with the fragrance of the flowering furze, and musical with the humming of bees; and the earth was clotted with spilt raspberry cream—the many-tinged blossom of the heather—alas! it was now sad, colorless, ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould |
