"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this rag doll, Jim," he said to one of the other painters, "She's a daisy," and he took Raggedy Ann by the hands and danced with her while he whistled a lively tune. Raggedy Ann's heels hit the floor thumpity-thump and ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... that his speech and laughter should mingle with the songs of birds and with the melody of flowing streams. But man is too often a discord in creation. The flowers put him to shame. The birds make him sound harsh and jarring. He is "out of tune." ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... obtain order, the superintendent, remembering that 'music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,' decided to try its effects on the untamed group before him; and giving out a line of a hymn adapted to the tune of 'Lily Dale,' he commenced to sing. The effect was instantaneous. It was like oil on troubled waters. The delighted youngsters listened to the first line, and then joined in with such hearty good-will that the old ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... fulness, the ale in large wooden bickers, and the brandy in capacious horns of oxen. The laird gave full scope to his homely glee. He danced—he snapped his fingers to the music—clapped his hands and shouted at the turn of the tune. He saluted every girl in the hall whose appearance was anything tolerable, and requested of their sweethearts to take the same freedom with his bride, by way of retaliation. But there she sat at the head of the hall in still and blooming ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... and grey. He was indeed a cheerful and colourful youth, his cheerfulness being further evidenced by the jaunty swinging of a stick which he had apparently cut from a willow and by the gay whistling of a tune. On sight of Clint, however, the stick stopped swinging and the whistling came to an end in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... fifth, I see," observed Allerdyke, glancing over his program unconcernedly. "Well, I suppose we've got to stick out the other four. I'm not great on music, Fullaway—don't know one tune from another. However, I reckon I can stand a bit of noise until ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... was a piano, small, and by no means new, but of a soft and sweet tone, though not perfectly in tune. Bersenyev sat down to it, and began to strike some chords. Like all Russians of good birth, he had studied music in his childhood, and like almost all Russian gentlemen, he played very badly; but ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... Flanders, with the second part of the battle of Dettingen-why, ay: you are bound in conscience, as a good Englishman, to expect all this -but what if all these 10 paeans should be played to the Dunkirk tune? I must prepare you for some such thing; for unless the French are as much their own foes as we are our own, I don't see what should hinder the festival to-day(933) being kept next year a day sooner. But I will draw no consequences; only sketch you out our ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... for the Bar. His circumstances were often straitened, and at times so much so that he had to pass the day without dinner. But under such depressing circumstances his high spirits never forsook him. One day he was sitting in St. James's Park merrily whistling a tune when a gentleman passed, who, struck by the youth's melancholy appearance while, at the same time, he whistled a lively air, asked how he "came to be sitting there whistling while other people were at dinner." Curran replied, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... century. It has also been said that the Dutch have great ability in singing in chorus. In fact, the pleasure of singing together must be great if it is in proportion to the aversion they have to singing alone, for I do not ever remember hearing any one sing a tune at any hour or in any part of a Dutch town, excepting street urchins, who were singing in derision at drunken men, and drunkards are seldom seen ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... became impatient with the slowness of the waiters, who had seemed to hurry unnecessarily the night before. But at last his meal ended, and he went out under the trees. The sky was so full of stars it hardly seemed dark. The air was soft, and in the distance a band played a plaintive valse tune. ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... "Oh!" she cried, "shall Science still resign 11 Whate'er is Nature's, and whate'er is mine? to Shall Taste and Art but show a cold regard, 22. And scornful Pride reject the unletter'd bard? Ye myrtled nymphs, who own my gentle reign, Tune the sweet lyre, and grace my airy train, If, where ye rove, your searching eyes have known One perfect mind, which judgment calls its own; There every breast its fondest hopes must bend, And every Muse with tears ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... part of it this evening, said Marmaduke, laughing. There was, now and then, a fearful quaver in his voice, and it seems that Mr. Penguillian is like most others who do one thing particularly well; he knows nothing else. He has, certainly, a wonderful partiality to one tune, and he has a prodigious self- confidence in that one, for he delivers himself like a northwester sweeping across the lake. But come, gentlemen, our way is clear, and the sleigh waits. Good-evening, Mr. Grant. Good-night, young lady remember you dine ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... and as we rode down the street torches were being lit in the houses. The upper room in the guest house was brightly illumined, and the window was open. Black Lamoral and the brown mare made a trampling with their hoofs, and I began to whistle a gay old tune I had learnt in the wars. A figure in scarlet and black came to the window, and stood there looking down upon us. The lady riding with me straightened herself and raised her weary head. "The next time we go to the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Ireland, and when he drew nigh the coast, he called for his harp, and sitting up on his couch on the deck, played the merriest tune that was ever heard in that land. And the warders on the castle wall, hearing him, sent and told King Anguish how a ship drew near with one who harped as none other might. Then King Anguish sent knights to convey the stranger into the castle. So when he was brought into the King's presence, ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... ill? the heart filled quite With sunshine, like the shepherd's-clock at noon, 250 Closes its leaves around its warm delight; Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tune Is all shut out, no boding shade of blight Can pierce the opiate ether of its swoon: Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is, But naught can ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and went on with her low lullaby, which Tommy stoutly, but ineffectually, attempted to join. The wind was beginning to rise and clatter at the casements, and sing its own tune round the gable-corner; the dark had quite fallen, and the room was gloomy and vivid by turns with the ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the primitive cave-dweller, serve as receptacles. The grist-mill on Leap Frog River is busy from dawn till dusk; the forge rings with the music of hammer and anvil; a saw-mill in the heart of Dismal Forest hums its whining tune all day long. A noisy, determined engine, fashioned by mechanics out of material taken from the engine and boiler room of the Doraine provides the motive power for the saws and the means to produce ponderous, far-reaching blasts ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the kitchen, while even Mrs. Jeffrey, who had long since ceased to interfere, felt it her duty to remonstrate. Accordingly, she descended to the parlor, where she found George Douglas and Maggie dancing to the tune of "Yankee Doodle," which Theo played upon the piano, while Henry Warner whistled a most stirring accompaniment! To be heard above that din was impossible, and involuntarily patting her own slippered foot to ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... must think. He cannot always drown thought or memory. He may, and does, fly for false solace to the drink, and may stun his enemy in the evening, but it will rend him like a giant in the morning. A flower, or half-remembered tune, a child's laughter, will sometimes suffice to flood the victim with recollections that either madden him to excess or send him crouching to his miserable room, to sit with face buried in his hands, while the hot, thin tears trickle ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... Second Street, curiosity hastening her steps, she became part of the crowd of women and children running toward the market, and arrived there just in time to see Harcourt's dragoons, followed by six battalions of grenadiers, march past to the tune of "God Save the King." Following these came Lord Cornwallis, and then four batteries of heavy artillery; and the crowd cheered the conquerors as enthusiastically and joyfully as they had Washington's ragged regiments so short a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... circle, and the theology of which was not too clear to tender apprehensions; with three hymns more or less lugubrious, rendered by a village-choir, got into voice by many preliminary snuffles and other expiratory efforts, and accompanied by the snort of a huge bassviol which wallowed through the tune like a hippopotamus, with other exercises of the customary character,—after all this in the forenoon, the afternoon walk to the meeting-house in the hot sun counted for as much, in my childish dead-reckoning, as from old Israel Porter's in Cambridge to the Exchange ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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 character of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... flying at the fore, while shortly afterwards the Jews and all other visitors were made to go down the side into the boats waiting for them. The captain came on board, the sails were loosed, and while the fife was setting up a merry tune, the seamen tramped round at the capstan bars, and the ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... the singer with no voice, nor beauty, nor manners, but with a high character for correct morality, and a pressure of sentimentality that would move a traction-engine. I remember seeing it played a few years ago, and can never forget a Leonora of sixteen stones, steadily singing out of tune, in the first act professing with profuse perspiration her devotion to her husband (whose weight was rather less than half hers), and in the second act nearly crushing the poor gentleman by throwing herself on him to show him that she was for ever his. A ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... nob," returned the sergeant. "The top of mine to the foot of yours,—the foot of yours to the top of mine,—Ring once, ring twice,—the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you are at the present ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... home, and at once set to work upon the task he had undertaken. He had conceived that it would be an easy one, but found himself mistaken. Whether because his fancy was not sufficiently lively, or his mind was not in tune, he was unable to produce the effect he desired. The faces which he successively outlined were all stiff, and though perhaps sufficiently regular in feature, lacked the great charm ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... dancing as he did. The young folks caught up an old song, and tagged that name on too, and called me Rosin the Bow. So it was first, Melody; but there are two songs, as you know, my dear, to the one tune (or one tune is all I know, and fits both sets of words), and the second song spells the word "Beau," and so some merry girls in a house where I often went to play, they vowed I should be Rosin the Beau. I suppose I may have ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... is like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June. O, my luve is like the melodie, That's sweetly play'd in tune. ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... tune I was not sure I liked his agreeable voice: it had a self-importance out of keeping with the humdrum nature of his story, as though a breeze engaged in shaking out a table-cloth should have fancied itself inflating a banner. But this criticism may have ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... easier than the other; but you yourself have asserted, and with undoubted truth, that the same abilities qualify you for undertaking, and the same means will bring you to your end in both journeys—as in music it is the same tune, whether you play it in a higher or a lower key. To instance in some particulars: is it not the same qualification which enables this man to hire himself as a servant, and to get into the confidence and secrets of his master in order ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... was ready to his hand, and Borrow did nothing by halves. A good hater and a staunch friend, he was loyal to the Bible Society in no half-hearted way, and not the most pronounced quarrel with forces obviously quite out of tune with his nature led to any real slackening of that loyalty. In the end a portion of his property went to swell the Bible ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... was low and yellow. The summer grapes were ripe, and in the cool, shaded coves at the base of the hills the muscadine was growing purple. The mules, so over-worked during plow-time, now stumbled down the lane, biting at one another. The stiffening wind, fore-whistle of the season's change of tune, was shrill amid the rushes at the edge of ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... old men were very indifferent to what went on in the world, which to their mind was a barrel-organ continually repeating the same tune. Upon one occasion there was a good deal of commotion upon the Place St. Sulpice, and one of the professors, whose feelings were not so well under control as those of his colleagues, wanted them all "to go to the chapel and die in a body." "I don't see the use of that," was the reply ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... The savages of America pretend to perform these cures by the music and jargon of their imperfect instruments; and in Apulia, where the bite of the tarantula is pretended to be cured by music, which excites a desire to dance, it is by an ordinary tune, very ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... again, and fingered the silk scarf that had, at some long ago date, been thrown carelessly upon it. Then he ran his fingers lightly over the yellow keys. The tones were unbelievably jangling and discordant, yet Joyce thought she caught the notes of a little tune. And in another moment he broke into the air, singing softly the ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... philanthropist saw even more evidences of Christmas gaiety along the streets than before. He stepped out briskly, in spite of his sixty-eight years; he even hummed a little tune. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Could you play that tune for me? I didn't hear it, and I'd love to, if you are willing," ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... circumstances, encounter his eye without confusion. I have assisted besides, by the ear, at the act of butchery itself; the victim's cries of pain I think I could have borne, but the execution was mismanaged, and his expression of terror was contagious: that small heart moved to the same tune with ours. Upon such "dread foundations" the life of the European reposes, and yet the European is among the less cruel of races. The paraphernalia of murder, the preparatory brutalities of his existence, are all hid away; an extreme sensibility reigns upon the surface; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tune himself; and about the middle of the first verse Mis' Page got up and went over to where 'Lizabeth was standin', and give her the right hand of fellowship, and then Mis' Petty did the same; and ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... the S.E. coast the houses shook before the blast, and now and then the tiles crashed to the pavement, and the fierce rain squalls swept through the deserted streets, as the gale 'whistled aloft his tempest tune.' To read of this makes every fireside seem more comfortable, but somehow it also brings the thought to many a heart 'God help those ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... to the tune of "Paddle your own canoe," was not sufficiently disengaged to remark her mother's companion. His eyes followed her with a keen, comprehensive glance, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... had 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, ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... fell except during those hours when the brethren were free for such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself. Among the blooming bushes she was moving listlessly and yet restlessly, and each rose she plucked was speedily pulled to pieces in her nervous fingers. A particularly furious outburst from the dogs, followed by peals ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to a tune from Orphee aux Enfers, and the Captain said something about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day, and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes. But his friends' humor was all lost on Barbican, who was ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... whistling a cheerful tune. I got to my feet and staggered out to clear my head in the air, and found ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... play was written by a superior, thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their cadence. See Wolsey's Soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell, where, instead of the metre of Shakspeare, whose secret is, that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will best bring out the rhythm; here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence. But the play contains, through all its length, unmistakeable traits of Shakspeare's hand; and some passages, as the account ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various
... straighten matters out before leaving Patricia alone for the afternoon with the declaration of open warfare still in force between her and the old man. Nine times out of ten, Patricia played the tune to which Riley danced, but this was the tenth, and an older understanding would have heeded the signals ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... wrongs were unpardonable: You shall read (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends. But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: Shall we (saith he) take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also? And so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... money which he accumulated were gambled away. His whole life was disgraced by unbridled sensuality coupled with sordid avarice. This explains in a measure Paganini's inferior rank as a composer. Famous are his variations on the tune "God Save the King," his "Studies," his twenty variations on "Il Carnevale di Venezia," and the concert allegro "Perpetual Motion." The celebrated twenty-four violin capricci, written early in Paganini's career, have been rendered familiar by their transcriptions ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... in a short time, and handed the neat leather case to its owner. Bess, looking flustered and nervous, drew out the violin, and began to tune it. ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... also other purchasers for his second cargo—he convinced them by undeniable authorities, that the cuckoo was a very odd kind of bird which sung only at certain seasons of the year, and assured them that whenever the proper time arrived, all the cuckoos they had purchased would once again "tune their melodious throats." After this it would only be fair to allow the Chinese sometimes to trick the European purchaser with a wooden ham ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... The natural history of the ancients is not enshrined in Aristotle and Pliny. It pervades the vast literature of classical antiquity. For all we may say of the reticence with which, the Greeks proclaim it, it greets us nobly in Homer, it sings to us in Anacreon, Sicilian shepherds tune their pipes to it in Theocritus: and anon in Virgil we dream of it to the coo of doves and the sound of bees' ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the tune changed to a sad yet delicious melody whose sweetness thrilled through Nell, and made her think of Shorne Mills—and Drake; and as he played on she turned her face away from him and to the open ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... 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 ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... earliest inhabitants of Latium buried their dead. Visitors, who probably came by way of the valley of the Danube, introduced the new custom, and for a long tune the two rites were practised side by side. At Felsina and at Marzabotto we find instances alike of inhumation and cremation, and at Vilanova only half the tombs are those of corpses that had been cremated. In 365 of the tombs excavated in the Certosa, near ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... I learn to rule myself, To be the child I should, Honest and brave, nor ever tire Of trying to be good? How can I keep a sunny soul To shine along life's way? How can I tune my little heart To sweetly sing ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... this morning," said Mrs. Sherman. "I want Lloyd to see some of those wonderful music boxes they make here; the dancing bears, and the musical hand-mirrors; the chairs that play when you sit down in them, and the beer-mugs that begin a tune when you ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Pharias cauda solertior hostis Ludit, et iratas incerta provocat umbra: Obliquusque caput vanas serpentis in auras Effusae toto comprendit guttura morsu Letiferam citra saniem; tune irrita pestis ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... and elemental life,—such as a Dryad might have in her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was a shallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, I would rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that is the tune ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... the trades, or in a calm, Sir, what have we to do but to twiddle our thumbs, and practice fiddling with them? A lively tune is what I like, and a-serving of the guns red-hot; a man must act according to what nature puts upon him. And nature hath taken one of my legs from me with a cannon-shot from the French line-of-battle ship—Rights of Mankind the name ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... among the rows of round, closely cropped heads. The rather nasal voice from the sallow figure in the cassock rises higher, and as the echoing footsteps of the person who does nothing but stare about him become more and more distant, the sing-song tune grows in volume once more, and the rows of little French boys are again in the way of becoming good Catholics. In another side chapel the confessional box bears a large white card on which is printed in bold letters, "M. le Cure." He is on duty at the present ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... paused... his voice laughed a little, and he spoke of his people.... Nobody could have quite told what he said to them about his people. But flutes sang. The sound of feet was on the grass—touching it in tune—swift-flitting feet that paused and held a rhythmic measure while it swung. Quick-beating feet across the green. Shadowy forms. The sway of gowns, light-falling, and the call of voices low and sweet. Greek ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... any more now,' replied Jack. 'The tide will soon be on the turn, so we must move to the tune of homeward bound. We may be late—the tide will ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... tune!" cried Sam. "Play something and follow us." At the same time he instinctively thrust his hand into his breast pocket and felt for his traveling Lares and Penates, namely, his tin soldier, his photographs of East Point, one of Marian, ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... old lady told Abbott, "so Lucy and I went along to encourage her, for they say she has a fine voice, and they want all the good singing they can have at Uncle Tobe Fuller's funeral. Uncle Tobe, he didn't know one tune from another, but now that he's dead, he knows 'em all—for he was a good man. I despise big doings at funerals, but I expect to go, and as I can't hear the solos, nor the preacher working up feelings, all I'll have to do will be to sit and ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... very heartily, but when he learnt that his vessel was lost, and all Timea's property, except the thousand ducats, and the wheat sacks—now spoilt by water—he altered his tune. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to get hold of that long-legged 'un. I'd make him sing to a different tune instead of giving us ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... producing such astonishing effects, for which strangers are unable to account from the music, which is in itself uncouth and wild. But it is from habit, recollections, and a thousand circumstances, retraced in this tune by those natives who hear it, and reminding them of their country, former pleasures of their youth, and all their ways of living, which occasion a bitter reflection at having lost them." Compare Byron's Swiss "Journal" for September 19, 1816, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and I think I never saw such hemstitching as they do there;—and I should like to hemstitch the Doctor's ruffles; he is so spiritually-minded, it really makes me love him. Why, hearing him talk put me in mind of a real beautiful song of Mr. Watts,—I don't know as I could remember the tune." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... inherited—and it can be shown that this does sometimes happen—then the resemblance between what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. If Mozart, instead of playing the pianoforte at three years old with wonderfully little practice, had played a tune with no practice at all, be might truly be said to have done so instinctively. But it would be a serious error to suppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations. It can be clearly ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... and left it at his door. There was a fund of ominous meaning in the label; but Norman very coolly took the little helpless pledge under his charge, and, with the good nursing of old Bina, made him tell to the tune of two hundred and thirty, cash, 'fore he was two year old. He went by the name of Thomas Norman, the Christian division of his foster-father's, according to custom. The old fellow laughs at the joke, as he calls ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... in the nature of a dance tune that was irresistible, and the feet of all the children present started in time ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... a hell o' a fight," he admitted bitterly. "Reckoned we hed a soft job yere, an' lots o' ther stuff fer ther boys. They've got some Yanks in thar with repeatin' rifles, but I reckon as whin Red once gits hold on 'em, they'll dance ter another tune." ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... to his lips and took a long, hearty draught of ale. "Methinks," said he, "that all your stories have a twang of the same sort about them. You all of you, except my friend the Soldier here, play the same tune upon a different fiddle. Nobody ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... intending to remark upon the grosser misapplications of this ancient maxim, which have engendered so many races of poetasters. The days are gone by when every raw youth whose borrowed phantasies have set themselves to a borrowed tune, mistaking, as Coleridge says, an ardent desire of poetic reputation for poetic genius, while unable to disguise from himself that he had taken no means whereby he might become a poet, could fancy himself a born one. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... what Bunny sang, in his queer, "nosey" voice, to a queer little tune that Bunker played on the mouth organ. And, when Bunny had finished, he made a funny little ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... with a grievance? Even in that most thoroughgoing and inspired of all Shakespear's loves: his love of music (which Mr Harris has been the first to appreciate at anything like its value), there is a dash of mockery. "Spit in the hole, man; and tune again." "Divine air! Now is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale the souls out of men's bodies?" "An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him." There is just as much Shakespear here as in the inevitable quotation about the ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... Excellent, my Lord! excellent! It shall be played out of tune on a score of regimental bands! Good, my ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 1, 1891 • Various
... being morally good but what springs simply or mainly from a love of virtue for its own sake, this love-inspiring quality in virtue is its beauty, while a bad conscience is not much more than the sort of feeling which makes us shrink from an instrument out of tune. "Some by mere nature," he says, "others by art and practice, are masters of an ear in music, an eye in painting, a fancy in the ordinary things of ornament and grace, a judgment in proportions of all kinds, and a general good taste ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... is their presence at the Beef-steak Club, where the Chancellor and Commander-in-Chief also dined, when the Lord-Lieutenant was drunk to the tune of "Now Phoebus sinketh in the west," with dead silence, and Lord Talbot with great applause; and afterwards the toast, which you ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... They were like a few mellow figures blended skilfully into the deep tones of an ancient canvas. But now the turbulent spirit of the raging river itself pervades the new-comers who march imperiously upon the mighty stage with the heavy tread of the conqueror, out of tune with the soft old melody; temporising with nothing; with a heedless stroke, like the remorseless hand of Fate, obliterating all obstacles to their progress. Not theirs the desire to save natives from perdition; rather to annihilate them speedily as useless relics of a bygone time. They are ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... fancy must have played like gleams of inspiration or a sudden glory; to watch those lips that "lisped in numbers, for the numbers came"—as by a miracle, or as if the dumb should speak? Nor was it alone that he had been the first to tune his native tongue (however imperfectly to modern ears); but he was himself a noble, manly character, standing before his age and striving to advance it; a pleasant humourist withal, who has not ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... when he heard a low whistle in front of him. While it could be heard but a short distance, it was singularly sweet. It formed the first bars of an old tune, "The World Turned Upside Down," and Ned promptly recognized it. The whistle stopped in a moment or two, but Ned took up the air and continued it for a few bars more. Then, all apprehension gone, he sprang out of the ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up—very high up—stood in to the tune of $25,000 in the Fisk and Gould arrangement when they made a "corner" in gold. The money was sent by express. The manager of the express company assured the committee, there was no such entry in the book ...
— The Honest American Voter's Little Catechism for 1880 • Blythe Harding
... a sudden his tune was changed, as Rivers, half-irritated by the pertinacity of the dwarf, pull out a pistol, and directed it at his head. In a moment, the old influence was predominant, and in undisguised terror ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... any of your musical correspondents know the author of the following song, and whether it has ever appeared in print? I have it in manuscript, set to a very fine tune, but have never seen or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... revised 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
... up on that, or give us a change in tune. It's bad enough to have to stand the storm without listening to a phonograph," ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... she said softly. "After all, Isobel is but a child. What cunning tune can she have played upon your heartstrings that you should espouse her cause with so much fervour? If she were a few years ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Masetto and his friends. Zerlina is summoned to the scene by the cries of Masetto after Don Giovanni has beaten him, and sings to him for his consolation the beautiful aria, "Vedrai carino," which has more than once been set to sacred words, and has become familiar as a church tune, notwithstanding the unsanctity of its original setting. The second scene opens with a strong sextet ("Sola, sola, in bujo loco"), followed by the ludicrously solemn appeal of Leporello, "Ah! pieta, signori miei," and that aria beloved ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... sung by the assembly, in the Indian language, words, "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my Redeemer's praise;" tune, Dundee. ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... forgotten there, Where never winter chilled the year, Nor spring brought promise unfulfilled, Nor, with the eager summer killed, The languid days drooped autumnwards. So magical a season guards The constant prime of a cool June; So slumbrous is the river's tune, That knows no thunder of heavy rains, Nor ever in the summer wanes, Like waters of the summer time In lands ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... various lengths lashed together (Fig. 26, No. 1). The player holds the instrument just in front of her lips, and blows into the reeds, meanwhile moving them to and fro, producing a series of low notes without tune. ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... rough hand, with its tender touch. To all the airs he played her memory supplied the words. Sometimes a Sennerin was watching from the Alm for her lover's visit in the evening. Sometimes the hunter said farewell as he sprang down the mountainside. Once tears came into Ruth's eyes as the simple tune recalled how a maiden who died and went to Heaven told her lover ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... no one answered. The flute still continued its melancholy tune; it was evidently in the hands of a learner, for the air (a dispiriting one enough at the best) kept breaking off suddenly and repeating itself. But the performer had patience, and the sound never ceased for ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Rockies will develop a love for nature, strengthen one's appreciation of the beautiful world outdoors, and put one in tune with the Infinite. It will inspire one with the feeling that the Rockies have a rare mountain wealth of their own. They are not to be compared with the Selkirks or the Alps or any other unlike range of mountains. The Rockies are not a ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... placed his silk hat jauntily on his head, and passed through the outer office, whistling a low tune; out at the street door and down the walk; out into the gay world of dissipation, down into the treacherous depths of crime; one more of the many who have chained bright intellects to the chariot wheels of vice, and have been dragged through ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... throat. Sooner or later this attack will ruin the most beautiful voice. As I have said before, the attack of the note must come from the apoggio, or breath prop. But to have the attack pure and perfectly in tune you must have the throat entirely open, for it is useless to try to sing if the throat is not sufficiently open to let the sound pass freely. Throaty tones or pinched tones are tones which are trying to force themselves through a half-closed throat ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... is rightly regarded by many people as being little better than an instrument of torture. One reason for this aversion is that, in the great majority of cases, the household instrument is not kept in tune. Probably it is not too much to say that the man who would invent a sound cottage piano which would remain in tune would do more for the improvement of the national taste in music than the largest and ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... public for sustenance. Then followed the birth of her child. The long absent Samuel unexpectedly returned, and rescued her from charity. Recov- ering from her expected illness, she once more commenced toil for herself and child, in a room obtained of a poor woman, but with better for- tune. One so well known would not be wholly neglected. Kind friends watched her when Sam- uel was from home, prevented her from suffering, and when the cold weather pinched the warmly clad, a kind friend took them in, and thus pre- served them. At last Samuel's business became ...
— Our Nig • Harriet E. Wilson
... themselves down since our departure, and were gotten to be reasonably merry it seemed; for one of the guests, he who had spoken of France before, had fallen to singing a ballad of the war to a wild and melancholy tune. I remember the first rhymes of it, which I heard as I turned away my head and we moved on toward ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... alluding to his poetry; and then added, 'One tune more! Stay not your hand when one is near, who so ardently longs to hear you.' Thus he began to flatter the lady, who, having heard his whispers, replied thus, in a ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... couldn't remember it all, but phrases of it Wreathed and wreathed among faint memories, Seeking for something, trying to tell me something, Urging to restlessness: verging on grief. I tried to play the tune, from memory,— But memory failed: the chords and discords climbed And found no resolution—only hung there, And left me morbid . . . Where, then, had I heard it? . . . What secret dusty chamber was it hinting? 'Dust', ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... snowflakes had fluttered down and made all the world white, and the wind was whistling a merry tune, the little pine tree heard some strange noises. The tall pine trees nodded their heads, for they knew who were coming. They were the woodmen. They had a sled with them, drawn by horses. The sight was strange to the pine tree, for it had never before seen woodmen, nor a sled, nor horses. But ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... 'thou art the gilded sand from which the kiss of a wave washes every impress.' Tune thy myriad atoms to imitate the rock, and gird thyself with strength to meet the battery of onrushing breakers that grind against thee! Be careful, my Lambkin, fall not in love with the first handsome face thou seest." The music ceased; there was naught of sound, but a babble of voice and soft, ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... lost!" The question came to him faintly, but it was so in tune with his unhappy mood that it affected him strangely. He found that his eyes were blurring and that an aching lump had risen into his ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... there in Ramilly County," muttered Amory aloud, "who would deliver Verlaine in an extemporaneous tune ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them. The oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... favourite resort of ours in the evenings, and Clump and Juno liked to have us there. There was a famous fire—three or four fresh logs singing over a red mass of coal; plenty of ashes; and a whistled tune with a jet of smoke right from the heart of each stick. The brass fire-dogs were extra bright, reflecting the blaze on all sides. Some chestnuts and potatoes were roasting in the ashes, and Clump had provided some cider to treat us ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 35 And over it softly her warm ear lays: Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 40 And, grasping ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... was called on to sing, which he did of Norway with tremendous enthusiasm and noise but little melody. Then another man sang a love-ditty in a very gruff voice and much out of tune, which, nevertheless, to the man's evident satisfaction, was laughingly applauded. After him a sentimental youth sang, in a sweet tenor voice, an Icelandic air, and then Tyrker was called on to do his part, but flatly refused to sing. He offered to tell a saga instead, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... until every petal was dotted with them. One after another in a long troop they appeared. Each in his own way, proudly, humbly, boldly, mildly, with flattery, with boasting, even with tears, each proffered his love, told his rank or expatiated on his fortune or vowed his constancy, sang his tune or played his music. To every one of her lovers the princess in modest voice returned ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... went away whistling. "I wish I was as sure uh living till I was a thousand years old, and able to ride nine months out of every year of 'em," he called back to Happy. Then he took up the tune ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... of the West Saxons only. And as to the tale of King Arthur's Round Table, which they pretend was kept here for him and his two dozen of knights (which table hangs up still, as a piece of antiquity to the tune of twelve hundred years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... on which this ode was sung, it has been the practice with the odists of Class Day at Harvard College to write the farewell class song to the tune of "Fair Harvard," the name by which the Irish air "Believe me" has been adopted. The deep pathos of this melody renders it peculiarly appropriate to the circumstances with which it has been so happily connected, and from which it is to be hoped ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... loff she's like a red, red rose Zat's newly sprong in June! My loff she's like a melody Zat's sveetly blayed in tune! ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... fresh minds, its physical and its moral strength. Industry's real market is with the farmer by the constant increase of his standard of living. We want our exports to grow in exchange for commodities we need from abroad, but we want them to grow in tune with our social and political interests, and to do so they must grow in step with ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... ears tingled when he heard his name pronounced; and he would at the moment have given anything to be allowed to be quiet. But it may be doubted whether he would not have been more hurt had he been left there without any notice. It is very hard to tune oneself aright to a disappointed man. "I'll break the ice for him, at any rate," said Bertram to himself. "When he's used to talk about it, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... composer Rameau cried furiously to his confessor, whose lugubrious note while intoning the service at his bedside offended the delicacy of his ear, 'What the devil are you muttering there, Monsieur le Cure? you are horribly out of tune!' And thereupon Master Rameau expired of a putrid fever. And what think you, worthy reader, occupied the public the day following the death of the most celebrated musician in Europe, the king of the French school? Why, nothing less than this wonderful ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... was puzzled, players, spectators, and the gentlemen of the press; not one even guessed at the true meaning of the performance; though a few 'men of wicked spirits' would try to peep behind the curtain. But they never found him out; they all danced to Cromwell's tune, but none discovered that the pipe they heard was in their Protector's mouth. Even Ludlow, with all the proverbial opportunities of a bystander, though most anxious to know his great opponent's game, never guessed that he had patched up the Insurrection ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... sang some tender tune, Oh, beauteous was that morn in early June! Mellow with sunlight, and with blossoms fair: The climbing rose-tree grew about me there, And checked with shade the sunny portico Where, morns like this, I ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... chanted, all in one tune. If the words had not been quaint, and suggestive of a century or more ago, I think the entertainment ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... the tune the piper pipes. We would buy, and behold, we must pay. Then the lights go out, the voices stop, and only the dark tumultuous streets surround us, and the grime of life is ours again. Whereupon we go heavily to hard beds of despair, having ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... deer, the fox, the beaver, and indeed all of the creatures that were still alive, caught up the lively tune, and such a dancing and jumping and flying around was ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... faithful, to leave GOD to take care of His own! How much more manly, to be prepared sometimes to confess ignorance!... As for thoughts being inspired, apart from the words which give them expression,—you might as well talk of a tune without notes, or a sum without figures. No such dream can abide the daylight for a moment. No such theory of Inspiration, (for a theory it is, and a most audacious one too!), is even intelligible. ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... with the nugget on his chain. "Well," he said, "as it happens, I haven't got many hundreds just now to throw about, but I expect you'll change your mind when the first tune begins to play—only I warn you, it may be too late then. That's all! Now, what about your prisoner? How did you ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... was one I liked better than any I ever heard. I was in the room when he played it once and when I said, 'Oh, Mr Pontifex, that's the kind of woman I am,' he said, 'No, Mrs Jupp, it isn't, for this tune is old, but no one can say you are old.' But, bless you, he meant nothing by it, it was ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... dictate to no fool, Cam. If you want to be one, I can't help it. I must go and set bread now." And Dollie pattered off singing "Come Thou Fount," in a soft little old-fashioned tune. ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... approached, delicately erect upon his hind legs, his mouth spread in cheerful smiles, his ears cocked becomingly. He paused, he waved a salute, and as a shrill whistle from behind struck up a popular tune, he waltzed accurately up to the side porch and back, retaining to the last note his pleased if ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... composer, my good friend, and set my old tales to some popular tune? But there have been too many composers, if that be the word, in the field before. The Highlands WERE indeed a rich mine; but they have, I think, been fairly wrought out, as a good tune is grinded into vulgarity when it descends to the ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... can cancel what has been, Or alter what must be, Or bring once more that vanished scene, Those withered joys to me; When you can tune the broken lute, Or deck the blighted wreath, Or rear the garden's richest fruit, Upon a blasted heath; When you can lure the wolf at bay Back to his shattered chain, To-day may then be yesterday— I ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... near it to thrive; for the fruit of good example which it bears is not sound, and endures but a short time. I say it again and again, let our self-respect be ever so slight, it will have the same result as the missing of a note on the organ when it is played,—the whole music is out of tune. It is a thing which hurts the soul exceedingly in every way, but it is a pestilence in the way ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... head and said not a word; whereupon the eunuch, who acted as master of ceremonies, requested Her Majesty to ascend the throne and receive homage. The band stationed on the two flights of steps struck up a tune, while two eunuchs ushered Chia She, Chia Cheng and the other members on to the moonlike stage, where they arranged themselves in order and ascended into the hall, but when the ladies-in-waiting transmitted her commands that the homage could be dispensed with, they at ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... all-important to us who should turn over our leaves for us, and we generally blushed and hesitated before we sat down to the piano at all. Last night Jane almost fought with Peter for the larger portion of the keyboard of the piano; and they played music without any tune in it, to my way of thinking, and there is no seriousness at all ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... it is in my power, to practise what I pray for; and though I do not wish for the like occasion every day, yet let me tell you, I would not willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy; and I praise God for this occasion; and now let us tune our instruments.'" ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... bung out of the cask at carnival-time," said he. "I'll prepare a merry tune for you and for myself, too. Unfortunately I have not long to live,—the shortest time, in fact, of my whole family,—only twenty-eight days. Sometimes they pop me in a day extra; but I trouble myself very ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... by the piano, where Angelica was playing and singing, and he sang out of tune, and he upset the coffee when the footman brought it, and he laughed out of place, and talked absurdly, and fell asleep and snored horridly. Booh, the nasty pig! But as he lay there stretched on the ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mr. Anderson, "I am standing with my lamp trimmed and ready. I am listening for the midnight shout. To-night the trumpet may sound. I am afraid you don't do your duty, or you would lift up your voice. The tune and times and a half ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... of a perfected violin technic?" was a natural question at this point. "Absolute pitch, first of all," replied Elman promptly. "Many a violinist plays a difficult passage, sounding every note; and yet it sounds out of tune. The first and second movements of the Beethoven concerto have no double-stops; yet they are extremely difficult to play. Why? Because they call for absolute pitch: they must be played in perfect tune so that each tone stands out in all its fullness ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... time, and there is the tale already mentioned, the "dream" story; and another tale with a plot of intricate psychology and crime; still another with the burning title of "Hell-Fire Hotchkiss"—a story of Hannibal life—and some short stories. Clemens appeared to be at this time out of tune with fiction. Perhaps his long book of travel had disqualified his invention. He realized that these various literary projects were leading nowhere, and one after another he dropped them. The fact that proofs of the big ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... all, it was poetry. His indifference to music was complete; he had, in fact, no ear whatever, and could not distinguish one tune from another. His efforts to appreciate the music which Grieg made for Peer Gynt were pathetic. But for verse his sense was exceedingly delicate, and the sound of poetry gave him acute pleasure. At times, ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... and you know what bad stuff they eat, she had fair longed to join him. She gave me a fright I didn't get over for nigh a week. She leaned her bonny head against my knee, and I stroked her cheek and hummed some silly nursery tune,—for she was all of a tremble and like a child,—and she fell asleep just where ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... to the noon; Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept, That swung a flower, and, smiling hummed a tune,— Before whose feet a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... notes on a long-suffering piano. Ferguson beat time at the top of the dais, with a pen gently waving between his fingers, as gracefully as the pierrots of Aubrey Beardsley play with feathers. Down below heavy feet pretended to dance to an impossible tune. Someone began a song, others followed suit, and before long the austere sanctity of the room was violated by the flat melodies of Hitchy-Koo. It was indeed an act of vandalism. But the rioters had forgotten that they were distinctly audible from without. In the Chief's absence they ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... over their coffee. Mr. Blumenthal was out in the telephone-box settling the business end with Wilson Hymack. The music-publisher had been unstinted in his praise of "Mother's Knee." It was sure-fire, he said. The words, stated Mr. Blumenthal, were gooey enough to hurt, and the tune reminded him of every other song-hit he had ever heard. There was, in Mr. Blumenthal's opinion, nothing to stop this thing ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... her request. The young lady, making an effort to recover her cheerfulness, strove to play some livelier tune; but her fingers dropped powerless over the keys. Covering her face with her hands, she sank upon a sofa, and gave vent to the tears which she was ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the Tryals and Condemnation of three Notorious Witches, who were Tryed the last Assizes, holden at the Castle of Exeter ... where they received sentence of Death, for bewitching severall Persons, destroying Ships at Sea, and Cattel by Land. To the Tune of Doctor Faustus; or Fortune my Foe. In the Roxburghe Collection at the British Museum. Broadside. A ballad of 17 stanzas (4 lines each) giving ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... And a quaint, very quizzical face. His cap and his trousers were dusty green And his jacket was rusty brown, And he whittled away on sweet white wood, With shavings showering down. He whittled away 'twixt a laugh and a tune, With ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... lonely seas, Shaking of the guardian trees, Piping of the salted breeze; Day and Night and Day go by To the endless tune of these. ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... around and listens with both ears. The music didn't seem to go in one side and out the other. It stuck somewhere between, and swayed and lifted her like a breeze in a posy bush. I could hear her toe tappin' out the tune and see her head keep time to it. Why, if I could get my money's worth out of music like that I'd ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... on the guitar. We could see plainly the movements of the hand, arm, and fingers, as it manipulated the strings of the instrument. It did not appear necessary to finger the strings on the keyboard, although the air was in a key that made it impossible to tune the guitar so that an accompaniment could be performed WITHOUT fingering. However, but one hand was visible, and it was picking the strings. After the tune was finished, the hand left the in- strument, and moved out into the room to the front of ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... finished, and they again repeated; after this the whole flock flew in a light wavy flight to the nearest acacia and the concert, composed of the soloist and chorus, again resounded in the southern stillness. The children could not listen enough to this. Nell, catching the leading tune of the concert, joined with the chorus and warbled in her thin little voice the notes resembling the quickly repeated sound of ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... supposed by the orderlies to be Japanese. They are exactly like Japs, only brown instead of yellow. The orderlies make great friends with them all. One Hindu was singing "Bonnie Dundee" to them in a little gentle voice, very much out of tune. Their great disadvantage is that they are alive with "Jack Johnsons" (not the guns). They take off all their underclothes and throw them out of the window, and we have to keep supplying them with pyjamas and shirts. They sit and stand about naked, scratching for dear life. ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... out of his hot bed on to his hot floor, and made for the bathroom. There was only one bathroom in the boarding-house, but there was no great competition for it, so Peter had his bath in peace, and sang a tune in it as was his custom, and came back to his hot room and put on his hot clothes (his less tidy clothes, because it was the day of joy), and came down ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... considerable about 'Faith' and 'Works,' and sich, but I didn't reckon to hear all about you from the Lord's Prayer to the Doxology. You were in the special prayers ez a warnin', in the sermon ez a text; they picked out hymns to fit ye! And always a drefful example and a visitation. And the rest o' the tune it was all gabble, gabble by the brothers and sisters about you. I reckon, Mr. Hamlin, that they know everything you ever did since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, and a good deal more than you ever thought of doin'. The women is all dead set on convertin' ye and savin' ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... displayed to us his school-books, a geography, beginning with Greece and ending with America, where Bostonia as put down as capital of Massachoytia. Longing to hear a Greek war-song, we requested him to sing, at which he warbled Dehyte pahides ton Hellhenon to a tune which we strongly suspected he composed for the occasion, following it up with others, with such delight that we were fain at last to plead sleepiness and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... sing for aye, in spite of Bion and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat well-watered soil. Nightingales here and there, new-comers, tune their timid April song: but, strangest of all sounds in such a place, my comrade from the Grisons jodels forth an Alpine cowherd's melody. Auf den Alpen droben ist ein ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds |
