"Drum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... summit, halting at times to peer up through the wild whirls of spray at the veiled grandeur of the fall, or to listen to the thunder beneath me; the whole hill was sounding as if it were a huge, bellowing drum. I hoped that by waiting until the fall was blown aslant I should be able to climb to the lip of the crater and get a view of the interior; but a suffocating blast, half air, half water, followed ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... a Salvation Army man as come and asked me if I accepted the Gospel. 'Yes, my lad,' I sez; 'I've accepted it—but only as a thing to smoke, not as a thing to go bangin' about. Put your drum in the cup-board, my lad,' I sez; 'and put the Gospel in your pipe, and you'll be ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... been strange and alarming. Confound the moth! and Pawkins! However, it was a pity to lose the moth now. He felt his way into the hall and found the matches, after sending his hat down upon the floor with a noise like a drum. With the lighted candle he returned to the sitting-room. No moth was to be seen. Yet once for a moment it seemed that the thing was fluttering round his head. Hapley very suddenly decided to give up the moth and ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... leased an expensive suite at an apartment hotel near the Fabians, and much to little Mr. Alexander's joy, although much to Mrs. Alexander's disgust, they settled down to a hum-drum life that winter. She sighed as she referred to ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... stop over the center of Penguin Deep where we were to gamble our lives in a game with Neptune. Sea anchors were rigged to lessen our drift and the donkey engine was geared to the first cable drum. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... I was "Presidente d'Honneur" and always wore my badge pinned conspicuously on my coat. It was a great day for the little town. Weeks before the fete we used to hear all about it from the coiffeur when he came to the chateau to shave the gentlemen. He played the big drum and thought the success of the whole thing depended on his performance. He proposed to bring his instrument one morning and play his part for us. We were very careful to be well dressed on that day and discarded the short serge skirts we generally wore. All the La Ferte ladies, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... most like children's wooden monkeys, by no means live enough for the real ones. They straggle along, scarcely less irregular in aspect than the main body of the procession; they march to the tap of the drum. I never saw a Fourth-of-July procession in the remotest of our rural districts which was not beautiful, compared to this forlorn display; but the popular homage is duly given, the bells jangle incessantly, and, as the procession passes, all men uncover their heads or have ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... sound of the drums and the dull rumble of wheels, drowned by yells and shouts from the men and screams from the women; then a silence, when no one stirred, but every neck was craned forward to see; then a sudden tap of the drum; then the harsh crash of the knife; then a gasp from a thousand throats, and a great yell of "Vive la Liberte." Three times I heard it all. Then the spectacle was at an end, ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... command the "Provincials," as the people of England called all who lived in America, thought that soldiers must march in the wilderness with just as much precision as along a hard beaten road, that they must move in platoons and columns, keeping step to the drum-beat. The French officers, on the other hand, adopted the plan of the Indians, marching in single file, each man carrying his provisions. They made quick movements, falling suddenly upon a settlement, with their Indian allies, making all the havoc possible, and before the settlers could gather ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... stop and listen for a reply. You see, sometimes one of his family in another part of the Green Forest, or over in the Old Orchard, would hear him drumming and would hasten to find a hollow tree himself and drum too. Then they would drum back and forth to each other for the longest time, until all the other little people would scold because of the racket and would wish they could stop their ears. But it was music, real music to Drummer and all the ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... roll of the drum immediately broke in upon the quietude of the night; there was a momentary bustle—but only momentary the men having already gone to quarters, as a matter of course—and then all was profound silence once more on board, save for a gentle rippling sound beneath the bows and along the sides, and ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Cecil's! When I get into the Rectory you'll see how hideous they are!" said Rosamond, with the merriest complacency. "Couvre-pieds to set your teeth on edge, from the non-commissioned officers' wives; and the awfullest banner-screen you ever saw, worked by the drum-major's own hands, with Her Majesty's arms on one side, and the De Courcy ones on the other, and glass eyes like stuffed birds' to the lion and unicorn. We nearly expired from ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... first and second cause will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rime, for I am sure I shall turn sonneter. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... For example, I was called either Bwana Machumwani or Bwana N'goma. The former means merely Master Four-eyes, referring to my glasses. The precise meaning of the latter is a matter much disputed between myself and Billy. An N'goma is a native dance, consisting of drum poundings, chantings, and hoppings around. Therefore I translate myself (most appropriately) as the Master who Makes Merry. On the other hand, Billy, with true feminine indirectness, insists that it means "The Master who Shouts and Howls." I leave ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... walk" and five or six others, the "women's walk" being the most picturesque. These were processions of the members of benefit societies through the square and wynds, and all the women walked in white, to the number of a hundred or more, behind the Tillie-drum band, Thrums having in those days no band ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... cross hung above Tetzel's money-counter, and he sat there and called on all to buy. Luther decided on an action that should stop the shameful traffic, declaring, "God willing, I will beat a hole in his drum." On the eve of All Saints' Day a crowd assembled to gaze at the relics displayed at the Castle church of Wittenberg. Their attention was drawn to a paper nailed on the church gate, which set forth reasons why indulgences were harmful and should be ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... wanted a doll, got a drum instead; and a drum is of no use to a girl who loves dolls. And Charlie Smith, who delights to romp and play out of doors, and who wanted some new rubber boots to keep his feet dry, received a sewing box filled ...
— A Kidnapped Santa Claus • L. Frank Baum
... second chronograph by Watkin ("Chronographs and their Application to Gun Ballistics," Proc. Roy. Inst., 1896), a metal drum, divided on its edge so that when a vernier is used a minute of angle may be read, is rotated rapidly by a motor at a practically uniform speed. The points of a row of steel-pointed pins, screwed into a frame of ebonite, can be brought within 1/200 in. of the surface of the drum. Each pin ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... ses he excitedly, 'steer nor'-nor'-west until further orders. I've heard it again, an' this time it nearly split the drum ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... unable to get into the concert hall of his famous rival. He would then listen outside the window and analyze the sound in this fashion: "Fifty per cent. of the sound is made by the tuba, 20 per cent. by the bass drum, 15 per cent. by the 'cello and 10 per cent. by the clarinet. There are some other instruments, but they are not loud and I guess if we can leave them out nobody will know the difference." So he makes up his orchestra out of these four alone and many ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... Tussaud in London there is a wax figure of Loushkin, said to be the tallest man of his time. It measures 8 feet 5 inches, and is dressed in the military uniform of a drum-major of the Imperial Preobrajensky Regiment of Guards. To magnify his height there is a figure of the celebrated dwarf, "General Tom Thumb," in the palm of his hand. Figure 158 represents a well-known American giant, Ben Hicks who was called ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... a sort of drum composed of twelve pieces, perforated with round windows and supported on four massive piers. On the level of the eye are frescoes by Luini of S. Rocco, S. Sebastian, S. Christopher, and S. Antony—by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... know," began Suliman, who evidently did not believe him to be quite in earnest; but before the words had well left his lips the drum of his left ear was almost split by the report of the pistol, and a part of ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... go with papa," remarked Harry obstreperously, while he began to drum with his spoon on the red tin tray which protected ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads, and distinguished for an instant by an oblique flash of lightning; as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern tale, who announces coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum amid the sands. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... stood near her. The queen was pale, but her dark eyes were resolute. She smiled when I looked at her, to give me encouragement. Her subjects were assembled round the pool in a triple line. Presently the beating of a war-drum announced the arrival of a procession, which advanced slowly to the pool, bearing a litter upon which, bound hand and foot, was stretched the unfortunate Van Luck. When they had come to the edge of the pool they set ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... reindeer started on their old trails and came near the spots where the men were hid. The clicking of the rattles marked the time for the running, and the beating of the drum showed when javelins were hurled. Soon the shouts of the men and the rattles and drums made a ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... Commandant Bluteau?" cried Benassis, as he came upon his guest. "You hear the drum beat in the morning wherever you go, even in the country! You are ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... his fingers, and with her tail in the air, fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that instant in the kitchen, knocking out and cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down in his hands like a child's drum. Stepan ran after her, and tried to catch her just at her master's feet; but the sensible dog would not let a stranger touch her, and with a bound, she got away. Gerasim looked on with a smile at all this ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the door, some rabbits' tails and zebras' manes, suspended as talismans. He was received by the whole troop of his majesty's wives, to the harmonious accords of the "upatu," a sort of cymbal made of the bottom of a copper kettle, and to the uproar of the "kilindo," a drum five feet high, hollowed out from the trunk of a tree, and hammered by the ponderous, horny fists of two ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... attack on the Tolbooth, where Porteous lay, had been matter of rumour three days earlier: the prisoner should have been placed in the Castle. At 10 P.M. on the night of September 7 the magistrates heard that boys were beating a drum, and ordered the Town Guard under arms; but the mob, who had already secured the town's gates, disarmed the veterans. Mr Lindsay, lately Provost, escaped by the Potter Row gate (near the old fatal Kirk-o'-Field), and warned General Moyle ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... other, can be procured in wood, ivory, or bone, of various sizes, the one illustrated being about 6 inches in diameter. The material to be worked upon is stretched between these hoops like the parchment on a drum. These tambour frames, as they are called, are sometimes fixed into a small stand or fitted with a wooden clamp for fastening to a table; this frees both hands for work. These tambours cannot well be recommended; the material is apt to stretch unevenly, and a worked part, if flattened between ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... chromatic, physiognomy into endless contortions, extending his arms like the sails of contrary windmills, twiddling his legs like a fly,—and when called upon, by unearthly voices, for "Tippytiwitchet," appears so scared that he tumbles through the big drum, to oblige them with the song from the slips; instantly afterwards presenting himself upon the stage, dilating his spotted inexpressibles, until they put him in mind of a friend, Pantaloon, that, by a curious coincidence, resides at a tailor's, in the back-ground, having just completed ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... procession of men in blue and the air was full of martial music. The fife and drum could be heard almost all the time, so you may imagine what emotions a colored person of my age would experience, especially as father's church was a center for congregating the Negroes and advising them. That was a difficult ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... almost wonder if all those loyal shouts and triumphant trumpetings and drum-beatings did not trouble somewhat the long quiet of death in the dusky old chapels in which sleep the fair Queen Eleanor, and the gracious Philippa, and valiant Elizabeth, and hapless ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... and cart horses. These animals were so far from being fit for any military purpose that they had not yet learned to obey the bridle, and became ungovernable as soon as they heard a gun fired or a drum beaten. A small body guard of forty young men, well armed, and mounted at their own charge, attended Monmouth. The people of Bridgewater, who were enriched by a thriving coast trade, furnished him with a small ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... speech brought Charlotte back to the fact of her cakes and toys. Giving baby to his small nurse, she opened her treasures. Daisy received her doll with a kind of awed rapture, Harold rattled his drum and blew his trumpet in a way most distracting to any weak nerves within reasonable distance, and the baby sucked some rather unwholesome sweets. No child thought of thanking their benefactor, but flushed cheeks, bright ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... committed to him. Let me read you a few sentences from this story, which is commonly bound up with the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' like a woollen lining to a silken mantle, but is full of stately wisdom in processions of paragraphs which sound as if they ought to have a grammatical drum-major to ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he noticed another man, a little, red-faced Irishman, one of the drummers. The very spirit of the drum seemed to have entered into him—into his hands and his feet, his eyes and his head, and his round little body. He played a long roll between the verses, and it seemed as if he must surely be swept away upon the wings ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... Executive. He said if Richmond were lost, he should move that the people take matters in their own hands, and proclaim a DICTATOR. Mr. Tyler, commanding his temper, banteringly told him that he ran some risk of being arrested, tried by drum-head court-martial, and shot—before night. Mr. Foote whirled away, repeating his desperate purpose; and Tyler repeating, more gravely, that he might be arrested for treasonable language—and ought ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... of the tree, kicked a moment, and then shammed dead, not budging any more than a log. The Auvergnat wished nothing more; believing the ape done for, he cleared out, never to put his feet in Cut-in-half's drum again. But the vagabond Gargousse watched him out of the corner of his eye, all wounded as he was, and as soon as he saw himself alone and Auvergnat at a distance, he gnawed the cord with his teeth. The Boulevard Monceau, where he had had his dance, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... his big bass drum — (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come." (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank, Drabs from the alleyways ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... preaching. Shortly after I gave that up to enlist in the Continental Army, under Gen. Francis Marion, and no other soldier slew more Britons. After discharge I at once volunteered in an Indiana regiment quartered in my native town in Kentucky, and beat the snare drum at the head of that fine body of men for a long time. But the tendency was downward. For three months I was chief of a of robbers that ravaged the backyards of the vicinity. Successively I became a spy for Washington, an ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... two remaining quarts in the gasoline can to make the mixture but by morning, Sally had graced the ranch with five more gallons of the pure concentrate. Johnny carefully stored the concentrated milk in a scoured fifty-five gallon gasoline drum in ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... the slender woman's figure stands on the pinnacle of night, outlined against a starry sky. The cool night breeze wafts to her burning ear snatches of song and drum. With desperate hate ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... great tracts of land and brothers of success[FN153] and a company of daybreak-riders, with swords and spears and bows and arrows, and true friends and dear ones and intimates and comrades and men imprisoned for punishment and cup-companions and a drum and flutes and flags and banners and boys and girls and brides, in all their wedding bravery, and singing-girls and five Abyssinian women and three Hindi and four women of Medina and a score of Greek girls and half a hundred Turkish and threescore and ten Persian girls and fourscore Kurd and fourscore ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... slate roofs, all gated and gardened. Here and there a girl with her hair in pins and a rough brown apron over a gaudy frock was stoning a front step. And half-way down the street a man in a scarlet jersey, supported by two women in blue bonnets, was beating a drum and crying aloud: "My friends, you may die to-night. Where, I ask you, where—?" But he had no friends; not even a boy heeded him. The drum continued to bang ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... "Dear General: General Drum has just shown me the memorandum for orders. The President has worked out this scheme himself, without asking my help, and I am glad of it, for I would not like to burden my conscience with such ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... had been pushing on my preparations for further captures. A large, mahogany-faced safe was fixed in the dining-room to contain the silver; a burglar alarm was fitted under the floor in front of the safe and connected with a trembler-drum that was kept (with the concussor and a few other appliances) locked in a hanging cupboard at my bed-head, ready to be switched on and placed under my pillow at night. I secretly purchased a quantity ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... lower story being of stone, the two upper of carved wood. In these stood the images of the gods, and before each stood an altar upon which blazed the undying fires, the putting out of which was supposed to portend so much woe to the nation. Here also was the huge drum, made of serpents' skins, struck only on extraordinary occasions, when it sent forth a melancholy sound that could be heard for miles—a sound of woe to the Spaniards in after times. Montezuma, attended by a high priest, came forward to ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... the failure of the expedition of Prince Charles Edward. MacTavish Mhor had not sat still on that occasion, and he was outlawed, both as a traitor to the state and as a robber and cateran. Garrisons were now settled in many places where a red-coat had never before been seen, and the Saxon war-drum resounded among the most hidden recesses of the Highland mountains. The fate of MacTavish became every day more inevitable; and it was the more difficult for him to make his exertions for defence or escape, that Elspat, ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... He dwells on Mount Kailasa: he has three eyes: above the central one is the crescent of the moon and the stream of the Ganges descends from his braided hair: his throat is blue and encircled by a serpent and a necklace of skulls. In his hands he carries a three-pronged trident and a drum. But the effigy or description varies, for Siva is adored under many forms. He is Mahadeva, the Great God, Hara the Seizer, Bhairava the terrible one, Pasupati, the Lord of cattle, that is of human souls who are compared to beasts. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... delightful plan with the Browns that on Saturday we would go into the park, which was a mile off, and have games under the trees. When Saturday came it was a lovely day; so soon after breakfast we started out, all seven of us, with our dinners in our pockets. Willie Brown had the drum, and I had the trumpet, and a fine noise we made, almost frightening our little Sissy, who had to come because Mother was busy, and Bessie was minding Sissy, and we couldn't have any fun without Bessie. Charlie ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... at the door, like a drum major in a band, he knew us well enough by now; he opens the door for us and ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... through which I have passed in the last two years! Knightly warriors, great armies on the march and in camp, the skirmish, the tumult and thunder of battle, were then things of the imagination; but now they have become familiar items of daily life. Then a single tap of the drum or note of the bugle awakened thoughts of the old times of chivalry, and regrets that the days of glory had passed away. Now we have martial strains almost every hour, and are reminded only of the various duties of ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... go, after mass, to hear orally the orders that the cabezas communicate to them. In order to summon any of them when necessity requires, they have adopted certain taps of the drum; and on hearing it they go ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... of deep, hoarse voices muttering prayers, of tinkling of bells and clanging of cymbals. From time to time a drum was beaten, giving a hollow sound, and an occasional and sudden touch upon a gong caused the air to vibrate until the notes faded away as they were carried over ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... The hawser snubbed, the drum of the rusty winch rattled and banged on worn bearings to a tune of escaping steam, laboriously warping the smelly hull alongside the dock. Terry watched the sturdy little Moros spring into agile life as the vessel slowly neared the pier, then he turned to look over the town ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... such moments one feels that something eternal, infinite, something that can never be wholly comprehended, lies in all things spiritual; and although I always have the feeling of success in my compositions, yet with the last stroke of the drum with which I have driven home my own enjoyment, my musical conviction, to my hearers, I feel an eternal hunger to begin anew, like a child, what a moment before seemed to me ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... and sings the touching melody—a harp accompaniment—applause.) Thank you! And now about the Triple Alliance. Well, I think I can illustrate that, both musically and politically. Triple means three. Well, I will take this drum on my back, beating it with the sticks that are bound to my shoulders; then I will apply my mouth to this set of pipes, while I beat a triangle with my hands. There! (Plays the musical instruments simultaneously—applause.) Thank you! You see I get some sort of music. A little ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... are moving. Hark to the mingled din, Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin. The fiery duke is pricking fast across Saint-Andre's plain, With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, Charge for the golden lilies—upon them with the lance! ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... &c. (restoration) 660. twice-told tale; old story, old song; second edition, new edition; reappearance, reproduction, recursion [Comp]; periodicity &c. 138. V. repeat, iterate, reiterate, reproduce, echo, reecho, drum, harp upon, battologize[obs3], hammer, redouble. recur, revert, return, reappear, recurse [Comp]; renew &c. (restore) 660. rehearse; do over again, say over again; ring the changes on; harp on the same string; din in the ear, drum in the ear; conjugate in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... (MS. B, 27a) destined to give a broader base to the drum. The text underneath is ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... friendly terms with Maum Tena, and was told: "As soon as my eye set on you, I see you favor the people I know. My people belonged to Mr. William Venning. The plantation was Remley Point. I couldn't zactly member my pa's name. I member when de war come though. Oh dem drum; I nebber hear such a drum in my life! De people like music; dey didn't care nothing bout de Yankees, but dem bands of music! My mother name Molly Williams. My pa dead long before that. All my people dead. I stayin' here with ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... too noticeable. When picking up his "tom-tom" the performer also picks up the bees wax, and attaching it to the "tom-tom" the arrangements are complete. Bringing the "tom-tom" closer to the body makes the duck dive under water. The ordinary shaking of the drum makes the ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... Africans takes place in the open air when the weather is fine; in wet weather it is held in the bentang, and when it is dark large fires are kindled to give light to the performers. They have two or three musical instruments, the chief of which is a drum. When this is beat, all the young folks become animated, and dance to the sound, clapping their hands, and performing a number of evolutions, some of which are not the most seemly. They keep up this exercise through ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... Benedetto plays the great drum to admiration; and then, there is Launcelot the trumpeter; nay, for that matter, Ludovico himself can play on the trumpet;—but he is ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... occasion, so great was his surprise that his master should think he would be fool enough to enlist for a "soger," that his mouth assumed the most irregular shape I ever saw, and bore a striking resemblance to a hole such as might be made in the head of a drum by ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... tinkling of the chimes which never flag, as in all Flemish cities, day or night. It supplies the lack of company, and has a comforting effect for the solitary man. From afar off comes occasionally the sound of the drum or the bugle, fit accompaniment for such surroundings. At the foot of the belfry was an antique building in another style, with a small open colonnade, which, though out of harmony, was still not inappropriate. The only thing jarring was a pretentious modern town-hall, in ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... might and main on our arrival, to express their joy at their deliverance from the Mazitu. The drum is the chief instrument of music among the Manganja, and with it they express both their joy and grief. They excel in beating time. Chinsamba called us into a very large hut, and presented us with a huge basket ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimed that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, and was about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers warned their children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and Pretty Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. The throng of ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... of Lambert's troopers as were nearest, and so effectively as to bring some of them over. At last, Lambert showing no signs of surrender, Ingoldsby and Streater advanced, Ingoldsby ready to charge with his horse, but Streater marching the foot first with beat of drum to try the effect of a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots, which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was not necessary. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... did confess knowledge of a subterraneous passage 'neath the wall. Then did Sir Gui cause this passage to be stopped, and four gibbets to be set up within the market-place, and thereon at sunset every day did hang four men, whereto the towns folk were summoned by sound of tucket and drum: until upon a certain evening some six days since (myself standing by) came a white friar hight Friar Martin—well known in Belsaye, and bursting through the throng he did loud-voiced proclaim himself the traitor that had oped and shown ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... as the signal of action is an old Pan-Asiatic custom, but I cannot find that this very striking circumstance of the whole host of Tartars playing and singing in chorus, when ordered for battle and waiting the signal from the boom of the Big Drum, is mentioned ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... war were over. In the streets of the old town, where only a few years ago the roll of the drum resounded, and where the plague, in deathly silence, had spread its black wings, there, the stork on the town-hall heard, to his great satisfaction, merry shouts of children,—the ringing laugh of peace. A group of boys chased each other noisily over the market-place, playing ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... we were cheered by the news that my efforts had not been in vain, for after a long fight the doctor had brought the child to; and that night, when we thought all the fuss was over, there came six great booms from a big drum, and a powerful brass band struck up, "See, the Conquering Hero comes!" Then the mob that had gathered cheered and shouted till we went to the window and thanked them; and then they cheered again, growing quite mad with excitement as a big strapping woman, ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... inspection. Only for this introduction I should not have got admittance into the hotel. People were arriving from every quarter. I stood at an upper window watching the people arrive in town. The first band, preceded by a solemn and solitary horseman, consisted of a big drum beaten by no unwilling hand, and some fifes. They played, "Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching," with great vim. The next detachment had a banner carried by two men, the corners steadied by cords held by two more. ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... whose divided virtues you may take So many captains out, and fully make Them each accomplish'd with those parts, the which, Jointly, did his well-furnish'd soul enrich. Not rashly valiant, nor yet fearful wise, His flame had counsel, and his fury, eyes. Not struck in courage at the drum's proud beat, Or made fierce only by the trumpet's heat— When e'en pale hearts above their pitch do fly, And, for a while do mad it valiantly. His rage was tempered well, no fear could daunt His reason, his cold ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... but starve him and our Philosopher will grieve for himself as miserably as I—or even you. The Tooth of Remorse may be sharp but the Fangs of Hunger bite deeper still, and who shall cherish beauty in his soul or who find patience to rhapsodise on a sunset when his stomach is empty as a drum? Thus, alas, Soul goes shackled by, and Intellect is the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... semicircular in shape, with tiers of seats rising circus-fashion to a ceiling decorated with silver stars and pink naked cherubs. The stage had upon it a table, some chairs, and a reading-desk draped in crimson cloth. Below the stage was a small orchestra, consisting of two fiddles, a cornet, drum, and a piano. There was also what seemed to Maggie a small choir, some women dressed in white and some men in black coats and white bow ties. Across the stage were suspended broad white bands of cloth ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... value of things by the racket they make, have come to corrupt the judgment of the most earnest men, and one sometimes wonders if society will not end by transforming itself into a great fair, with each one beating his drum in front ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... House of Commons spellbound, the Prime Minister of England, worshipped by the entire country. Even the Opposition papers, had I known of them, I should have imagined forced to reluctant admiration. Did the echo of a distant drum fall upon my ear, then before me rose picturesque fields of carnage, one figure ever conspicuous: Myself, well to the front, isolated. Promotion in the British army of my dream being a matter purely of merit, I returned Commander-in-Chief. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared—a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." The secret of this kind of oratory has been lost. The present ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... drunk. I remember. Imbecile! Why did he go to-day? Are there not six other days in this cursed week? Who is there to drum? Nobody. Nobody knows how in Paradise. Seigneur, Dieu! ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... me longer than any twenty. The dust and gravel were hot, the sun flamed, my blister felt like a cushion full of needles, my legs were heavy and numb, that old head thumped like a drum, and I had a notion that if I slackened or lost my stride I'd never finish out that mile. So when Fitz stumbled on a piece of rock, and his strap snapped and he stopped to pick up his camera, I kept moving. He ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... a screen of faded blankets the warriors of the camp were adorning themselves with white clay and feathers and long, shaggy beards of bark, while the leader of the orchestra began to tune his boomerang and fire-hardened sticks, and his attendants to squat ready to drum on thighs and lap with hollowed hand in time with his refrain and clicking music. The fires flared up, and the band emerged with thumping step and emphatic grunts to illustrate the ceremonious visit of strangers to a camp at which the nature of the reception was in doubt. One individual, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... conspicuous share. Having displayed their military prowess to the utmost in these warlike shows, they marched in glittering order to the Chelsea Bun House, and regaled in the adjacent taverns until dark. Then at sound of drum they fell in again, and returned amidst the shouting of His Majesty's lieges to the place from ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... to be observed directly. Sound we know to be due to vibratory motion. A vibrating tuning-fork, for example, moulds the air around it into undulations or waves, which speed away on all sides with a certain measured velocity, impinge upon the drum of the ear, shake the auditory nerve, and awake in the brain the sensation of sound. When sufficiently near a sounding body we can feel the vibrations of the air. A deaf man, for example, plunging his hand into a bell when it is sounded, feels through ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... and he was anxious that the same should not happen to him. The published story of Cook's first South Sea Voyage, as is well known, was not his own. His journal was handed over to Dr. Hawkesworth, a gentleman who tried to model his literary style on that of Dr. Johnson, and evolved a pompous, big-drum product in consequence. Hawkesworth garnished the manly, straightforward navigator's simple and direct English with embellishments of his own. Where Cook was plain Hawkesworth was ornate; where Cook was sensible Hawkesworth was silly; ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... we become familiar with something of nature's mannerism. This is the true pleasure of your "rural voluptuary,"—not to remain awe-stricken before a Mount Chimborazo; not to sit deafened over the big drum in the orchestra, but day by day to teach himself some new beauty—to experience some new vague and tranquil sensation that has before evaded him. It is not the people who "have pined and hungered after nature many a year, in the great city pent," as Coleridge ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ended in a tiny enclosed vehicle where another Rulan operated the cable drum which had made the trip possible. The car was unlighted save for the faint glow of a hand lamp, and it was not until the lower door was closed that they were permitted a view of the interior of the strange vehicle and had a good look at ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... anyway. Julia is a different thing. I can't whistle her on and off with the same frankness; and I must be careful, Anna Belle. Do you understand? Careful! And I'm going to be, by Jove, in spite of the way it makes me cringe to think of this big house, empty as a drum. It wasn't empty before, that's the mischief of it. What has happened to me? I thought things were well enough in those days. Nobody whom I knew was particularly happy. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... artillery, and so drove them before us for three miles of way. The cavalry gave them closs chase to the town of Inverness: {520} upon which the French ambassador (who is not well) sent out an officer, and a drum with him, offering to surrender at discretion; to which the duke made answer, that the French officers should be allowed to go about on their parole, and nothing taken from them. Brigadier Stapleton is among them, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... frequently damaged. Thus the ulceration of the parotid gland often causes deafness, by the gangrenous matter communicating to the eustachian tube and the inner ear, where it destroys the membrane of the drum and the little bones belonging thereto, or by closing up the tube. When the discharge from the outer ear is observed, the destruction has already taken place, and it is too late to obviate ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... uncertain track could be seen at reassuring intervals the slow, green lights of the track foremen swinging all's well. The deepening drum of the steaming engine as it entered the gorge walls, the straining of the injectors, and the frequent hissing check of the air as the powerful machine restrained its moving load, was music to the tired listener above. Then, looming darkly behind the tender, surprising the ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... like a wise musician, he had marked the place in his symphony where he intended to tap his drum. When he saw Colleville attempting to warn Thuillier against him, he fired his broadside, cleverly prepared during the three or four months in which he had been studying Flavie; he now succeeded with her as he had, earlier in the ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... we're all set to show him the Gaflooey chummy roadster, while he and the mechanic stays behind to look over the car and see that everything is workin' fairly perfect. I got as far as the porch and a guy in a drum-major's uneyform without the hat nails me. He was as big as the Woolworth Buildin' and just as emotional. He looked like what ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... directly asking how it was done, he preferred—just like Manabozho—to deceive his grandmother to come at the knowledge he desired, by a trick. "Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, do you go and try to get me some larger heads, for these you have brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man is not willing to make ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... divers churches, in which you may see well-dressed women, and hear orthodox, heterodox, and every other species of doctrine, promulgated and enforced by strength of lungs, and length of argument, with pulpit-drum accompaniment, and all other ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... no bell at the Bartletts': but from the door hung a bass-drumstick, with which visitors were expected to thump. This had been a part of the equipment of a local band that had retired from business. In the dispersion of its instruments the drum had reached a second-hand store. Nan, with a keen eye for such chances, had bought and dismantled the drum, and used the frame as a stockade for fresh chirpers from her incubator. The drumstick seemed to have been predestined of all time to serve as ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... turn reported to the major, who presently had a confab with the colonel. Then far away at the head of the column the mounted band began the regimental march, a gay air with plenty of trombone and kettle-drum in it, and the horses ambled and danced in sympathy, with an accompaniment of rattling carbines and ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... out by Leopold's Prussian Detachment, I will say farther, though Friedrich heeds these circumstances little at present, that it stands on a scarped rock, girt by the grim intricate Hills; and that in the Arsenal, in dusty fabulous condition, lies a certain Drum, which readers may have heard of. Drum is not a fable, but an antique reality fallen flaccid; made, by express bequest, as is mythically said, from the skin of Zisca, above 300 years ago: altogether mythic that latter ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of a small boy who was selling, not singing, the ballads. They celebrated the prowess of Spain in recent wars, and it would not be praising them too highly to say that they seemed such as might have been written by a drum-major. Not that I think less of them for that reason, or that I think I need humble myself greatly to the historian of Ronda for associating their purchase with that of his excellent little book. If I had bought some of ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... nation's nerve whenas swift crises come? What of the brawn that should heave the guns on the beck of the drum? ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in history, he was known in camps and on the battle-field under the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangour of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbours ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... shadows of night deepened the troops summoned by the prince arrived in successive detachments. Orders were given that no drum should be ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... drum; louder and louder he sang his love song until his soft rich voice broke into a wail. Presently the door-skin of Granny's lodge was gently pushed aside, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... week at Ikpe in fulfilment of her promise, she returned to Odoro Ikpe to hold the first Sabbath service. A play was being enacted in the town, and scores of naked young men and women were dancing to the compelling throb of the drum. But some Ikpe and Ndot lads came to support the service, and their presence helped the local sympathisers to come forward. It was very simple; she said it would have seemed babyish to Europeans, but it was an epoch to the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... clapped her hands in exaggerated admiration. Even in his dreams Alan chuckled. He knew what was happening, and that out of the corners of her laughing eyes Keok was enjoying Tautuk's jealousy. Tautuk was so stupid he would never understand. That was the funny part of it. And he beat his drum savagely, scowling so that he almost shut his eyes, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... rocking-horses rocked over, and wounded some little men; and the little women snatched their dolls from one another, and the dolls were broken. And on the fourth day the Prince Joujou cut a hole in the very largest drum, and made the drummer angry; and the drummer threw a drumstick at Joujou, and Prince Joujou told the drummer he should go to prison. Then the drummer got on the top of the painted wall, and shot arrows at the Prince, which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... cry to disarm foes. It is an outcry of good as against evil—the squawk of a hen to her chicks, the bleat of a sheep to her lambs, the grunt of a sow to her sucklings, the bellow of a cow to her calf, the purr of a cat to her kittens, the whine of a dog to her puppies, the drum of a partridge to her young. A cry from the heart to the heart, an appeal of flesh to its own flesh, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... warmth: not that they got much of it. Not more than five winters ago we had a storm-stayed show on a small scale; but nowadays the farmers are less willing to give these wanderers a camping-place, and the people are less easily drawn to the entertainments provided, by fife and drum. The colony hung together until it was starved out, when it trailed itself elsewhere. I have often seen it forming. The first arrival would be what was popularly known as "Sam'l Mann's Tumbling-Booth," with its tumblers, jugglers, sword-swallowers, and balancers. ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... his throat, Oh, the tear that he dried with laughter; "I'll be back some day— Mind the mill while I'm away," And he waved one last kiss floating after. Gone is the miller boy, Gone from the mill; Gone up the winding road, Gone o'er the hill; Gone with the drum-beat up over the hill, Where he heard ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Smyrna the Messiah walked on the afternoon of the abolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing and singing, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice led the psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that there were unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting and praying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. They found the doors ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... with a dagger. The people believe that a drop of blood on the head marks the spot where the soul has made its exit. Any good clothing in which the person has died is then removed. The blacksmith beats a drum, and the corpse, covered with a white sheet next the dress and a coloured one above, is carried out of the house to be worshipped by the relatives, who walk seven times round it. The women then retire to the house, and the chief lama recites liturgical passages ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... the order to-night, sergeant; but go round from house to house yourself in the morning, rouse the men, and tell them to fall in quietly without beat of drum. ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... about, each captain or special unit commander, except the drum major, commands: 1. Eyes, in time to add, 2. RIGHT, when at 6 paces from the reviewing officer, and commands front when at 6 paces beyond him. At the command eyes the company officers armed with the saber ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... the ship; and he did it, too, not as Mr. Drake might do, but in such a melancholy voice as if we were all at our last hour; so when we were free of our trouble, and out on the main again, we were all called by the drum to the forecastle, and there Mr. Drake sat on a sea-chest as solemn as a judge, so that not a man durst laugh, with a pair of pantoufles in his hand; and Mr. Fletcher was brought before him, trying to smile as if 'twas a jest for him too, between two guards; and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... of the porch. As I leaned against the wall there, trying to think what I should do, there came a great cheering from a little way up the street, and then I straightened in astonishment. Above the cheering came the sound of a drum beaten in marching time, and above that there burst upon the night what purported to be the "Marseillaise," taken up and bawled by a hundred drunken throats and without words. Those around me who were sufficiently nimble began to run towards the noise, and I ran after them. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... straight to the point, and relates his adventures very vividly in the homeliest language. Returning from an expedition against Algiers "somewhat more acquainted with the world, but little amended in estate," he could not long rest inactive; and soon, "the drum beating up for a new expedition," set out to try his fortunes again. The design was against Cadiz; the fleet, under the command of the Earl of Essex, numbered some 110 sail. There is no need to continue the story, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... publicity possibilities. Among other things he organized a drum corps composed of volunteers who were only too glad to serve him. He inspired this corps to such proficiency that its marching and counter-marching became a feature of the parades. By diverting the drum corps ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman |
