"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... voices took up a shrill call. Two white sheets fluttered dismally. But the great steamer, on her way to Baltimore, neither heard the sound nor saw the white signals of distress. It was ten times more dismal when the friendly smoke had dissolved in the ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... was exercised on the question as to whether this part of the world was peopled only by ill-tempered bullies, surly wretches, or bovine fools. So came I to a place where the ways divided and I was deliberating which to follow when I heard a shrill whistling and glancing about, beheld a large woman who talked very fast and angrily to a small man, who whistled extremely loud and shrill, heeding her not in the least. Being come to where I stood, the man paused ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... breathe at the bottom of a shallow sea, white as snow, shining like silver, and impenetrably opaque everywhere, except overhead, where the yellow disc of the moon glittered through a thin cloud of steam. The gay truculence of the hollow knocking, the metallic jingle, the shrill trolling, went on crescendo to a burst of babbling voices, a mad speed of tinkling, a thundering shout, "Altro, Amigos!" followed by a great clatter of oars flung in. The sudden silence pulsated with the ponderous strokes of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... intentionally, but I never heard such false singing. Chopin devoted himself to playing the organ at the Elevation, what an organ! A false, screaming instrument, which had no wind except for the purpose of being out of tune. Nevertheless, YOUR LITTLE ONE [votre petit] made the most of it. He took the least shrill stops, and played Les Astres, not in a proud and enthusiastic style as Nourrit used to sing it, but in a plaintive and soft style, like the far-off echo from another world. Two, at the most three, were there who deeply felt this, and ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... have spoke Pointing to what Nick thought an iron ring, But then a neighboring chanticleer awoke, And loudly 'gan his early matins sing And then "it started like a guilty thing," As that shrill clarion the silence broke. —We know how much dead gentlefolks eschew The ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... with watchful eyes, Piercing, shameless, and indiscreet, With ears wide open for soft replies And sounds that are sibilant and sweet! With light approach (not a lynx so still), With figure meanly invisible, With threatening voice and iron will, And shrill demands or he'll ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... six-thirty train for New York. Once there, they betook themselves to Hester Street in order to study the conditions of life in the East Side. It chanced, however, to be Friday, market day, and the place was a veritable Babel with the cries of the hucksters and the shrill clamor of the women elbowing each other about the push-carts. No one paid any heed to the girls; and on their side, after a brief inspection they paid heed to but one question, how to get out of the region ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... obscurity; but, a little farther away, the white stems of the birches seemed like a row of phantoms in their shrouds. The fire was reflected in the pool; and the frogs, beginning to become accustomed to it, hazarded a few shrill, timid notes; the knotty branches of the old trees, bristling with pale lichens, crossed and recrossed, like great fleshless arms, over our travellers' heads; it was a lovely spot, but so lonely and melancholy that Germain, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... the theatres, and the lines of waiting vehicles broke up, filling the streets with the whir of machinery and the clatter of hoofs. A horde of shrill-voiced urchins pierced the confusion, waving their papers and screaming the football scores at the tops of their lusty lungs, while above it all rose the hoarse tones of carriage callers, the commands of traffic officers, and the ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... belong to Saaron's only inhabitants, and could be bound but on one errand. And Ruth was in her, for, presently, as the children's voices travelled back across the still water, Vashti heard Matthew Henry's pitched to a shrill interrogative and calling his ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... them nearer than two miles, and there was always some stallions on the lookout while the others grazed over the plains, so it was out of the question to surprise them. At the first sign of danger the stallion sentinel would give his shrill neigh of warning and the herd ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... gliding shadows, grayer than the gloom. And every shot brought a volley in return. Smoke mingled with the gloom. In the slight intervals between rifleshots there were swift, rustling sounds and sharp thuds from arrows. Then the shrill strife of sound became continuous; it came from all around and closed in upon the doomed caravan. It swelled and rolled away and again there ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... then, in her turn, had insisted on rolling up his sleeve, revealing the fact that his arms above the wrists had evidently not too recently been washed; and the episode had ended in laughter and a babel of shrill voices. And, at once, they were a party ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... long-winded narrative of the Laird was interrupted by the voice of some one ascending the stairs from the kitchen story, and singing at full pitch of voice. The high notes were too shrill for a man, the low seemed too deep for a woman. The words, as far as Mannering could distinguish them, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... out! There is no glory in them, no carnage, no combat; but there is charm and fascination in the very slowness of their movement, the shortness of their range, their lack of intensity, the absence of the shrill, high notes and ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... dogs or children!" Mary Rose's voice was shrill with astonishment and her eyes were as big as saucers. "Why, everybody has children! They always have had. Don't you remember, even Adam and Eve? In Mifflin everyone ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... companion she had parted with gaily, appointing a time for another meeting on the heights, and recommending him to repair idle hours with strenuous work. The fit passed and was not explained. The winds are sharp with memory. The hard shrill wind crowed to her senses of an hour on the bleak sands of the French coast; the beginning of the curtained misery, inscribed as her happiness. She was next day prepared for her term in London with Emma, who promised her to make an expedition at the end of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... proceeds by direct attack; Dreiser is to be disposed of by a moral attentat. Its leaders are two more professors, Stuart P. Sherman and H. W. Boynton, and in its ranks march the lady critics of the newspapers, with much shrill, falsetto clamour. Sherman is the only one of them who shows any intelligible reasoning. Boynton, as always, is a mere parroter of conventional phrases, and the objections of the ladies fade imperceptibly into a pious indignation which is indistinguishable ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... slippery street shrill familiar sounds rose to her ear and drew her attention downward and she smiled. He was down there at play with friends whose parents lived in the houses of the row. She laughed as those victorious cries reached the upper air. Leaning ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... their vanity, people are often extremely parsimonious in the matter of food, and where most people, in the words of the proverb, have a velvet coat and an empty belly. It is astonishing to find in these mountainous regions big lads as strong as a man with shrill voices and smooth chins, and tall girls, well developed in other respects, without any trace of the periodic functions of their sex. This difference is, in my opinion, solely due to the fact that in the simplicity ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the boxes of the crowded theatre had bowed and curtsied, for in those days beaux did bow and belles did curtsy; the impatient sticks in the pit, and shrill catcalls in the gallery, had begun to contend with the music in the orchestra; and thrice had we surveyed the house to recognize every body whom any body knew, when the door of the box next to ours, the only box that had remained empty, was thrown open, and in poured ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... kitchen the uproar was terrific. Howls, shrill yelps, thumps and crashes. Then came a crash louder than any preceding it, a splash of water across the sill, and from the doorway leaped, or flew, an object steaming and dripping, fluttering with fly paper, and with a giant lobster clamped firmly to its tail. The ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... outcries and lamentations of the aged woman, who had looked at his face and then covered her own. At once they were surrounded by a swarm of women and children, who pressed upon them, hampering their movements, until a shrill voice cried:— ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... shoots, there is a manifold stir of insect life. In the air millions of gauzy wings are quivering, swarms of ethereal, perishable creatures rising and falling and circling in mystical dances of joy. Fish are leaping along the stream. The night breeze trembles with the shrill, piercing chorus of the ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... shrill were the cries, that they all started up, terrified and bewildered beyond measure, unable to apply their faculties to any ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... he narrowly escaped being run over by a swiftly moving engine. Its shrill whistle and the objurgations of the fireman as it passed, startled ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... riddled with holes, making walking extremely painful. From these holes escaped every minute great birds of clumsy flight, which flew in all directions. Others, more active, rose in flocks and passed in clouds over their heads. The sailor thought he recognized gulls and cormorants, whose shrill cries rose above the roaring ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... that it startled him, not one voice, but two—three—and one of them the shrill agonized cry of a woman. They came toward him as he continued to shout, until a few feet away he could make out a gray blur moving through the gloom. He went to it, staggering under the weight of the man he had found ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... underwent a sudden change. Spitefulness leaped into his eyes; the wail of misery left his voice and in its place came shrill blasphemy. After he had cursed Dick and David Jenison to his heart's content he came to a standstill in front of his unhappy brother. Sticking out his lower ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... slammed the door with all the unnecessary vehemence usual to his class and touched his hat, a shrill whistle sounded, the great engine gave several vehement not to say petulant snorts, and the long train glided slowly out of the terminus. Gaining speed with every second, it whirled along through the maze of buildings which form the ramparts of London—on past ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... eyes upon him. There was a loud report of cannon from the Place de Greve, several balls whizzed close by me, evidently fired to disperse the multitude, who were tumultuously assembling on the Pont de la Cite, and ere I could recover from the startling effects of the report, I heard a shrill scream of mortal agony, and Cecil Grahame fell from ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... busy with the affairs of others, as well as her own, becoming quite a considerable person amongst the villagers. She was a widow with two or three children—a girl or two, and a boy—little things. She was a stout, healthy, good-looking woman, "rising forty," with a clear, shrill voice, and good, bright black eyes in her head. She soon steadied these bonnie eyes at the widower, Lizzie's father, and not in vain; for after hailing him industriously, as he passed the door of her shop, with questions about the weather, or the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... were slowly mouching from the corrals as he neared the sheds. A diminutive herder was urging them along with shrill, piping shrieks—vicious but ineffective. Far more to the purpose were the efforts to a well-trained, bob-tailed sheep dog who was awaking echoes on the brisk morning air with the full-toned ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... every hole and seam, and presently the sound as of a hatchet employed in squaring timber echoed far and wide. But if the toil of these unearthly workmen amazed the Laird, how much more was his amazement increased when a sharp shrill voice called out, 'Ho! brother, what are you doing now?' A voice still shriller responded from the other haunted ship, 'I'm making a wife to Sandie Macharg!' and a loud quavering laugh running from ship to ship, and from bank ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... course, and then gave forth the shrill, fierce yelp of the hungry wolf, dying into an angry snarl. It was, perhaps, a more menacing note than that of the larger animals, and he plainly saw the ruffians shiver. He was creating in them the state of mind that he wanted, and his spirits flamed yet higher. All things seemed ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the sound of women in terror, and she was unprepared for the wild anguish of those shrill voices. ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... shouted Josey, in his loudest voice, which, being more shrill than that of Jonas, was perhaps ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... column and dart like forked lightning to the beads, which instantly shone a luminous red. The native now picked them up, and, putting them round his neck, clapped the palms of his hands vigorously together, uttering as he did so a succession of shrill cries, that gradually became more and more animal in tone, and finally ended in a roar that converted every particle of blood in my veins into ice. The crimson colour now abruptly vanished—whither it went I know not—the shade that had ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... the heaven and changed, as if into silvery feathers, the mimosa and acacia twigs. In the dense jungles resounded here and there the shrill and, at the same time, mockingly mirthful laugh of the hyenas, which in that gory region found far too many corpses. From time to time the detachment conducting the caravan encountered other patrols and exchanged with them the agreed countersign. They came to the hills on the river banks ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... they were passing. Behind them the six little negroes walked primly in single file, Mary Jo in the lead and a chocolate-coloured atom of two toddling at the tail of the procession. From time to time shrill squeaks went up from the rear when a startled partridge whirred over the pasture or a bare brown foot came down on a ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... 'orses there was, and a sound of cabs and omnibuses, and then a lot of whistling, shrill whistles, whistles that froze 'is marrer. And directly the whistles began things begun to show, people in the streets 'urrying, people in the 'ouses and shops busying themselves, moty cars in the streets, a sort of moonlight in all the lamps and winders. People, ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... bow from the veiled Hortense, shrill thanks from Kitty, and the car, turning, again ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... darkly all through the long afternoons, a small party of hideously painted savages skulked silently in ambush. Suddenly to their strained ears was borne the sound of horses' hoofs; and then, all at once, a woman's voice rang out in a single shrill, startled cry. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... gloom to a sunny ending. Fancy our own dear Pollyanna, the glad girl, adopted by an aunt in "Crime and Punishment." Even Dostoyevsky must have laid down his doleful pen to give her at last a happy wedding—flower-girls and angel-food, even a shrill soprano behind the hired palms and a ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... locusts (I. iii. 151) he compares to shrill-voiced creatures. Instruments whose strings are thin and vibrate quickly, easily cut the air, and give an acute sound. Those with thick ones, through the slow movement, have a deep sound. Homer calls the pipe acute—acute because being thin it gives an acute sound. Homer ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... burning power, Wood with the smart, with shouts and shrieking shrill, He sought his ease in river, field, and bower; But, for the time, his grief ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... is a movement outward, an unfolding, a development. To be tied down, pinned to a task that is repugnant, and to have the shrill voice of Necessity whistling eternally in your ears, "Do this or starve," is to starve; for it starves the heart, the soul, and all the higher aspirations of your being pine ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... victory, we came in eight days to a mountain about ten or twelve miles in circuit, which was inhabited by about 5000 Jews. These were of very small stature, hardly exceeding five or six spans in height, and some much less[37]. They have small shrill voices like women, and are of very dark complexions, some blacker than the rest. Their only food is the flesh of goats. They are all circumcised and follow the Jewish law, and when any Mahometan falls into their hands they flea him alive. We found a hole ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... commandant; graceful steam-yachts, flying the flag of the Associated Press, were constantly coming in with news or going out in search of it; swift naphtha-launches carrying naval officers in white uniforms darted hither and thither from one cruiser to another, whistling shrill warnings to the slower boats pulled by sailors from the transports; officers on the monitors were exchanging "wigwag" flag-signals with other officers on the gunboats or the troop-ships; and from every direction came shouts, bugle-calls, the shrieks of steam-whistles, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... in spite of shrill-sounding catcalls, to persuade the audience at Drury Lane to damn the play, our trio went to supper at the house of Erskine's sister, Lady Betty Macfarlane, in Leicester Street, and there found themselves so fertile in sallies of humour, wit, and ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... of the sun, burned out, a conflagration at the verge of the world. In the night, awaking gently as one who is whispered to—listen! Ah! all the orchestra is at work—the keyhole, the chink, and the chimney; whoo-hooing in the keyhole, whistling shrill whew-w-w! in the chink, moaning long and deep in the chimney. Over in the field the row of pines was sighing; the wind lingered and clung to the close foliage, and each needle of the million million leaflets drew its tongue across the organ ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... a great charm in conversation, as in the lecture-room. It was never loud, never shrill, but singularly penetrating. He was apt to hesitate in the course of a sentence, so as to be sure of the exact word he wanted; picking his way through his vocabulary, to get at the best expression of his thought, as ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... voice was shrill, and there was a tremor in her tones. Cora fairly leaped out beside him. She was staring at the brown leather wallet the wallet that had contained ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... did Gideon, but no warrior, not even his illustrious prototype himself, ever kept sterner discipline in his ranks when his followers seemed prone to overstep the bounds of right. At a very early age his shrill voice could be heard calling in admonitory tones, caught from his mother's very lips, "You 'Nelius, don' you let me ketch you th'owin' at ol' mis' guinea-hens no mo'; you hyeah me?" or "Hi'am, you come offen de top er dat shed 'fo' you fall an' ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... brought into the pen, at which I was not surprised. Having pitched their voices on the proper key, they never ceased shrieking, kicking, crying, throwing up, and going through the whole list of baby performances. The nurses scolded with shrill voices above the bedlam that had hushed even Mrs. R——'s complaints; Jennie and Minna quarreled, kicked, and cried; and as an aggravation to the previous discomforts, a broad-shouldered, perspiring Irishwoman sat just by my head, bracing herself against my pillow ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... suddenly, as a scream pealed through the moat-house—a wild shrill cry, which, coming from somewhere overhead, seemed to fill the dining-room with the shuddering, despairing intensity of its appeal. It was the shriek of ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... unrecognized, the white-eyed vireo, or flycatcher, deserves particular mention. The song of this bird is not particularly sweet and soft; on the contrary, it is a little hard and shrill, like that of the indigo-bird or oriole; but for brightness, volubility, execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed by any of our northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as stated, not ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... is the result of a criticism, and this is quite enough to put it in another category altogether from the patriotism of the Boers, whom he hounded down in South Africa. In speaking of the really patriotic peoples, such as the Irish, he has some difficulty in keeping a shrill irritation out of his language. The frame of mind which he really describes with beauty and nobility is the frame of mind of the cosmopolitan man who ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... moonstone cold, She awaiteth her ghastly groom. Not a feather she moves, not a carol she sings, As she waits in her tree so still, But when her heart heareth his flapping wings, She hoots out her welcome shrill! ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... to assume the part of peace-maker, in which, being himself a keen debater, he failed, and there is no saying what might have been the result of it if old Martha had not brought the action to a summary close by telling her visitors in shrill tones to "hold their noise." This they did after laughing heartily at the old woman's fierce expression ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... river vessels which from our height looked like the toy craft on the lake in Central Park were whistling a shrill salute that, toned down by the distance, was really ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... was changed; the lady was not the scornful beauty she had seemed, while Prosper's youth was dry within him. She seemed a suppliant, he a judge, deliberate. Such a story from such an one would have set him on fire an hour ago; but now his words came sharply from him, whistling like a shrill wind. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... out the sick woman with sudden shrill vehemence. "That's what you rich folks are always after. Who asked the lady to come here with her purse in her hand to tempt him when he wasn't himself to know what he was doing? First you get him into a scrape, and ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... a long pause. "Twenty-one years," he said, in a shrill whisper. "Twenty-one years ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... people had placed corn-granaries at different parts of this forest, and had been careful to leave no track to them—a provision in case of further visits of Mazitu. King-hunters[39] abound, and make the air resound with their stridulous notes, which commence with a sharp, shrill cheep, and then follows a succession of notes, which resembles a pea in a whistle. Another bird is particularly conspicuous at present by its chattering activity, its nest consists of a bundle of fine seed-stalks of grass hung at the end of a branch, the free ends being left untrimmed, and no ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... had risen towards the close of this mad speech to a reedy shriek that rang through the quiet, darkening house like the long, shrill cry of some water-fowl heard at night in ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse rang sharp in my ear! It was I, who was the author of the deed that caused the shrill wails that I heard. By this hand, the dead man had died. Remorse smote me hard; and like lightning I asked myself, whether the death-deed I had done was sprung of a virtuous motive, the rescuing a captive from thrall; or whether beneath that pretense, I had engaged in this fatal affray for ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... that they don't come up stairs. It's nice to be in your own place, though the folks where I staid were very good and pleasant, I s'pose they thought I might remember them in my will," and she gave a shrill sort of cackle. "Now I tell you there isn't much fun in living to be old, and I seem to have lost my spunk. It's just a kind of drowsing life away. Now tell me what you did! My, but this toast tastes good! Better ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... That's what I should think a maid would do, and that is what Mistress Judith has done for a week past. And then to-day, as I hung about outside her windows, I heard her rating her maids. Mistress Judith's voice can be quite high and shrill when she is annoyed, you may remember; and the one complete sentence that I heard was this: 'Am I always to be buried in a country house, think ye, and what would town folk think of stitches such as those if they could ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... at Gould's door; there was no response. "Gould!" he cried, "Gould! are you in?" As there was still no answer he turned the handle and looked in; there was the canary hanging in the window, through which the sun poured, and his shrill notes went through his head; but no Gould. "Plague take it!" muttered Saurin; "it is all to do now another time, and I cannot get this suspense over. I wonder where the fellow ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... a great marble palace, swept hourly by the thin, clear air of the Lucchesan plain; and her lord, went out to war with Pisa or Pescia, or even further afield, following Emperor or Pope to that Monteaperti which made Arbia run colour of wine, or shrill Benevento, or Altopasdo which cost the Florentines so dear.[1] But Ilaria stayed at home to trifle with lap-dogs and jongleurs under the orange trees: heard boys make stammering love, and laughed lightly at their Decameron ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... and content that the truth can very well spare me, and have itself spoken by another without leaving it or me the worse. Enough if we have learned that music exists, that it is proper to us, and that we cannot go forth of it. Our pipes, however shrill and squeaking, certify this our faith in Tune, and the eternal Amelioration may one day reach our ears and instruments. It is a poor second thought, this ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and forbidding, through thin gray mist. Pools of water dotted the marish fields, and beyond these lay a wet, brown moss where wild cotton grew among the peat-hags. Plover were crying about the waste and a curlew's shrill tremolo rang out as it flitted across the leaden sky. The outlook was not encouraging, but Foster picked his way across the bog and struck up the side of a fell. There was a road, but it would take ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... a gold whistle from his pocket and blew a shrill note that echoed through every part of the cave. Instantly nomes began to pour in through the side arches in great numbers, until the immense space was packed with them as far as the eye could reach. All were armed with glittering weapons of polished silver and gold, and ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... high up in the blue or gray or squally sky, then a deafening crash and a back fire fusillade of echoes. The oldest frequenter of the market never got used to it. On Wednesday, as the shot broke across the babel of shrill bargaining, every man in the place jumped, and not one was quicker of recovery than wee Bobby. Instantly ashamed, as an intelligent little dog who knew the import of the gun should be, Bobby denied his alarm in a tiny pink ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... the smallest possible of Little Mistresses, there was no shyness between them, and they were fully privileged to each other's society by her mother. When she flitted away again, Tonelli was left to a stillness broken only by the soft breathing of the old man in the next room, and by the shrill discourse of his own loquacious pen, so that he was commonly glad enough when it came five o'clock. At this hour he put on his black coat, that shone with constant use, and his faithful silk hat, worn down to the pasteboard with assiduous brushing, and ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... the game!" he said aloud, and instantly strode across the room, as Cato sprang up and barked furiously at the box. Simultaneously the top of the box flew up, and uttering a shrill whistle, the man sprang to a sitting posture, while through the wide-flung door the other two ruffians appeared with pistols cocked, At once there began a deadly struggle. The dog had leaped upon the box and knocked the "dead" ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... his renderings, or his unswerving loyalty to the composer, has been heard in London in my time. Yet, by reason of that very prodigious correctness, the "Dutchman" overture seemed bare and comparatively lifeless: the roar and the hiss of the storm were absent, and the shrill discordant wail of wind in the cordage; one heard, not the wail or the hiss or the roar, but the notes which—in our crude scale with its arbitrary division into tones and half-tones—Wagner had perforce to use to suggest them. There was even something of flippancy in it after Mottl's ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... he listened. The sharp voice and restless movements of his niece were the only sounds he heard. They seemed to frighten him; for he stole on quickly to his own room, and went to bed. Even there he could hear a shrill note of conversation occasionally from the opposite room, where Marian was sitting on a sofa, trying to subdue the hysteria which had been gaining on her since her escape from the balcony; whilst Elinor, ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... A shrill whistle smote the air; Steele's glance turned to the window. The boy, having delivered his message, had left the door; with lips puckered to the loud and imperfect rendition of a popular street melody, he was making ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... his enemy behold him then and there was the last bitter drop in poor Ben's cup of humiliation. A shrill approving whistle from the hill was some comfort, however, and gave him spirit to help Bab out with composure, though his hands were blistered and he had hardly breath enough to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... was building my fire of cocoanut-husks as usual in the morning to cook my coffee and eggs, when a whistle split the sultry air. Far from the bay it came, shrill and demanding; ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... view. At last she was seen to wear, and in so doing, before she was brought to the wind on the other tack, she was so close to them that they could distinguish the men on board: they could see the foaming water as it was hurled from her bows; hear the shrill whistle of the boatswain's pipes, the creaking of the ship's timbers, and the complaining of her masts; and then the gloom gradually rose, and in a few seconds ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... a shrill war-whoop, then the girls grabbed and shook her. The amazed pirates were in a panic. Three of them had been left on the lower deck of the "Red Rover." The rowboat had been quickly pushed off as soon as the occupants recovered from their first surprise. The three Tramps made a leap for the rowboat. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... attention in the absolute quiet when nothing interrupts him; but when there suddenly rises up a wind of talk in the room which is separated from him only by a door, a tempest of chattering words and laughter, shrill and bursting forth in something like shrieks, making the student start, that is altogether a different business. The lady outside, who evidently had multiplied herself—unless it was conceivable that the ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... ties, or holds their arms and whispers: and every one is in love with her, and she has the greatest success. So I can't think, Mamma, why you have always told me never to do any of these things, when you want me to be a success so much. Her voice is dreadfully shrill, and such an odd pronunciation, but no one seems to mind that. I rather like her, she is so jolly but some of the women of the party won't speak to her, except to say disagreeable things. Jane Roose ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... stood directly before her as she gazed with a troubled look into the fire, her face even paler than his own. His voice had lost its metallic harmony, and sounded shrill and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... tone so dominated all her brothers' and sisters' disjointed exclamations that she eventually silenced them, and her shrill voice finished alone. And when at length she had done, it was to find Mr. Anstruther's piercing ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Saivya and Sugriva, having cased them in golden mail of the splendour of the sun and fire, and thyself putting on thy armour, stay on it carefully. Upon hearing the loud and terrible blast of my conch Panchajanya emitting the shrill Rishava note,[132] thou wilt come quickly to me. In course of a single day, O Daruka, I shall dispel the wrath and the diverse woes of my cousin, the son of my paternal aunt. By every means shall I strive so that Vibhatsu in battle may slay Jayadratha in the very sight of the Dhartarashtras. O charioteer, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... his face to look round he heard a shrill, accusing voice, "Oh, Jeff Durgin!" and he saw another storm of apples fly through the air toward the little Whitwell girl, who dodged and ran along the road below and escaped in the direction of the schoolhouse. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... all seemed to be well; then came a sudden shrill cry from Betty, followed by a hoarser one from Bob, which could mean nothing else ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... an exciting scene. The place was pretty well lighted, and the birds and beasts were all alive in their several dens and cages, walking up and down, and each uttering remonstrances after its own manner, the shrill notes of birds mingling with the moan of the beasts of prey and chattering of the monkeys. Feeding time had been put off till night to suit the undergraduates, and the undergraduates were proving their appreciation of the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... A shrill piercing scream, like the cry of a tortured soul, rang out of the forest, rising clear and trembling above the tolling of the bell and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... honor?" said a shrill voice from the dark—for such the night had already become, and threatened with a few heavy drops of straight rain, the fall of ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... a meal, and built ourselves a fire. About midnight we heard the sounds of horses rapidly approaching. Immediately we leaped from our bunks and seized our rifles, peering anxiously into the darkness. A moment later, however, we were reassured by a shrill whistle peculiar to Buck Barry, and a moment later he and ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... afternoon, shining with the undimmed reflection of the burning sun. The air was laden with salty odors of the marshes. A light afternoon haze hung over the distance. Frogs were lazily croaking, and the killdeer's shrill cry came plaintively to the ear. A number of cows stood knee-deep in mud and water, round as barrels, and breathing hard, with tails unceasingly ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson
... sound of voices just then, as I wrote, many voices, coming nearer, shrill women's voices, cutting through one's thoughts, and I went out to see ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... then he shrieks out his ecstasy, startling even the sportsman with his sharp, shrill, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the rasping sound came Dodd's shrill whistle. Just audible to human ears, though probably sounding like the roar of thunder to those of the beetles, there was no need ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... by the brutalities and industrial injustices which we see everywhere about us. When I recall how often I have seen Socialists and ardent non-Socialists working side by side for some specific measure of social or industrial reform, and how I have found opposed to them on the side of privilege many shrill reactionaries who insist on calling all reformers Socialists, I refuse to be panic-stricken by having this title mistakenly ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Jove, it's killing, isn't it?" he said, in his shrill voice, and with his monocle in his mole-like eye, he rode past ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... are many chiefly addicted to fattening themselves up by gluttony, who, following the scent of any delicate food, and the shrill voices of the women who, from cockcrow, cry out with a shrill scream, like so many peacocks, and gliding over the ground on tiptoe, get an entrance into the halls, biting their nails while the dishes are getting cool. Others fix their eyes intently on the tainted ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... one of the mice, a female, in a trap, which produced in the trap five young ones, and devoured three of them. But what was chief of all, from a cloudless and clear sky there came the sound of a trumpet, so shrill and mournful, that by reason of the greatness thereof men were beside themselves and crouched for fear. The Tuscan seers interpreted this to portend the commencement of a new period, and a general change. They say that there are in all eight periods, which differ ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... fell asleep. He did not awake till late the next morning. The sun was streaming in through the beautiful window-curtains, and the birds were uttering their shrill cries in the woods. In that country a singing bird is as rare as ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Katupong, Beragai, Kutok, Embuas, Nendak, Papau and Bejampong. These are supposed to reveal to the Dyaks the will of the great god Singalang Burong. These birds are beautiful in plumage, but, like most tropical birds, they have little song, and their calls are shrill and piercing. They are supposed to be the seven sons-in-law of Singalang Burong, and the legend which tells of how the Dyaks came to know them and to listen to their cries is given in Chap. ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... on what was called the "Amen side." Then the services began, the preacher leading the hymns, and the cracked voices of the old ladies joining in at the wrong places. But after a while a venerable negro in the gallery tuned up, and sang down the shrill swallows with natural melody. The prayers were long, and broken by ejaculations from the pews. The text was announced amid profound silence, after everybody had coughed several times, and then the itinerant launched into his sermon. At first it was dry and argumentative, then burdened with divisions ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... simple in content and devoid of imaginative passages; his delivery was conspicuously defective; his voice, uneven in quality, now low, now breaking into a shrill note, seemed to come forth only at the bidding of a tremendous will. Every word appeared to necessitate an effort and to be ground out between clenched teeth. Yet his listeners hung on every word with breathless attention. His smile broke forth, and they found it irresistible; he grew serious, ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... in high favour at Plumfield; and the river where the old punt used to wabble about with a cargo of small boys, or echo to the shrill screams of little girls trying to get lilies, now was alive with boats of all kinds, from the slender wherry to the trim pleasure-craft, gay with cushions, awnings, and fluttering pennons. Everyone rowed, and the girls as well as the youths had their races, ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... are girt with outer mists; My ears sing shrill, and this I bless; My finger-nails do bite my fists In ecstasy of loneliness. This I intend, and this I want, That—passing—you may only mark A dumb soul with its confidant Entombed together in ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... read somewhere that the number of them was one hundred and twenty-five. The rumor and the furious barking of Bar and its whelps goes into all lands: such rabid loud baying at mankind and the moon; and then, under Russia's treatment, such shrill yelping and shrieking, was not heard in the world before, though perhaps ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a woman choler shows, Naught are they, peevish, proud, malicious; But worst of all, red, shrill, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... us from Ellan, and a Mr. Vivian, who, though the brother of a Cabinet Minister, seemed to me a very vain and vapid person, with the eyes of a mole, a vacant smile, a stupid expression, an abrupt way of speaking through his teeth, and a shrill voice which gave the impression of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... very magnificent houses. Doors stood open, and there were traces of confusion in some of the rooms; but Dorcas was already hurrying her companions up the stairs, and the silence of the house was broken by the sound of a shrill voice demanding in imperious tones who were coming ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... changes, the winds are loud and shrill, The falling flakes are shrouding the mountain and the hill, But safe within our snug cabane with comrades gathered near, We set the rafters ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... sigh of relief, "that's mos' enuff itself to make a Christmas. Hain't never tasted turkey." He was silent a minute, in which the clock ticked loudly. It was purple now beyond the old-fashioned panes and the lamp seemed brighter. Jimsy's shrill young voice broke the quiet, as it would, of course, be ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... and broke out into a volley of slang against the unoffending couple. "Now, then, stoopid! Don't keep the ground if you can't dance, old Slow Coach!" the young surgeon roared out (using, at the same time, other expressions far more emphatic), and was joined in his abuse by the shrill language and laughter of his partner, to the interruption of the ball, the terror of poor little Fanny, and the ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Polly, walking about her perch very fast indeed, and ruffling up her feathers as she walked. "No bird I ever had the pleasure of living beside could say I was unreasonable; so please state your case, state your case—I'm all attention, at-ten-tion;" and she lengthened out the last word with a shrill scream peculiar to parrots. ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... morning, hope woke again, and as she dressed Jessie sung to keep her heart up, still trusting that some one would remember her before the day was over. As she opened her windows the sparrows welcomed her with shrill chirpings, and the sun turned the snow-covered vine to a glittering network very beautiful to see as it hung like a veil of lace over the dingy wall. Jessie smiled as she saw it, while taking a long ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... year agone, when wildly shrill The wind sat singing on this bough, The churchyard on the neighboring hill Had not so many graves as now. When the May-morn, with hand of light, The clouds above her bosom drew, And o'er the blue, cold steeps of night Went treading out the stars ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... rushed, as if to show what they could do in time of need. It was a beautiful sight, exciting and stirring; with the beat of horses' hoofs, the clatter of harness, the rumble of wheels tearing along over the ground, the flash of a sabre now and then, the ringing words of command, and the soft, shrill echoing bugle which repeated them. I only wanted to understand it all; and in the evening I plied Preston with questions. He explained things to ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... two lines as though they composed a single word. Apparently satisfied with this display of his accomplishments, he spread his wings, and flew heavily across the lake, alighting not far from the shore, whence we could hear him occasionally uttering a shrill cry. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... beckoned, passionately, imploringly, his arm outstretched toward his broken regiment. The lull in the firing made a moment of strange quiet, broken only by groans and the hard, gasping curses of men locked in the death-grip. Therefore the shrill young voice carried far, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... shore, When he sees our Stroke; reviving the memories of yore! Then old Cam will he revisit in fancy's fairy dream, And rouse once more with sounding oar the slow and sluggish stream: But who is this with voice so shrill, so resolute and ready? Who cries so oft "too late!" "too soon!" "quicker forward!" "Steady, steady!" Why 'tis our young toxophilite, our ARCHER bold and true, The lightest and the tightest who has ever steered light-blue. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... that should hold such a space of lovely life between them,[17] now crushed violently together and mingling their fires. Already the bride-bed was spread with saffron in the gilded chamber; already the flutes were shrill by the doorway, and the bridal torches were lit, when Death entered, masked as a reveller, and the hymeneal song suddenly changed into the death-dirge; and while the kinsfolk were busy about another fire, Persephone lighted her own torch out of their hands; ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... fairly upon him now. Two revolvers exploded into the air, accompanied by the long shrill yell of the plainsmen. But just when it seemed that the lad must go down under the rush of beating hoofs, Tad all but lifted his pony from the ground, turned the little animal and headed him in the direction in which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... little boys blushed and hung their heads. It was nothing to have taken the garden, but it daunted them to have to acknowledge the fault. Before they had said a word, however, a shrill little voice ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... them descend; but the more she begged and the more desperate she became, the better pleased he seemed, and it really looked as if they might all be thrown into the ditch. Then mademoiselle, who was always rather nervous about driving, broke into shrill screams, with Marie joining in at intervals—Gilpin's flight was nothing to it—and the cart jolted and swayed so that ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... the walls came now a faint sound of gongs, of drums, of shrill, flutelike pipings. Upon them I could see hosts gathering; hosts of swarming little figures whose bodies glistened, from above whom came gleamings—the light striking upon their helms, their spear ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... a shrill whistle was heard by every one in the vault, and then the sound of shouts outside, and the tramping of feet.—"The game's up!" cried one of the men with the blackened faces; "every one for himself!" and a rush was made for the steps. But it was too late: a strong guard of police fully armed ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... deal of confusion in the building. Hurried footsteps came and went up and down the passages; now and then he heard approaching voices, which tantalizingly passed on, or died away before reaching his door. Once a shrill shriek—a woman's shriek—rang through the corridor and caused him to ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in a lonely corner of the transept, and followed the service from without the pale. Yesterday, at my usual hour for exercise, I went to walk by the river; but rain came on, and I finished my walk under the cloisters, which rang from end to end with the shrill shouts of a parcel of school-boys, let out for their noon-day recess. Last night the weather was fearful, a perfect storm of wind and rain, so that, though my audience was small, I was agreeably surprised to find I ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... half-way up the stairs Aunt Julia stumbled and Shorthouse turned to catch her by the arm, and just at that moment there came a terrific crash in the servants' corridor overhead. It was instantly followed by a shrill, agonised scream that was a cry of terror and a cry for help ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... not know why these sea-urchins are so far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with that shrill obbligato, "Soldo, soldo, soldo!" rattling like a dropping fire ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... we saw the hounds coming in full speed on our track, and the soul drivers close after them on horse back, yelling like tigers, as they came in sight. The shrill yelling of the savage blood hounds as they drew ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... lost again; and amid shrill titterings the gorgeous scarlet kimono fell to the ground. She was left standing in a pretty blue under-kimono of light silk with a pale pink design of ...
— Kimono • John Paris |
