"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... guards of our mail-coaches has usually been considered a sort of nuisance: now, by the persevering labours of these ingenious gentlemen, converted into an instrument of public gratification. Most of the guards of the stage-coaches now make their entrance and exit to the tune of some old national ballad, which, though it may not, perhaps, be played at present in such exact time and tune as would satisfy the leader of the opera band, is yet pleasant in comparison to the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... the enormous activity of his intelligence, they turned him on to controversy, and the critical discussion of the Scriptures. Giving themselves out for Christians, they adopted a part of them, and flung aside as interpolated or forged all that was not in tune with their theology. Augustin, as we know, triumphed in disputes of this kind, and was vain because he excelled ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... paid, Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep, Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin. They are those brittle evidences of law, Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate For leaving out one syllable. What are whores! They are those flattering bells have all one tune, At weddings, and at funerals. Your rich whores Are only treasures by extortion fill'd, And emptied by curs'd riot. They are worse, Worse than dead bodies which are begg'd at gallows, And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man Wherein he ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... their demeanor, and noted with prodigious relief that his wild scheme was succeeding better than he had dared to hope. Without any break in the entertainment he communicated his reassurance to Miss Dwyer by singing, to the tune of "My Country, 'tis of ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... piece of animated machinery (for it is in reality no other); let us set this piece of machinery going, and strain the works of it; if the works are are** not analogous to each other, will not the weakest give way? and when that happens, will not the whole be out of tune? But if we suppose a piece of machinery, whose works bear a true proportion and analogy to each other, these will bear a greater stress, will act with greater force, more regularity and continuance of time. If it be objected, that foreign Horses ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer
... a shower of cold water had drenched his head. The insincerity of their relations, her distant manner before the others, but above all the unfortunate word "too," including him with the lieutenant, put him so much out of tune that all his previous intentions vanished, and he sank at once to the position of an ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... horrible suspicion. The logic of events ran through his head like a hateful tune which he could ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... race in New York harbor between the Yankee yacht "Puritan" and the English yacht "Genesta,"—the second in the contest was won by the former, thus deciding that the America's cup shall remain in America. The sailing tune was: Puritan, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... mechanism, fashioned in the guise of a man, lay dying. Yet not that, for it never had had life. It lay deranged; out of order; its intricate cycle was still operating, but faintly, laboriously. Jangling out of tune. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... stood there watching, Enjoying their chorus gay, My cat stole in from the kitchen, And all of them flew away— With wings that fluttered and quivered, they chirped to another tune, As they flew away through the garden ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a chair, and hoisted, by the powerful arms of Jacques and Louis, upon a table. In this conspicuous position the old man seemed to be quite at his ease. He spent a few minutes in bringing his instrument into perfect tune; then looking round with a mild, patronising glance to see that the dancers were ready, he suddenly struck up a Scotch reel with an amount of energy, precision, and spirit that might have shot a pang of jealousy through the heart of Neil Gow himself. The noise that instantly ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... and her harper before her (so was the Cornish custom), she pledged one by one each of the guests, slave as well as free, while the harper played a tune. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... that he noticed them, and moved along in his deliberate fashion, changing his whistling to a low humming of no particular tune; but he used his keen eyesight and hearing for all ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... do." Its voice was extraordinarily distinct, and when it sang several snatches of songs the words were capitally given, with the most absurdly comic intonation, all the roulades being executed in perfect tune. I liked its sewing performance so much—to see it hold a little piece of stuff underneath the claw which rested on the perch, and pretend to sew with the other, getting into difficulties with its thread, and finally setting up a loud song ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... breeze that now and then Sigh'd thro' the mournful woods. Beneath a shade I sat me down, more heavily oppress'd, More desolate at heart, than e'er I felt Before. When, Philomela, o'er my head Began to tune her melancholy strain, As piteous of my woes, 'till, by degrees, Composing sleep on wounded nature shed A kind but short relief. At early morn, Wak'd by the chant of birds, I look'd around For usual objects: objects found I none, Except before me stretch'd the toiling main, And rocks and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... in a leap. Now it was Prescott on the offensive, and he forced Ben all over the field, to the tune of encouraging yells. Ben tried to save his face, but couldn't. Then Dick hammered his body. Young Alvord lost all his coolness, and began to windmill his hands. That settled it, of course. Any boy who forsakes his guard ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... the light and stood ready to accompany her mistress, Capitola, humming a gay tune, went to the door and ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... leaves, Rustling leaves and fading grasses, And his little music-box Tinkles faintly as he passes. It's a gay and jaunty tune If the hands that play were clever: Michael plays it like a dirge, ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... desire; and because of this harmony of desire, there are some who are wont to say that each one has both hearts; but one heart cannot be in two places. Each one always keeps his own heart, though the desire be shared by both, just as many different men may sing a song or tune in unison. By this comparison I prove that for one body to contain two hearts it is not enough to know each other's wish, nor yet for one to know what the other loves and what he hates; just as voices which are heard together ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... to go to the Hunt Ball that year. She felt utterly out of tune with all gaiety. But she could think of no decent excuse for remaining away. And she was still buoying herself up with the thought that Guy's silence could not last much longer. She was bound to ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... gallery at the west end of the church where the choir and organ were situated so that during the musical portions of the services the congregation turned towards the west to face the choir. About fifty years ago the leader who started the tune with a trumpet was James Ruddock "a bedstuffer." An old pitch-pipe used for starting the tunes was recently discovered by Mr J. ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... in His petitions before the Throne. Of what avail is it for a client and advocate to enter an earthly court of justice unless they are in agreement? Of what use is it to have two instruments in an orchestra which are not perfectly in tune? And how can we expect that God will hear us unless we ask what is according to His will, and, therefore, what is in the heart ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... that my brother had originally more of a hand in the proposals made by Mr. Solmes, than my father or other friends. In short, fain would my aunt have furnished me with an excuse to come off my opposition; Bell all the while humming a tune, and opening this book and that, without meaning; but ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... said to herself, as she perched on the window-seat in her bedroom and looked out into the moonlight. "She wants me to be happy. I suppose she doesn't always understand me, any more than I do her. I reckon we'll have to sort of take each other on faith." And lightly humming a little tune she jumped up from the window-seat and ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... her slow, painstaking, and clumsy. He had behaved badly to her, too, which made his irritation the more acute. Without waiting for him to answer, she rose as if his answer were indifferent to her, and began to put in order some papers that Mr. Basnett had left on the table. She hummed a scrap of a tune under her breath, and moved about the room as if she were occupied in making things tidy, and had no ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... good deal has been written about the way in which the note varies, chiefly in the direction of greater harshness and a more staccato and less sustained note, towards the end of the cuckoo's stay. According to the rustic rhyme, it changes its tune in June, which is probably poetic licence rather than the fruits of actual observation. It is, however, commonly agreed that the cuckoo is less often heard as the time of its departure draws near, and the easiest explanation of its silence, once the breeding season is ended, is that ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... me," she explained, as we took our way around the house towards the darkey cabins. "He's taken me to the fields with him many a time, and I was brought up on that tune you hear him playing. He always plays it when I come home—look ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... the Scarecrow bound to a stout stake that he had had driven into the ground, and the materials for the fire were heaped all around him. When this had been done, the King's brass band struck up a lively tune and old Googly-Goo came forward with a lighted match and set fire to ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... what they call a dance of peace, and is carried on in a manner like this: They—or all that wish to participate in the dance—form in a circle around the camp-fire, singing, or rather humming, a certain tune. I went to the people of the train and told them that the Indians and myself were going to have a peace dance, and all that wished to see it could come to the camp- fire and look on. I think every man, woman and child came out to see the dance, which lasted about two hours. After the ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... supermusic? Certainly not invariably. Vedrai Carino is a simple tune, almost as simple as a folk-song and we set great store by it; yet Michael William Balfe wrote twenty-seven operas filled with similarly simple tunes and in a selective draft of composers his number would probably be 9,768. The Ave Maria of Schubert is a simple tune; ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... stepped forward, and after a prelude, the beauty of which astonished all those around the queen's person, for they had no idea that he could play in tune, sang in a clear melodious voice the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... missionaries began their Evensong with one of the Maori hymns which they were accustomed to sing at Paihia. Hardly had they sung a line when, to their intense surprise, the whole of the audience joined heartily in the tune. Trembling with excitement the reader began the Evening Prayer, and when he uttered the words, "O Lord, open Thou our lips," there came from a hundred manly voices the significant response, "And our ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... make you understand how it is, for I cannot myself. It was all so different before I went to boarding school, and we lived down in the house in Waverley Place where I was born. The people of mamma's world do not stop; we simply whirl to a slightly different tune. It's like waltzing one way around a ballroom until you are quite dizzy, and then reversing,—there is no sitting down to rest, that is, unless it ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... with the tail of his eye, and looks glummer than ever, just because I'm a woman—as if I could help that. I have gone good lengths to set his mind at ease. I have stuck my pen behind my ear, I have made him a bow instead of a curtsey, I have whistled—not a tune I can't pipe up that—nay, if you won't tell my lady, I don't mind telling you that I have said 'Confound it!' and 'Zounds!' I can't get any farther. For all that, Mr. Horner won't forget I am a lady, and so I am not half the ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he has done all this to discover what degree of credulity he could expect to find in me, to examine the readiest way to gain my confidence, to familiarize himself with his subject by an attempt that might have miscarried without any prejudice to his plan; in a word, to tune the instrument on which he intended to play. Suppose he did this with the view of exciting my suspicions on one subject in order to divert my attention from another more important to his design. Lastly, suppose he wishes ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... played another tune. Mrs. Leigh drew out her purse, and gave him fifty cents. Phil took his fiddle under his arm, and, following the servant, who now reappeared, emerged into the street, and ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... poor. It was a small portrait—enameled, I believe. I do not think it was an idealized picture, though the pencil was evidently guided by a delicate and reverential loyalty, "doing its spiriting gently," in marking the tracings of time and sorrow. In a description which I wrote at the tune of its exhibition in Philadelphia, I said: "With the exception of a touching expression of habitual sadness, this face is very like the one I looked down upon from the gallery of the House of Lords fifteen years ago. There ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... across a field which was like a field of green glory. He saw a hollow like a nest, blue with violets, and all his thoughts leaped with irresponsive joy. He crossed a brook on rocky stones, as if he were crossing a song. A bird sang in perfect tune with his mood. He was bound for a place which had a romantic interest for him: the unoccupied parsonage, which he could occupy were he supplied with a salary and had a wife. He loved to sit on ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... churches it is the custom for choirs at each service to sing one tune which the people know. It is very generous of the choir to do that. The people ought to be very thankful for the donation. They do not deserve it. They are all "miserable offenders" (I heard them say so), and, if permitted once in a service to sing, ought to think themselves highly favored. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... be pleased with any one, Who entertained my sight with such gay shows As men and women, moving here and there, That coursing one another in their steps, Have made their feet a tune." —Dryden. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... reach him by sea. The soldiers of the allies outnumbered him two to one. On October 17, 1781, four years to a day since the surrender of Burgoyne, a drummer boy appeared on the rampart of Yorktown and beat a parley. Two days later the British soldiers marched out to the good old British tune of "The world turned upside down," ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... a tune to keep his spirits up. Running easily over the monotonous dark swells with a fair following breeze, he passed an hour or two. He sat down, braced the tiller, and resigned himself to contemplation of the mysteries that had been and that still must ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... sound of Chinese music from somewhere up the street. To her ears it is weird and unintelligible, but the children at their play instantly recognize the tune, and raise ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... of his mouth, when, as with one impulse, all broke into the grand old measure. Nobody pitched the tune, nor started it—it started itself! Mrs. Campbell sang it on her knees, with streaming eyes and hair, the captain and his daughters sang it locked in each other's arms, and the Traveler, seeing Lady Moreham left momently alone, clasped her hand in brotherly fashion, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... pedestrian passed, humming a little tune to himself, striding along through the November murk with swinging gait. It may have been that his voice, coming suddenly within range of the mare's ears, conveyed a sound of encouragement. Perhaps the lights of the village, ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... shall be cardinal the next day, and the second man in my friendship." She desired also that Mazarin and I might be good friends; but I answered that the least touch upon that string would put me out of tune and render me incapable of doing her any service; therefore I conjured her to let me still enjoy the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... agony—according as your musical talent decides. Frequently there is no one to play the instrument, and the hymns are started several times, until something resembling the right pitch is struck. Sometimes a six-line hymn will be started to a common metre tune, and all goes swimmingly until the inevitable crash at the end of the fourth line. But nothing daunted, we try and try again. I have supplied our smiling-faced cherubs with hymn books in ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... "Singing" is here used in a wide sense. One cannot sing continuously on such a sound as b or d, but one may easily outline a tune on a series of b's or d's in the manner of the plucked "pizzicato" on stringed instruments. A series of tones executed on continuant consonants, like m, z, or l, gives the effect of humming, ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... caught the express, though it was a nearish thing. He dashed down into the subterranean passage at Knype Station, reappeared on the up-platform, ran to the fore-part of the express, which was in and waiting, and jumped; a porter banged the door, a guard inspired the driver by a tune on a whistle, and off went the express. Arthur was now safe. Nothing ever happened to a North-Western express. He was safe. He was shorn of his luggage (almost, but not quite, indispensable) and of Simeon; but he was safe. He could not be disgraced in the world's eye. He thought of poor, ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... was hot and the men tired, just the moment when a little inspiration was needed. One of the men said to his fellow in the prow of the canoe, "Nick, ah reckon it's about time fer you to lead off with a tune, one we kin hit the paddles to," and this ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... to the chest of drawers still rhythmically and with set steps, but to the phantom strain of some unheard low music. The music was running vaguely through her head all the time—wild Aeolian music—it sounded like a rude tune on a harp or zither. And surely the cymbals clashed now and again overhead; and the timbrel rang clear; and the castanets tinkled, keeping time with the measure. She stood still and listened. No, no, not a sound save the rain on the roof. It was the music of her own heart, beating ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... pretend we don't care a cent. Mother sha'n't have the satisfaction of knowing that I do anyhow;" and Dick whistled a lively tune as he pulled off his boots and tossed ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... David would laugh at her hat! She put up her hand, in its soaked and slippery glove, and touched the roses about the crown and laughed herself. "He won't mind," she said, contentedly. She had forgotten that he had stopped loving her. She began to sing under her breath the old tune of her gay, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of Constant to tell what tune it was which the Emperor was whistling,' said Murat, laughing. 'For my part I do not think that he knows the difference between the "Malbrook" and the "Marseillaise." Ah, here is the Empress—and how charming she ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the musician, being requested to subscribe his name to a petition against an expected prorogation of Parliament in the reign of Charles II., wittily answered, "No, gentlemen, it is not my business to meddle with state affairs; but I'll set a tune ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... and, hearing several children talking round him, 'My dear little gentlemen,' said he, 'I will play you all the pretty tunes that I know, if you will give me leave.' The children wished for nothing half so much. He put his violin in tune, and then thrummed over several jigs and other scraps of music, which, it was easy to conjecture, had ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... I pray that whoso hears The music of his burning hopes and fears, That whoso sees this vision by the River Of Krishna, Hari, (can we name him ever?) And marks his ear-ring rubies swinging slow, As he sits still, unheedful, bending low To play this tune upon his lute, while all Listen to catch the sadness musical; And Krishna wotteth nought, but, with set face Turned full toward Radha's, sings on in that place; May all such souls—prays Jayadev—be wise To lean the wisdom which ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... heard, the fag-end of the "British Grenadiers," whistled very much out of tune, came floating in ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... others; while the weaponed youth stood in the midst bearing aloft his sword and shield like an image in a holy place, and Redesman's bow still went up and down the strings, and drew forth a sweet and merry tune. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the fiddler scraped out the tune of their Lancers. Few really knew what had happened, and the newly-made marquis had to fight his way through women who, in skin-tight dresses, danced with wantoning movements of the hips, and threw themselves into ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... somewhere, either from one of the knolls hard by or from one of the houses, came the sound of a flute, or rather of some primitive wooden pipe, which repeated over and over again a monotonous and piercingly sad little tune. I wondered whether it was one of the soldiers playing, but I decided this could not be the case, as the tune was more eastern than any Russian tune. On the other hand, it seemed strange that any Chinaman should ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... come to our aid, or send," spoke Tom, "but I can not make their wireless operator pick up our message. Either his apparatus is not in tune, or in accord with ours, or he ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... acquiescence, and while the landlord was replenishing the tankards, the stranger proceeded to further enlighten them respecting his personal affairs. He informed them that a man had cleared out from Nashville about six months ago, leaving him, the speaker, in the lurch to the tune of twenty-seven hundred dollars. A few days since he had learned that the fugitive had taken up his quarters at Spotswood, in Upper Canada, and he had accordingly set out for that place with intent to obtain a settlement. He had reached Millbrook by the seven ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... never form a word from him; and we were all of opinion that they might speak that language as well if they were gagged, as otherwise; nor could we perceive that they had any occasion either for teeth, tongue, lips, or palate; but formed their words just as a hunting-horn forms a tune, with an open throat: he told us, however, some time after, when we had taught him to speak a little English, that they were going, with their kings, to fight a great battle. When he said kings, we asked him, how many kings? He said, there were five nation (we could not make him understand ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... wuz Marse Spence en Miss Betsey's daughter. She wuz playin' on de pianny when de Yankee sojers come down de road. Two sojers cum in de house en ax her fer ter play er tune dat dey liked. I fergits de name er dey tune. Miss Marzee gits up fum de pianny en she low dat she ain' gwine play no tune for' no Yankee mens. Den de sojers takes her out en set her up on top er de high gate post in front er de big house, en mek her set dar twel de whole regiment pass by. She ...
— Slave Narratives, Administrative Files (A Folk History of - Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves) • Works Projects Administration
... rivulets running to the rivers became so many harpers with harps of silver strings all tinkling together; and the rivers running to the seas surged on in solemn accord, while the seas beat the land to a tune of thunder. There was music, music everywhere, and all the time; so the man could not ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... his sprites had lost their way in it, the tinkling of a mandolin, the singing of a clear, rich voice that had the tenor's golden strain, and yet, in floating through the mist, was sweet and sighing as a flute. The melody and the undistinguished words it bore upon its wings, delicious tune and passionate meaning, seemed the speech of another planet, an orb of song, the delicate sound lost when at sunset the threaded mist broke up and streamed away in fire, but coming again, as if they were haunted by the viewless voices of the air, when star-beam ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... living outside the pale of royal courts—will deem such things impossible. Let me tell these happy ignoramuses that all through the nineteenth century the princes and princesses of Europe were brought up to the tune of the whip and of physical and mental humiliation. It was ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... at Smith that this promise came to nothing. Smith, however, told the girl that she must be mad to take up with a man who was surely wrong in his head. All the same, when she heard him in the gloaming whistle from beyond the orchard a couple of bars of a weird and mournful tune, she would drop whatever she had in her hand—she would leave Mrs. Smith in the middle of a sentence—and she would run out to his call. Mrs. Smith called her a shameless hussy. She answered nothing. She said nothing ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... canker of the mind, The discord that disorders sweet heart's tune, The abortive bastard of a coward mind, The lightfoot lackey that runs post by death, Bearing the letters which contain our end; The busy advocate that sells his breath Denouncing worst to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... he was swimming and diving, he came up once to breathe, and, as he was puffing and panting, he suddenly heard some very enticing sounds, which made him stop and listen. It was only one of the fishermen playing a simple tune on a little whistle, but Seela loved music of all kinds, and was always attracted ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... enthusiasm enables them to bear defeat, and to look away from the cold face of necessity;—to think that, while so many are trudging after the sounding wheels and the monotonous jar of life, and lying down by the way to die, these men are marching buoyantly to a tune inside. And yet this is pleasant only from a hasty point of view. These people meet with disappointment, of course; and it is sad to think how many lives have come to absolutely nothing, and are all strewn over, from boyhood to the grave, with ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... come to an end—the feast and the Tziganes playing, and Theodora will always be haunted by that last wild Hungarian tune. Music, which moved every fibre of her being at all times, to-night was a torture of pain and longing. And he was so near, so near and yet so far, and it seemed as if the music meant love and separation and passionate regret, and the last air ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... ring and sang all the songs we knew. None of us were trained,—we had never seen a sheet of music—but some of us could sing any tune that was ever heard in Polotzk, and the others followed half a bar behind. I enjoyed these singing-bees. We had Hebrew songs and Jewish and Russian; solemn songs, and jolly songs, and songs unfit for children, but ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... revives memories, it quickens association, it opens and unites the hearts of men more surely than any other appeal can, and in this respect it aids recruiting perhaps more than any other agency. I wonder whether I should say this—the tune that it employs and the words that go with that tune are sometimes very remote from heroism or devotion, but the magic and the compelling power is in them, and it makes men's souls realize certain truths that their ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... said to be particularly liable to this disease, and when taken into foreign service, frequently to desert from this cause, and especially after hearing or singing a particular tune, which was used in their village dances, in their native country, on which account the playing or singing this tune was forbidden by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... spur, and the good horse started at a gallop—a rollicking gallop and in the very tune of his master's mood; and if all Port Nassau had not been at its devotions, the chins of its burghers might have tilted themselves in wonder at the apparition—a ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... his head slowly. "It came near smashing me, Jimmie. It seemed so unnecessary; so hideously out of tune with everything. I thought at the time that I should never get over it and be myself again, and I still think so, though the passing years have dulled the sharp edges of the hurt. There never was another girl like her, and there never will ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... worse self, and ejection of his most deeply-rooted faults, if only he will be true to Jesus, and use the gifts that are given to him. There are many of us whose daily life is pitched in a minor key; whose whole landscape is grey and monotonous and sunless; who feel as if yesterday must set the tune for to-day, and as if, because we have been beaten and baffled so often, it is useless to try again. But remember that the field on which the Stone of Help was erected, to commemorate the great and decisive victory that Israel won, was the very field on which the same foes had before contended, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Edith's work-basket; there were the baby's playthings. The door stood open, and as he approached it he heard singing—not singing, either, but a fitful sort of recitation, with the occasional notes of an accompaniment struck as if in absence of mind. The tune he knew, and as he passed through the first room towards the sitting-room that looked on the sea he caught ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Miss Shaw to come forward and give that Populist whoop that she promised she would last night," said a delegate. Miss Shaw came to the front of the platform and said: "I do not know any better whoop than that good old tune, 'Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.'" "Sing," said Chairman Dunsmore. The vast audience shook every particle of air in the big hall with the full round notes of the long meter doxology. "Let all the people cry amen," said Alonzo Wardall, who was ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... chanted itself in my mind to the tune of "Drink to me only," and my hand curled around the letter under my pillow ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... antics as Jones did cut up was perfectly dreadful. He laughed, he mimicked the priest, kicked at the mourners, and once tried to grab the tactics. The Major and his assistants pitched the tune on a high key. Captain Wright braced it with loud, strong bass, while Martin and Sim Pratt came in on the home stretch with tenor and alto that shook the rafters in the house. Then all dispersed as silently and sorrowfully as ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the better or wiser; or, if we were, our increased wisdom could be of no practical effect. For, indeed, the arts, as regards teachableness, differ from the sciences ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... meat, etc. By this fire, as I have told you, the sumac hunters gather in the evening, after work, and laugh and talk and sing, and eat their suppers; or perhaps some one of them can play the fiddle, and he strikes up a dancing tune, and the girls and boys dance on the grass, and laugh and enjoy themselves much more than if they were in fine drawing-rooms. After a while the long day's work makes them sleepy, and they lie down on the fresh pine tags in the tent, and go to sleep—to be up at daylight, ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he said "whose example and society we pray to follow and attain." For a few days he seemed exceedingly submissive in deed and speech. The beggars who wished him well he thanked with bows. The ragged old women who saluted him he replied to most gently. But after three days he changed his tune and dashed the hopes which had begun to spring. Easter Sunday came, and the bishop was at Mass and John's chamberlain slipped twelve gold pieces into his hand, the usual royal offering. He was standing (they always stand at Mass) surrounded by a throng of barons before the bishop and ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... monster—Curupita or other—rushing on to slay and devour me there and then, I began to feel ashamed of my cowardice; and in the end I turned and walked back to the spot I had just quitted and sat down once more. I even tried to hum a tune, just to prove to myself that I had completely recovered from the panic caught from the miserable Indian; but it is never possible in such cases to get back one's serenity immediately, and a vague suspicion continued to trouble me for ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... pikes and daggers. Few monasteries refused a meal or a rough bed to the wandering scholar. Rarely was any fee exacted for the lesson given. For the rest, none were too proud to earn a few sous by sweeping, or drawing water, or amusing with a tune on the reed-flute; or to wear the ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... her affability. She was doubtless not positively boisterous; yet, though Mrs. Assingham, as a bland critic, had never doubted her being graceful, she had never seen her put so much of it into being what might have been called assertive. It was all a tune to which Fanny's heart could privately palpitate: her guest was happy, happy as a consequence of something that had occurred, but she was making the Prince not lose a ripple of her laugh, though not perhaps always enabling him to find it ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... many other very dangerous Inconveniences. And yet bad as their Musick is, their Dancing is the reverse. I have seen a Country Girl manage her Castanets with the graceful Air of a Dutchess, and that not to common Musick; but to Peoples beating or druming a Tune with their Hands on a Table. I have seen half a Dozen couple at a time dance to the like in ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... festivities. [Sidenote: SESTOS.—TURKISH COLONEL.] The breeze, however, suddenly veering round to the south, swiftly went round the capstan, and merrily did our band, the solitary fiddler, rosin away to the tune of "drops of brandy," while, with every stretch of canvass set, we joyfully proceeded in our course, saluting the Pasha, according to custom, as we came abreast of the village of the Dardanelles, which occupies a low situation, and its mean-looking houses are huddled together in a ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the Adamses were in Massachusetts; and Virginia made as earnest an effort to get rid of it as old Massachusetts did. But circumstances were against them and they failed; but not that the good will of its leading men was lacking. Yet within less than fifty years Virginia changed its tune, and made negro-breeding for the cotton and sugar States one of its leading ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... what the king sent every day from his supper, according to custom, to the children, but gave them the forementioned diet, while they had their souls in some measure more pure, and less burdened, and so fitter for learning, and had their bodies in better tune for hard labor; for they neither had the former oppressed and heavy with variety of meats, nor were the other effeminate on the same account; so they readily understood all the learning that was among the Hebrews, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... to do, and plenty of inducement, so I did it. I yelled. I sent my voice bellowing through those echoing halls to such tune that if King were anywhere in the place he would have to hear me. But it did me no good. They only produced a gag and added that to my discomfort, shoving a great lump of rubber in my mouth and wrapping a towel over it so tightly that I could ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... a third member is added to the same division under the head of Analogous Terms. The word 'sweet,' for instance, is applied by analogy to things so different in their own nature as a lump of sugar, a young lady, a tune, a poem, and so on. Again, because the head is the highest part of man, the highest part of a stream is called by analogy 'the head.' It is plainly inappropriate to make a separate class of analogous terms. Rather, ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... not the case at all. I could not have done the thing at all to start with, and, given both the nerve and the presence and the practice of the man, I could not have done it a quarter as well, because he was in tune with his audience and I should not have been. That was to me part of the tragedy. The Bishop's voice fell heavily and steadily, like a stream of water from a great iron pipe that fills a reservoir. The audience, too, were all in the most elementary ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... light, and wild-bird's song, And Tweed's complaining tune; And far-off hills, whose restless pines Were beckoning up the moon— Beheld and heard, shed silence through A ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... chamber, and putting a tambourine into the cauzee's hands, led him out and began to play a merry tune upon her lute, to which the affrighted magistrate danced with a thousand antics and grimaces like an old baboon, beating time with the tambourine, to the great delight of the husband, who every now and then jeeringly cried out, "Really ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... has 11 different music strains, to 10 of which people may dance, the 11th being his night strain, to the tune of which every one and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... actual mimes, probably in not being represented on the stage. They reappear in the time of Pliny, whose friend VERGINIUS ROMANUS (he tells us in one of his letters) [14] wrote Mimiambi tenuiter, argute, venuste, et in hoc genere eloquentissime. This shows that for a long tune a certain refinement and elaboration was compatible with the ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... intellect, had discovered the secret she had feebly tried to guard. There was a pause and a dead silence. That silence told all that was necessary to Charlotte Harman. After a time she said gently, but all the fibre and tune had left her voice,—— ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... in the shade; And the brand of sugar-cured, canvased ham that she always used— Well, this Westphalia stuff would simply have made her amused! That so, heigh? I saw that you was United States as soon As ever I heard you talk; I reckon I know the tune! Pick it out anywhere; and you understand how I feel About these here foreign breakfasts: ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... line, and it was one of the most pleasant incidents of my entire tour, to hear a company of sailors chime in one evening and sing "Kiss Me Mother, Kiss Your Darling." I had heard little English speaking for months, and now to hear that old familiar tune, five thousand miles away from home, made me feel as if America could after all not be so very far off! There were no storms, nor was their any cool night air upon that "summer seat." I slept one night on deck, without ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... people should not contribute to them. It is thoroughly vicious in principle to divide the nation, as many of the Radical and Labour men want to divide it, into two sections—a majority which only calls the tune, and a minority which only pays ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... and putting a hand in either pocket of his surcoat, so as to press forward the skirts, began to whistle a tune; but the desire to reply overcame his philosophy, and with ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the example of the master of the house, and fell down side by side on the ground. Ivan was left struggling against sleep, and trying to sing a drinking song; but soon his tongue refused to obey him, his eyes closed in spite of him, and seeking the tune that escaped him, and muttering words he was unable to pronounce, he fell fast asleep near ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... their bodies—and struck out, stroke for stroke. By the third stroke they were swinging forward in perfect rhythm, each onrush held long and level on the outside edge and curving only as it slackened. The air began to sing by Hetty's temples; her skates kept a humming tune with her lover's. The back of his hand rested warm ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a portion rather, praises the President for his carefulness in making a tour of the armies and ports south of us; but as he retained Gen. Bragg in command, how soon the tune would change if Bragg should ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... own little single worries? Well, that's what God means; and the worry is the interruption. He never means that. There's a great song forever singing, and we're all parts and notes of it, if we will just let Him put us in tune. What we call trouble is only his key, that draws our heart-strings truer, and brings them up sweet and even to the heavenly pitch. Don't mind the strain; believe in the note, every time his finger touches and sounds it. If ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... near when the cannon of Reichshofen was to change the merry tune of the French chanson into a dirge for many of the brave, light-hearted fellows, then so unmindful of the storm ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... Gusterson roared, "Except that an hour ago I forgot to tune in on the only TV program I've wanted to hear this year—Finnegans Wake scored for English, Gaelic and ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... arborescent grasses that yielded the longest and toughest fibers and these she sought and carried to her tree with the spear shaft that was to be. Clambering to her crotch she bent to her work, humming softly a little tune. She caught herself and smiled—it was the first time in all these bitter months that song had passed her lips or ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and began to play and then they all joined in and I was leading the whole band." "Now," continued the Chief, "how did they know in Ottawa the same thing you taught us out at the reserve in Saskatchewan?" And then John McKay told him the tune was "Old Hundred," which all good people knew, and that the company sang it in English words while he sang in Cree, but that they were singing the same thing. This delighted Mistawasis, who felt that he and the white people there were really one in the deep experiences of life. ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... 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 ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... fellow from any ordinary fellow. Could they have known that he was the famous Alderman Edward Henry Machin, founder and sole proprietor of the Thrift Club, into which their wives were probably paying so much a week, they would most assuredly have glared to another tune, and they would have said with pride afterwards: "That chap Machin o'Bursley was standing behind me at the Empire to-night!" And though Machin is amongst the commonest names in the Five Towns, all would have known that the great and admired ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... tune that idle fingers Play on a window-pane. The time is there, the form of music lingers; But O thou sweetest strain, Where is thy soul? Thou liest i' the ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... Are we alone? (NORA is heard overhead dancing the Tarantella.) Yes, I hear Mrs. HELMER's fairy footfall above. She dances the Tarantella now—by-and-by she will dance to another tune! (Changing his tone.) I don't exactly know why you should wish to have this interview—after jilting me as you did, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... arts now are more or less dead. At any rate, they have ceased to influence masses of people. Our great expression is music. We are moved by music. It gives us emotions en bloc—all of us—some by the tune of 'Tommy Atkins,' and others by Wagner. Well, all these three—sculpture, painting, and music—give me pleasure, but I should not want my cow duchess to understand any of them. I should want her to have numbers of chubby children and to fulfil her social duties, ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... long August afternoon, The little drowsy stream Whispers a melancholy tune, As if it dreamed of June ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... cool as a cream-cheese and having formed my plan and concerted a scheme of Revenge, I was determined to let her have her own way and not even to make her a single reproach. My scheme was to treat her as she treated me, and tho' she might even draw my own Picture or play Malbrook (which is the only tune I ever really liked) not to say so much as "Thank you Eloisa;" tho' I had for many years constantly hollowed whenever she played, BRAVO, BRAVISSIMO, ENCORE, DA CAPO, ALLEGRETTO, CON EXPRESSIONE, and POCO PRESTO with many other such outlandish words, all of them ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and talk of politics and speeches To the old tiresome tune? Not we who saw pale sunshine on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... came in that night from a vestry meeting to which he went after dinner. The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed into the study for prayers. Prayers over they rose and went out, and he sat down. His habits were becoming fixed and for some years he had always read in the evening the friends of his youth. No sermon was composed ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... his former view. Even in Bloomingdale, this sort of thing would be coldly received. Genius must ever walk alone. Spike would have to get along without hope of meeting a kindred spirit, another fellow-being in tune with his brain-processes. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... to shame, Alberich, Tarnhelm on head, turns himself into a dragon, drawing its cumbersome length across the stage to a fearsome tune which gives all of its uncouthness, and never fails to call forth laughter, like the giants' tread. As a further exhibition of his power, after full measure of flattery in Loge's pretended fright, he at the prompting of the same changes himself ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Cyclon of Methymna, and famous lyric poet and musician, having won riches at a musical contest in Sicily, was voyaging home, when the sailors of his ship determined to murder him for his treasure. He asked to be allowed to play a tune; and as soon as he had finished he threw himself into the sea. It was then found that the music had attracted a number of dolphins round the ship, and one of these took the bard on its back and conveyed him ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... truth and body, I'd blame no one that wanted Master Larry! That little fella is in tune with all the world!" she declared; "but those people do be always gibbing and gabbing! Give them a smell, and they're that suspeecious they'll do the rest! Sure I said to that owld man below, Mikey Twomey"—thus dispassionately ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Charles worked steadily, now and then whistling a snatch of tune. Then he went to the druggist and said, 'I have finished the job you gave me. What shall ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... "That is a tune that has suddenly become popular. Any night you may see hundreds of East Side children dancing on ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... man who has wood to saw or a piano to tune or anything that isn't scabbin' I wish you'd give me a character and get me the job," said the Philosopher when they had ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... a diabolical plan, conceived far down in hell amid the thick blackness, and brought up by the arch-fiend himself, who sat there, toying with the hideous thing, and with his cloven foot beating a merry tune on the death's-head and cross-bones ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the Carnegy boys; they also would fain become bird-trainers on the spot, lacking all knowledge of the matter though they, naturally, did. With the frenzy that possesses boys in regard to every absolutely new amusement, the two Carnegys slept, ate, drank, and, as it were, breathed to the tune of one thought—the determination that they also ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... thinking of the sword and the armour, and of the people who fashioned the well, and wondering about the old, old bones away through the dark passage into the heart of the hill. The far, far-away stories were in my mind of Finn and his warriors, of his great dogs and his queens. Did Ossian the bard tune his harp to great deeds, and to lovely women of the land of the Ever Young, in the cave of the past? Into my musings—for sleep had nearly come over me—broke the voice of ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... attempts of Valentine and Charteris to divide their perceptions from their desires, and tell the woman she is worthless even while trying to win her, are sometimes almost torturing to watch; it is like seeing a man trying to play a different tune with each hand. I fancy this agony is not only in the spectator, but in the dramatist as well. It is Bernard Shaw struggling with his reluctance to do anything so ridiculous as make a proposal. For there are two types of great humorist: ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... nature and ruined by cultivation," hollow-chested, convex in back, imperfect in sight, shuffling in gait, and flabby in muscle. The work of such a man will be musty like his closet, narrow as the groove he moves in, tinctured with the peculiarities that border on insanity, and out of tune with nature. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... chaotic dumps, climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music and poetry of these magnificent rock piles—a fine lesson; and all Nature's wildness tells the same story—the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... platform. It was Professor Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee (Alabama) Normal and Industrial Institute, who must rank from this time forth as the foremost man of his race in America. Gilmore's Band played the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the audience cheered. The tune changed to "Dixie" and the audience roared with shrill "hi-yis." Again the music changed, this time to "Yankee ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington |
