"Humming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... They remained apathetic and patient, in the rush of wind, under the repeated short flights of sprays. The slight roll of the ship balanced them stiffly all together where they stood propped against the big boat. The breeze humming between the inclined masts enveloped their dark and silent figures in the unceasing resonance ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Joking and humming to themselves, the men prepared for action. The first line poked their rifles through the barricade and lay down behind them. All was in readiness to repulse ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... he goes into the passage and opens the outer door. Standing outside cheerfully humming a tune is a large, forceful, breezy young man of twenty-eight. He is DERMOD GILRUTH. Splendid in physique, charming of manner, his slightly-marked Dublin accent lends a piquancy to his conversation. He has all the ease and poise of a traveled, polished young man of breeding. Dartrey's face brightens ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... lightning leaped from the sky and touched the lake, there was a long, rumbling peal, and then a humming noise began astern. Angry white ripples splashed about the canoe and lumps of hail beat Lister's head. Then, while the thunder rolled across the sky, the canoe swerved. It was blowing hard, the high bow and stern caught the wind, the strength ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... models fluttered and settled down before it reached the other side, and David's machine, which had commanded most attention because it was different, started out bravely enough, its little propeller making a busy humming as it skimmed along. But it had gone hardly ten yards before it collapsed and ignominiously crashed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... his window watching London caught by the evening light, saw for an instant his work in front of him again. London with her towers, her roofs and chimneys—smoke and mist and haze weaving a web—and then beneath it, humming, buzzing, turning, all the lives, all the comedies, all the tragedies—Kings and princes, guttersnipes and duchesses, politicians and ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... face and, turning, gave me a violent wink. "Oho! Now I'm getting wise." At the same time humming a strain supposed to ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... and moist, and communicate no meaning whatsoever to any individual of his hearers," —certain of whom, the narrator for one, "still kept eagerly listening in hope, while the most had long before given up and formed (if the room was large enough) humming groups of their own." "He began anywhere," continues this irresistibly comic sketch; "you put some question to him, made some suggestive observation; instead of answering this, or decidedly setting out towards an answer of it, he would accumulate formidable apparatus, logical ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... no evidence that he noticed them, and moved along in his deliberate fashion, changing his whistling to a low humming of no particular tune; but he used his keen eyesight and hearing ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... toward the "wall" with his crucifix in his hands; the barber, a-quiver with morbid excitement; the stolid guide, not at all surprised, rather gratified, preparing to make the descent to recover the body of that "tall monsieur" who had, after all, "arrived." The telegraph wires were already humming with the message. In a few ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... a semivowel and a liquid, capable of an audible, humming sound through the nose, when the mouth is closed. It is heard in map, murmur, mammon. In the old words, compt, accompt, comptroller, (for count, account, controller,) the m is sounded as n. M before n, at the beginning ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... resource and suggestion, who opened Daylight's eyes to undreamed possibilities in twentieth-century warfare; and it was Daylight, rejecting, accepting, and elaborating, who planned the campaigns and prosecuted them. With the Pacific coast from Peugeot Sound to Panama, buzzing and humming, and with San Francisco furiously about his ears, the two big steamship companies had all the appearance of winning. It looked as if Burning Daylight was being beaten slowly to his knees. And then he struck—at the steamship companies, at San Francisco, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... a sensation of nervous pain or uneasiness never has been known in her family for generations, and her judgments of poor little Mrs. Evans are about as intelligent as those of a good stout Shanghai hen on a humming-bird. Most useful and comfortable, these Shanghai hens,—and very ornamental, and in a small way useful, these humming-birds; but let them not regulate each other's diet, or lay down schemes for each other's housekeeping. Has not one as much ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... hind legs were longer in proportion to their size, the exact shape of that harmless little insect. Their colours are brilliant green, slate, and flamingo red, beautifully lined and variegated. The humming noise produced by these insects is very disagreeable, and fills the surrounding air with murmurs, while the wilderness look of the scene of their depredations has a depressing effect on the mind of the traveller. Their visits are much dreaded, as they ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... summer in some moory ground on the verge of this parish. It is very amusing to see the cock bird on wing at that time, and to hear his piping and humming notes. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... wielded with vigor; and after the eagles learned that no harm was intended to their young by these bold navigators of the upper air currents, they came to have more respect for the strange winged thing that came humming up from the earth ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... house, humming a little tune. On the second step he paused, as he was in the habit of doing, and surveyed the Precincts—the houses with their shining knockers, their old-fashioned bow-windows and overhanging portals, the Cathedral Green, and ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... to a beautiful summer-house, ornamented with a very pretty colonnade of green and gold marble, and with trellises, enclosing parraquets, humming-birds, fly-birds, guinea-hens, and all other rare birds. An excellent breakfast was provided in vessels of gold; and while the Paraguayans were eating maize out of wooden dishes, in the open fields and exposed to the heat of the sun, the reverend Father Commandant ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... yellow-birds look in upon them, and, now and then, their cousin, the oriole, comes, clad in the richest golden plumage, and sings them a song. If he had dipped his feathers in the gorgeous sunset he could not be more beautiful. The delicate little humming-birds sip nectar from the deep horns of the honeysuckle; and the red-winged starling, in his glossy black coat, and his dashing scarlet epaulette, occasionally comes from his home in the meadow, to ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... became greater and greater until it seemed impossible to admit another person without filling the center of the ballroom and the royal space. As there was no music, the chatter of voices made an insistent humming din. At last! the Prefetto di Palazzo sounded three loud strokes, with the ferule of his mace, upon the floor, the sound of voices ceased, the doors into the royal apartments were thrown open, the band struck up the royal ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... escaped in a boat, which was filled with various kinds of animals and birds. After some time a vulture was sent out from it, but remained feeding on the dead bodies of the giants, which had been left on the earth as the waters subsided. The little humming-bird was then sent forth and returned with the branch of a tree ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... my being cooped up between four walls when the sunbeams were dancing among the leaves outside and the bees were humming among the blossoms, seemed to me the acme of cruelty, and every day that I spent bending over a desk represented to my mind just so many wasted hours and opportunities. I longed through all the weary ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... He went out humming a tune, while Cynthia hung the boiler from the crane and mixed the corn-meal dough ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... be a factory that had a look, a look of its own. It was like a vast countenance. It had features, an expression. It had an air—well, one must say it, of course, if one is driven to it: the factory had a soul, and was humming it. Any one could have seen why by going into his office and talking a little while with the owner, or by even not talking to him—by seeing him look up from his desk. After walking through several miles of his personality, and up and down and down and up the corridors of his ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... and, after, women wailed their warriors slain, List the Saxon's silvery laughter, and his humming hives of gain. Swiftly sped the tawny runner o'er the pathless prairies then, Now the iron-reindeer sooner carries weal or woe to men. On thy bosom, Royal River, silent sped the birch canoe, Bearing brave with bow and quiver, on his way to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... coming, Then the bees will be humming, Birds will be flying, And girls will be buying, And boys will be running; Oh, hail! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... vibration or grinding, as would have been the case in starting a steamer, but only a soft whirring, humming sound, that rose several degrees in pitch as the engines gained speed, and the fan-wheels revolved faster and faster until they sang in the air, and the Ariel rose without a jar or a tremor from the ground, slowly at first, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... sweet, but indifferent, and her manner was indifferent, for a young lady who would have seemed, to a literal-minded person, to have materially affected her whole future life by this conversation. She did not watch Willard go. She turned and stood in the library door, smiling absently and humming a little snatch of a waltz tune. It was eleven now, but the hour had ceased to concern her, as if she had been watching the clock for Willard. Presently, as if she really had, she tossed the cushions back on the couch, drew the shades over the window, turned off the lights, ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... about the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an evil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the evil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can begin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants sometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in the country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say he has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song—surely he can sing a Psalm, it will take no more time. ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... beautiful things to hear,—the birds singing and the bees humming; and so many beautiful things to see,—the flowers and butterflies and green grass! And after a while he came to a wood, where every tree wore a green dress; and through the wood, under the shade of the trees, ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... life is healthy it instinctively breaks into song. The happy, contented soul goes about the ways of life humming its satisfactions to itself, and is now and again heard by the passer-by. The Lord fills the life with instinctive music. When life is holy it becomes musical ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... through the golden green light under the trees, Antoinette leading, and the sight of the garden brought back to me poignantly the scene in the moonlight with Mrs. Temple. There was no sound save the languid morning notes of the birds and the humming of the bees among the flowers as Antoinette went tremblingly down the path and paused, listening, under the branches of that oak where I had first beheld her. Then, with a little cry, we saw her run forward—into the arms of Auguste ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... nose! Faugh! it is enough to sicken the most devoted admirer of the sex. Suppose any gentleman going to be married, and full of love and admiration, should, on going to the house of his beloved bride on the appointed morning, to take her to church, humming to himself that sweet song, "She Wove a Wreath of Roses," finds her beautiful nose become a big rosy nosegay—would he not be apt to suppose she had over night been making pretty free sacrifices, not to the little god of love, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... the hand that held the knife, at the flies. They were green flies—huge, shiny-backed, buzzing, persistent vermin. There were a thousand of them; there seemed to be a million of them. They filled the shut-in room with their vile humming; they swarmed everywhere in the half light. They were thickest, though, in a corner at the back, where there was a closed, white door. Here a great knot of them, like an iridescent, shimmering jewel, was ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... fro in her rocking-chair, humming drearily some melancholy air, until, by-and-by, baby, worn out, wailingly dropped off ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... quaint garb of some early nineteenth-century epoch—1840 or thereabouts. As old-fashioned as she looked, a delicate girlish beauty was hers, and when she indifferently gazed at Davos, straightway he heard humming in his head the "glance motive" from Tristan and Isolde. They passed on, but not leaving him as he was before; a voice whispered in the secret recesses of his being: "You love! Follow! Seek her!" And under the sudden impulsion ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... revealed everything, with the greatest minuteness, to the willow-wren. When day broke, and the battle was to begin, all the four-footed animals came running up with such a noise that the earth trembled. The willow-wren also came flying through the air with his army with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each other. But the willow-wren sent down the hornet, with orders to get beneath the fox's ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... a hotel or in a tent, Philip soon found, he was just the same. In camp he would get himself, up in the most elaborate toilet at his command, polish his long boots to the top, lay out his work before him, and spend an hour or longer, if anybody was looking at him, humming airs, knitting his brows, and "working" at engineering; and if a crowd of gaping rustics were looking on all the while it was perfectly satisfactory ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... many thousands, and you would see them like a cloud wheeling about in the air, then suddenly dropping and vanishing from sight in the grass, where they fed on small seeds and tender leaves and buds. On going to the spot they would rise with a loud humming sound of innumerable wings, and begin rushing and whirling about again, chasing each other in play and chirping, and presently all would ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... all his life long had not known one tune from another, was humming to himself; honest Postel hearing him with surprise, conceived a vehement suspicion of ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... raised her delicate eyebrows, humming a light tune, and her husband turned from her in despair. Was it nothing at all to her that this child had saved the ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... Keefer! what a boy you were, With your back-tilted hat and careless hair, And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise And joyous interest in flower and tree, And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee. ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... had said this, she disappeared, and I went into the house, where I found Carlotta preparing the breakfast; she had an old woman with her, who seemed to be doing something which she was not very willing I should see. I sat down carelessly, humming a tune, with my face to a mirror, and my back to Carlotta, so that I was able to watch her motions without her perceiving it. She was standing near the fireplace, the coffee was by her, on the table, and the old woman crouched in the chimney corner, with her bleared eyes fixed on the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to what I said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck.—As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bullock nor buck he hunts to-night,' said Mother Wolf. 'It is Man.' The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed to come from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilders woodcutters and gipsies sleeping in the open, and makes them run sometimes into the very mouth ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... of him as if he were a log of wood, and how perfectly happy he was when, one morning Alice came in and sat by him, placing her tiny gold thimble upon her delicate finger, and bending over her bit of dainty embroidery, humming occasionally a sweet, mournful air, which showed that her thoughts were wandering back to the cottage by the river, where her mother lived and died. While she was sitting there Mrs. Worthington joined her, and a moment after a letter was brought in from 'Lina, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... down the humming top which she had been examining, she stalked out of the room, and banged the door behind her. Horace, who was extremely fond of his sister, followed, and succeeded in making peace. Muriel was mollified when he played chess with her all the evening, and forgave him ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... late in June when the rich, thick, amber light of afternoon seemed to float in the air. Warm summer lay on the land. The bees were humming in the rose vines over the porch. Mrs. Iden, who evidently heard Lane's step, appeared in the path, and nodding her gladness at sight of him, she pointed to ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... purpose, it will change houses, and then, secured by a gold or silver chain, roams about the wearer, waving its red and blue claws in a warlike manner. Birds are, perhaps, more commonly used as natural ornaments than any other, and a cloak of the skins of humming birds is one of the most magnificent objects to be imagined. One, of a rare species, was once sold in Europe for $5,000. Single birds are often worth $700 or $800. A cloak of the skin of the great auk ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... were all in the breakfast-room, and no Prince Bulbo as yet. The urn was hissing and humming: the muffins were smoking—such a heap of muffins! the eggs were done, there was a pot of raspberry jam, and coffee, and a beautiful chicken and tongue on the side-table. Marmitonio the cook brought in the sausages. ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Courtland used to sit and kick his heels in the old family pew and be reproved for it by his aunt, he never remembered any Presence. Doctor Bates's admirable sermons had droned on over his head like the dreamy humming of bees in a summer day. He couldn't remember a single thought that ever entered his mind from that source. Was that all that came of studying theology? Well, he would find out, and if it was, he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... his bed-clothes will always come up at the foot!" growled Austina, whose canvas looked like a map of a humming-bird's flight done ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... in secluded bower within the mansion grounds. Sir Donald is taking his accustomed afternoon nap. Alice and Charles are out for a drive. Bessie is just awake, and has come out to survey her vested belongings. Esther hears the child's happy humming, and looking appealingly at ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... he was more at peace with the world than he had been for a long time. He felt that he would be able to look his little girl in the face again. For the first time in a week he felt at one with creation. He rode into the ranch plaza humming "Dixie." ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... so bitterly hopeless that the great jolly face of Mrs. Council stiffened into a look of horror such as she had not worn for years. The children, in two separate groups, could be heard rioting. Bees were humming around the clover in the grass, and the kingbird chattered ceaselessly from the Lombardy poplar-tip. Both women felt all this peace and beauty of the morning, dimly, and it disturbed Mrs. Council because the other was so ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... in the summer evening, and the streets humming with voices. Before the doors of the cafes were tables, at which people were taking refreshment, and it went to my heart to see a bottle of English ale, some of which was poured foaming into a glass; at least, it had exactly the amber ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The quixotic, the generous, the hopeless, the successful; laughter and tears; death and birth; the warm hearth and the open road—all seemed blent for the moment into one great zest for living. "I'll to Lochiel and Appin and kneel to them," he was humming aloud, when suddenly his bridle was caught and a man's ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... there is very little in it. The elegancy of the style and the turn of the periods make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious periods in a speech, which they will retain and repeat, and they will go home as well satisfied as people do from an opera, humming all the way one or two favourite tunes that have struck their ears, and were easily caught. Most people have ears, but few have judgement; tickle those ears, and, depend upon it, you will catch their judgements, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... chiefly through bad stoking, in having an uneven fire, full of holes, or crooked bars, the cold air rushing through where there is the least resistance, and into the tubes, causes the humming noise—a locomotive nearing home after her day's work has very little fire on the bars and will generally hum, so there is some excuse for her, but none for a stationary boiler. Some stokers take credit to themselves for making the boiler "Hum"; when coals are ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... to him, but he turned away without answering her and went to find his next partner. It was growing late and the crowd soon went down the long, dark stairway leading from Imperial Hall, into the moonlight and down the street, singing and humming and whistling "Love's Golden Dream," and the next day they and the town and the band came down to the noon train to see the ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... in the dark and the cold, A pale little sprout was humming; Sweetly it sang, 'neath the frozen mold, Of the beautiful ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... furnaces. Sometimes he donned the virile—and noisy—uniform of an electrician: army gauntlets, a coil of wire, pole-climbers strapped to his legs. Crunching his steel spurs into the crisp pine wood of the lighting-poles, he carelessly ascended to the place of humming wires and red cross-bars and green-glass insulators, while crowds of two and three small boys stared in awe from below. At such moments Carl did not envy the aristocratic leisure of his high-school classmate, Fatty Ben Rusk, who, as son of the leading doctor, did not work, but stayed ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... coming of his friend in the latter's study, and when Borgert entered, serene of brow and humming an operatic ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... when he thought of the woman who should be by his side. Oh that they two could undertake this magical journey together, silent and alone in a silent and lonely world. He made no inquiries for Anne, and Daisy said nothing. Only when the car was humming along the homeward road to land them at the church did she open her mouth. The awe had worn off, and she babbled as of old in the very ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... and after clearing the northern end of Luzon the Retriever kicked round in a belt of light and baffling airs for a week. Then the monsoon freshened somewhat and the Retriever once more rolled lazily away on her course, with young Matt Peasley humming chanteys on her quarter-deck and pondering the mystery that confronts all mankind in their first adventure in fatherhood. Would it be a boy or a girl? He was expressing to himself for perhaps the thousandth time the hope that it would be a boy, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... insects. In those desolate dwellings both flies and (I am sure) fleas abounded, dreadfully healthy and alive. I only guess at the fleas, but the flies I can answer for. They swarmed on the baking walls and wove webs in the air above us. The rooms were black with them, and their humming filled ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... face retreated a few rungs. Phillips could hear the others scrambling further down. He got his head out of the way before pulling the switch that opened the hatch. With a subdued humming of electric motors, the massively constructed door swung down. One after another, they pulled themselves ...
— This World Must Die! • Horace Brown Fyfe
... something of an embarrassing nature to speak of. To begin with she was more affectionate than usual, seeming to wish with the honey of her kisses to sweeten the bitter cross which the mistress was doomed to bear. Then she hesitated. She fidgeted about the room humming. At last she said that the doctor had come at the request of Serge, who was most anxious about his wife's health. And that excellent Doctor Rigaud, who had known her from a child, had found her suffering from great weakness. He ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... size it is doubtless the most beautiful of animals, its plumage, especially the magnificent display of the tail, exceeding that of any other natural object. There are other birds of small size which vie with the peacock in the details of ornamentation. Those jewels among the feathered tribes, the humming-birds, have a more delicate beauty. The birds-of-paradise and the lyre-birds have a grace in the attitudes of particular feathers which is unequalled; but for splendor none of them approach the peacock in ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the main fortified mission of Ste. Marie. Round it were some two thousand Hurons to whom Father Daniel ministered. Father Daniel was just closing the morning services on July the 4th, 1648. His tawny people were on their knees repeating the responses of the service, when from the forest, humming with insect and bird life, arose a sound that was neither wind nor running water—confused, increasing, nearing! Then a shriek broke within the fort palisades,—"The enemy! the Iroquois!" and the courtyard was in an uproar indescribable. Painted redskins, naked ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a monstrous dun mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old Tsay-ee-kah had finally decided to welcome the delegates to that new Congress which would mean its own ruin-and perhaps the ruin of the revolutionary order it had built. At this meeting, however, only members of ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... forward. Mrs. Coombe seemed to have lost all her genial expansiveness. Miss Milligan's pins had overflowed from her pin-cushion into her mouth and Esther, who appeared tired, gazed steadily out of the window. Only the humming of the machines in the adjoining workroom and the subdued talk and laughter of Miss Milligan's young ladies saved the silence from becoming oppressive. Occasionally, when her supply of pins became exhausted, Miss Milligan would contribute a cooing murmur to the effect that it did ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... him waiting barely five minutes. She was still wearing her smart traveling suit and the little toque which she had worn when she left home. She walked down the street with him, humming gayly. ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... face to gaze at him when he spoke, and in the act there was something simple, winning, blithe, as likewise in the swing of her lissom figure beside his own there was an inimitable jauntiness and cheer. He divined her eager, ardent spirit; and the closeness of her, this comradeship, set his blood humming. ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... for a few seconds while he patiently adjusted the tuning knob. But then came a faint buzz like the humming of a drowsy bee. Suddenly, sharp and distinct, as if his father was at his elbow, came Mr. Chadwick's ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... won't hurt me to walk. Nothing hurts me—Leah Mordecai the despised." Then, averting her face, the young girl gazed abstractedly into the street, and began humming in a ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... that ominous lull that comes over everything before a convulsion of nature. Some birds were still hurrying home into the depths of the copses with a frightened straightness of flight, as if they were afraid they would not get back in time, and all the insects that are so gay with their humming and booming had disappeared under leaves and stones and grasses. Elinor saw a bee burrowing deep in the waxen trumpet of a foxglove, as if taking shelter, as she walked quickly past. The Hills—there were two middle-aged sisters of them, with an old mother, too old ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... herself that no vessel could put into the harbor for some hours, if at all that day, she strolled farther on. Down one hill and up another, picking a flower here and one there, humming as she went some old Russian song, her time passed in evident enjoyment though with more ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... all the misdemeanors, All the malice and the mischief, 5 Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis. Hard his breath came through his nostrils, Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered Words of anger and resentment, Hot and humming like a hornet. 10 "I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis, Slay this mischief-maker!" said he. "Not so long and wide the world is, Not so rude and rough the way is, That my wrath shall not attain him, 15 That my vengeance shall not reach him!" Then in swift pursuit departed Hiawatha and the hunters ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... this passage?" she said, humming the air with soft modulations; "I have always regarded the monotonous repetition of this strain" (and she indicated it lightly by a few touches of the keys) "as rather a blemish of an otherwise perfect composition. But as you play it, it is anything but monotonous. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... at her door shortly after breakfast to transport her to where saddle-horses were waiting in the Park. Sometimes it would turn up about lunch-time and stand impatiently chugging while she changed into sport's clothes, after which it would dash away with her, humming contentedly, into the depths of the country. It was the magic-carpet which obeyed all her desires. After war-days, with their petrol shortages and restricted travel, it seemed more than ordinarily magic. It made emphatic as nothing else could have done, the freedom and serenity ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... you the two manuscripts you sent me. One story is an Indian Legend—The Lotus Flower, Wreaths of Laurel, A Summer Night, The Humming Bird—that in India! He begins with Faust thirsting for youth and ends with "the bliss of the true life," in the style of Tolstoy. I have cut out parts, polished it up, and the result is a legend of no great value, indeed, but light, and it may be read with interest. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... said Webb, laughing. "How easily he seems to laugh of late!" Amy thought. "They can't reach the honey in the long, tube-like blossoms. Here the bumble-bees have everything their way, and get it all except what is sipped by the humming-birds, with their long beaks, as they feed on the minute insects within the flowers. I've heard the question, Of what use are bumble-bees?—I like to say bumble best, as I did when a boy. Well, I've been told that red clover cannot be raised without this insect, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... few steps, then stops and looks round, scarcely believing his eyes; shakes his head, taps his forehead.] Who am I? Weaver Anton Ansorge. Has he gone mad, Old Ansorge? My head's goin' round like a humming-top, sure enough. What's he doin' here. He'll do whatever he's a mind to. Where is Ansorge? [He taps his forehead repeatedly.] Something's wrong! I'm not answerable! I'm off my head! Off with you, off with you, rioters ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... It had been too like the low humming of a human voice for him to have been misled. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "l," "m," "n," are called vowel consonants. They can be given continuous sound, a head resonance. This sounding may be carried to a fault, or affectation; but commonly it is insufficiently done, and it should be among the first objects of cultivation in vocal practice. The humming of these head sounds, with very moderate force, is excellent for developing and clearing this resonance. The "ng" sound, as in ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... along its front that was the forward fire-trench, he remembered with unpleasant clearness that instinctive start and thought of taking cover. By that time he had actually been under fire, had heard the shells rush over him and the shattering noise of their burst; had heard the bullets piping and humming and hissing over the communication- and firing-trenches. He took a little comfort from the fact that he had not felt any great fear then, but he had to temper that by the admission that there was little to be afraid of there in the shelter ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... Eagle paddled off first, using the ends of his broad wings. After him went Ko-ko-ka the Owl; Kusk the Crane; Wee-so-wee the Bluebird; and Chip-sis the Blackbird. Even tiny A-la-moo the Humming Bird had a neat little boat. But his wings were so small that Mit-chee had made for him a dainty little paddle. Some of the birds thought it rather too large, for it was almost an inch long. So the fleet of canoes stood bravely out to sea, and after a pleasant ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... who so cheery as Black Roger, full of a new-found gaiety, who laughed for small reason and ofttimes for none at all and was forever humming snatches of strange song as he stooped above pipkin and pannikin. Much given was he also to frequent comings and goings within the green to no apparent end, while Beltane, within the little cave, lay 'twixt sleep and waking; moreover, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... quivered with alertness and I could almost hear the humming of those taut cable muscles. He may have had a stainless steel hide and a bunch of wires for a brain—but he spelled rookie cop to me just the same. The fact that he was man-height with two arms, two legs and that painted-on uniform helped. All I had to do was squint my eyes a bit and there ...
— Arm of the Law • Harry Harrison
... however, all was very quiet round the old inn. The birds were singing, and the bees humming in the pleasant sunshine. The house looked clean and tidy, and no one was to be seen except three persons bending over a table, with their heads close together, deeply absorbed in whatever business ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... But the boatmen are sophisticated; my crew have all sported new white drawers in honour of the Sitti Ingleezee's supposed modesty—of course compensation will be expected. Poor fellows! they are very well mannered and quiet in their rags and misery, and their queer little humming song is rather pretty, 'Eyah Mohammad, eyah Mohammad,' ad infinitum, except when an energetic man cries 'Yallah!'—i.e., 'O God!'—which means 'go it' in everyday life. Omar is gone to fetch one or ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... humming and ticking like a watch with insect-noises: otherwise the deadly silence held. There were red-winged grasshoppers and great green-gray locust-looking crickets which whistled and ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... glance, then let his eyes wander to a far corner of the room. Humming a careless little tune, he sauntered across to the open liquor shelves, selected a garish green bottle and turned unhurriedly back toward the door. The group of servants ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... without a branch, tall, slender, and graceful, from the warmly generous earth, and spread at last, as if tired of their straightness, into beautiful crowns of fans, which sway toward each other with every breath of air. Innumerable butterflies and humming-birds, in the hot, dazzling sunshine of noonday, will be hovering over the beds of sweet purple heliotrope and finding their way into the hearts of the passion-flowers, but as yet not the faintest whirr of wings can be heard. ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... vivid colouring reaching from bough to bough. Yes, there was plenty to see and marvel at, and there would be more when those few yards of rippling water had been spanned and their feet pressed the lush grass of yonder flowery mead close by the river's margin; humming birds, the plumage of which shone in the sun like burnished gold and glowing gems, butterflies as big as sparrows, with wings painted in hues so gorgeous that the painter who should attempt to reproduce them would be driven to despair, enormous dragon-flies flitting hither and ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... crowds filled the space from wall to wall, so that when a string of coolies came along, bearing burdens in the usual manner from a stick over the shoulder and humming the cheerful though monotonous "get-out-of-the-way" tune, we had to step aside, close against or into some store to let them pass; and when an occasional chair came along it swept the entire traffic aside as a taxi might in a crowded ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... Did you notice the tune I was playing when you came in? (Sits down at the piano.) I heard it everywhere in Germany. (Begins to play and sing, but stops short.) But, bless my soul, here is the music! You can play it and sing it for yourself. (Goes out, humming the air.) ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... humming "Pure as the Snow." Taking a reconnoissance of the town, I came to a pretty house with woodbine-covered porch, and a slender figure at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... intimacies. We discussed something; I think Lady Tarvrille's flowers and the Cape Flora and gardens. She told me she had a Japanese garden with three Japanese gardeners. They were wonderful little men to watch. "Humming-bird gardeners," she called them. "They ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the red hammock, showing slim ankles that gleamed like marble through a thin film of bronze-brown silk. As she went into the house humming some Italian air she had picked up, Mary thought how young and innocently gay she seemed. It was almost impossible to believe her the same woman who had sobbed behind a disguising veil in Rose Winter's drawing-room, begging Mary to swear by Vanno's love never to betray her secret. And it seemed ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... an hour had passed, and all within the house was as still as ever; and through the window there only came such sounds as seem like audible silence—the twittering of birds, the humming of bees, the calls of boys in distant fields, the far-away sound of waggon-wheels—when there was a slight move, and Mary, in the tension of all her faculties, had well-nigh started, but restrained ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to its banks, some in fruit, some in flower, some bearing fruits and flowers at once. These woods swarmed with birds of brilliant plumage,—the scarlet flamingo, the rich-hued parrots and woodpeckers, the tiny and sparkling humming-birds, which flitted on rainbow wings from flower to flower, and which no European had ever before seen. Even the insects were beautiful, in their shining coats of mail. Though most of the birds were silent, the charms of song were not wanting, and the excited ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... the task a mind polished and matured by judgment and experience. But, generally speaking, we rather expect reason than rhyme from an elderly gentleman; and when the reverse is the case, the pursuit fits them as ridiculously as would a humming-top or a hoop. Yet there are many who, having passed a life in the sole occupation of making money—the most unpoetical of all avocations—that in their retirement entertain themselves with such fantastic pranks and antics, as only serve to amuse the ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... beat high as he watched the warlike preparations, and, glancing across to where near Haughmond Abbey floated the rebel standard, he found himself humming one of the rough old war tunes ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... they sing whilst at work. Trypoxylon albitarse, which is a large black kind, three-quarters of an inch in length, makes a tremendous fuss while building its cell. It often chooses the walls or doors of chambers for this purpose, and when two or three are at work in the same place, their loud humming keeps the house in an uproar. The cell is a tubular structure about three inches in length. T. aurifrons, a much smaller species, makes a neat little nest shaped like a carafe, building rows of them together in ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... gaiety expanded her butterfly's wings, lit up their gold-dust and bright spots, made her flash like a gem, and flush like a flower. At all ordinary diet and plain beverage she would pout; but she fed on creams and ices like a humming-bird on honey-paste: sweet wine was her element, and sweet cake her daily bread. Ginevra lived her full life in a ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... thy workes; the rouzing preface of all these Letters. Casars eye made his souldiers prodigall of their blood. The Atheist thinks God takes as much notice of him and his prayers, as hee doth of the humming of Flyes and Bees; and therefore, no marvell if his service bee formall and fashionable. The faithfull Christian by faiths prospective sees him at home, and heares him saying, Well done thou good servant; which maketh him to worke out his heart. Behold him as the beginning ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward
... world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buzz mixed of walking tongues and feet: it is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in most serious ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... place, and tautly secured. Under its shelter both boys doffed their waterproofs and made things look more shipshape. Jimmie, as usual, was more than ready to get to work with that dandy little Juwel kerosene gas contraption; and its cheery humming soon told ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... The noise was so loud that Desmond wondered whether old Martha would hear the din. He sat in his chair by the door, a silent witness of the scene. Then suddenly, at the height of the hubbub, he heard the faint humming of a motor-car. It lasted for perhaps thirty ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... answered, looking up with his widest and almost sudden smile; 'humming musical recollections—of his last night's quartette party, I suppose—through the walls between us, and driving me half mad. I wish he'd make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... dreadful silence—Spout realising his appalling error endeavoured to pass it off by humming the Jewel Song from Faust. For a moment his nonchalance amazed everyone then as though a veil had been suddenly snatched from their eyes they gave a great cry: 'This is Spout! What Humour! ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... good-humouredly repeated. The quarrymen drank, asked for more. They shouted over the table as if they had been talking across a field. At one end four of them played cards, banging the wood with their hard knuckles, and swearing at every lead. One sat with a lost gaze, humming a bar of some song, which he repeated endlessly. Two others, in a corner, were quarrelling confidentially and fiercely over some woman, looking close into one another's eyes as if they had wanted to tear them out, but speaking in whispers that ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad |
