"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... They thus gone, and he being returned unto us again, but nothing knowing of their flight from their fort, forthwith came a Frenchman, [Nicolas Borgoignon] being a fifer (who had been prisoner with them) in a little boat, playing on his fife the tune of the Prince of Orange his song. And being called unto by the guard, he told them before he put foot out of the boat what he was himself, and how the Spaniards were gone from the fort; offering either to remain ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... grief of every player, Appear as often as their image there: They can't, like candidate for other seat, Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat. Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon, And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune: But what they have they give; could Clive[3] do more, Though for each million he had brought home four? Shuter[4] keeps open house at Southwark fair, And hopes the friends of humour will be there; 30 In Smithfield, Yates[5] prepares the rival treat For those who laughter love, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... shall I, overjoyed at Caesar's being victorious, drink with you under the stately dome (for so it pleases Jove) the Caecuban reserved for festal entertainments, while the lyre plays a tune, accompanied with flutes, that in the Doric, these in the Phrygian measure? As lately, when the Neptunian admiral, driven from the sea, and his navy burned, fled, after having menaced those chains ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... to go directly to his apartment, that handy little rez-de-chaussee near the Trocadero, was obviously inadvisable. Without apparent hesitation Lanyard directed the driver to the Hotel Lutetia, tossed the ragged spy a sou, and was off to the tune of a slammed door and a motor that ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Timea very heartily, but when he learnt that his vessel was lost, and all Timea's property, except the thousand ducats, and the wheat sacks—now spoilt by water—he altered his tune. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... since though 't is evening, Thou a new Aurora dazzleth, That the birds in public concert Hail thee with a joyous anthem; Not in vain the streams and fountains, As their crystal current passes, Keep melodious time and tune With the bent boughs of the alders; The light movement of the zephyrs As athwart the flowers they 're wafted, Bends their heads to see thee coming, Then ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... tedious things. The Belgians are as fond of chimes as the Dutch are of stagnant water. We heard them everywhere in Belgium; and in some towns they are incessant, jangling every seven and a half minutes. The chimes at Bruges ring every quarter hour for a minute, and at the full hour attempt a tune. The revolving machinery grinds out the tune, which is changed at least once a year; and on Sundays a musician, chosen by the town, plays the chimes. In so many bells (there are forty-eight), the least of which weighs twelve pounds, and the largest over eleven thousand, there must be soft notes ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... voices takes up the tune and the solo is repeated, after which the alphabet is sung through, and the last letter, Z, sustained and repeated again and again, to bother the next child whose turn it now is to sing the next solo. The new solo must be a ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... must be the most perfect of your sex! Why, his mind was made up about you, Amelie, before he said a word to me. Indeed, he only just wanted to enjoy the supernal pleasure of hearing me sing the praises of Amelie De Repentigny to the tune composed by himself." ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... I amused myself with watching their behaviour; and of the other two, one seemed to employ himself in counting the trees as we drove by them, the other drew his hat over his eyes, and counterfeited a slumber. The man of benevolence, to shew that he was not depressed by our neglect, hummed a tune, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... the hymn which the Little Flock, following Dylks for a certain way, were singing. "'Sounds weel at a distance,' as the Scotchman said of the bagpipes. And the farther the better. I don't believe I should care if I never heard that tune again." They reached Braile's cabin, and he said, "Well, now come in and have something to stay your stomach while you're waiting for Sally to make the ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... refused to marry him why don't I go home?" Denham thought to himself. But he went on walking beside Rodney, and for a time they did not speak, though Rodney hummed snatches of a tune out of an opera by Mozart. A feeling of contempt and liking combine very naturally in the mind of one to whom another has just spoken unpremeditatedly, revealing rather more of his private feelings than he intended to reveal. Denham began to wonder what sort of person ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... says that every morning when he finds his standards are down and he feels lazy and indifferent he "hauls himself over the coals," as he calls it, in order to force himself up to a higher standard and put himself in tune for the day. It is the very first ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... you like it, for I want you to take me to one of the new concerts some night. I really need some music to put me in tune. Will you, please?" ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... moonlight on the lake, and I got the cowboy and the big game hunter and the educated Indian to get down on their knees around pa, and chant something that would sound terrible to the Indians. The only thing in the way of a chant that all of them could chant was the football tune, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," and we were whooping it up over pa's illuminated remains when the Indians came out to put Pa on the fire, and when they saw the phosphorescent glow all over him, and, his face looking as though he was at peace with all the world, and us whites ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... now-a-days, one waved to his neighbor who happened to be on a slight ridge above him and sang out: "You tak the High Road an' I'll tak the Low Road." And immediately the song spread up and down the line; even above the tremendous roar of the guns you could hear that battalion going into action to the tune of ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... recognition. Then some of the boys began dropping off and some began breaking down. I had occasional mornings, after big dinners or specially convivial affairs, when I did not feel very well—when I was out of tune and knew why. Still, I continued as of old, and thought nothing of it except as the regular katzenjammer—to ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... consented to entertain their hosts. It was then that Casey was once more blinded by the brilliance of the lady and forgot certain little blemishes that had seemed to him quite pronounced. The cowboys obligingly built a bonfire before the tent, into which the couple retired to set their stage and tune their instruments. Casey lay back on a cowboy's rolled bed with his knees crossed, his hands clasped behind his thinning hair, and smoked and watched the first pale stars come out while he listened to the pleasant twang of banjos in ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... by the whole party, with exuberant gayety, amid the loud clinking of goblets. Never before had the lad heard such bold, joyous voices; even at the second verse his heart bounded and it seemed as if he must join in the tune, which he had quickly caught. The ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a song, but a melancholy sort of a song. I'd as lief be listening to a saw going through timber. Wait, now, till you will hear myself giving out a tune on the ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... her thin wan fingers beat the wall In time to his old tune: he changed the theme, And sung of Love; the fierce name struck through all Her recollection; on her flashed the dream Of what she was, and is, if ye could call To be so being; in a gushing stream The tears rushed forth from her o'erclouded brain, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... is like the bad breath of a giant panting for more and more riches. He gets them and pants the fiercer, smelling and swelling prodigiously. He has a voice, a hoarse voice, hot and rapacious trained to one tune: "Wealth! I will get Wealth! I will make Wealth! I will sell Wealth for more Wealth! My house shall be dirty, my garment shall be dirty, and I will foul my neighbor so that he cannot be clean—but I will get Wealth! There shall be no clean thing about me: my ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... peninsula! A quarter of the energy they are about to develop for the sake of getting back a few miles of la belle France could give us Asia; Africa; the Balkans; the Black Sea; the mouths of the Danube: it would enable us to swap rifles for wheat with the Russians; more vital still, it would tune up the hearts of the Russian soldiery to ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Austria or Prussia, Catharine said she was willing to bear all the blame of the thing; and, laughing heartily, she called the protests that were sent on the subject, "moutarde apres diner." Frederick resorted to self-deception, proclaiming to the world, "that for the first tune the King and the Republic of Poland were established on a firm basis; that they could now apply themselves in peace to the construction of such a government as would tend to preserve the balance of power between proximate nations, and prevent ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and sleep secure; Thy soul is safe, thy body sure. He that guards thee, he that keeps, Never slumbers, never sleeps. A quiet conscience in the breast Has only peace, has only rest. The wisest and the mirth of kings Are out of tune unless she sings: Then close thine eyes in peace and sleep secure, No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... "I remember that Taku would call me Father at times, and—if he was very fond of me—Grandfather. But all he wanted at that tune was to keep Opata from being elected in his father's place, and Opata, who understood this ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... the window-pane with his fingertips and whistled, scarcely audibly, a fragment of tune. His pursed up mouth made it clear that he was not a handsome man—the lower ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... a cross fellow was beating an ass, Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass; He took out his pipe and played them a tune, And the jackass's load was ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... been set to excellent and appropriate music by Mr. Arthur Henry Brown, Brentwood, Essex, and is published by Novello & Co., London. It is noteworthy that Mr. Brown is honourably associated with Eastern Hymnody by his tune, St. Anatolius, which was composed for Dr. Neale's rendering of the Greek evening hymn, {ten hemeran dielthon}, "The day is past and over"; and also by Orthodoxus and Apostolicus, which were composed for The Ektene and The Litany Of The Deacon respectively; and by St. Stythians, ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... A receiver containing a vibrating reed, acted on by an electro-magnet. Such a reed answers only to impulses tuned to its own pitch. If such are received from the magnet it will vibrate. Impulses not in tune with it will not affect ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... drew out the words, and put a little tune into them. The pupils repeated them after ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... shared the joys and the sorrows of the good people of Rotterdam. Around it, neatly arranged like the blue jars in an old-fashioned apothecary shop, hung the little fellows, who twice each week played a merry tune for the benefit of the country-folk who had come to market to buy and sell and hear what the big world had been doing. But in a corner—all alone and shunned by the others—a big black bell, silent and stern, the bell ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... I can safely say that, but it was in a rather quiet way. We very, very seldom played the piano; we played the flute and the clarinet together, and made good music, too, what there was of it, but we always played the same old tune; it was a very pretty tune —how well I remember it—I wonder when I shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or the organ except at devotions—but I am too fast: young Albert did know part of a tune something about "O Something-Or-Other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... varying shades produced. Owing to the different rates of vibrations caused by the different colors, the difficulty has been to photograph them, but this has now been accomplished. Harmony, or "being in tune," as is the common expression, is as necessary in light, ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... the appearance of Masetto and his friends. Zerlina is summoned to the scene by the cries of Masetto after Don Giovanni has beaten him, and sings to him for his consolation the beautiful aria, "Vedrai carino," which has more than once been set to sacred words, and has become familiar as a church tune, notwithstanding the unsanctity of its original setting. The second scene opens with a strong sextet ("Sola, sola, in bujo loco"), followed by the ludicrously solemn appeal of Leporello, "Ah! pieta, signori ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... of a fluter, playing mostly from notes, and often picking them out so slow that you'd forget what the tune began like. He despised simple things like "Way Down Upon the Suwanee River," and the difficult things seemed to despise him! But he stuck at it indefatiguable, and blew enough wind through his flute to have sailed a ship. After breakfast in the morning, which he took in his panjammers like me, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... an exquisite tune All the sweet music for me and for you, Saying my prayers by the light of the moon, Happy the prayers ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... distributed and the band struck up—not one tune but several; "Hail Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," and "Star Spangled Banner;"—having forgotten in their haste to ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... boars had not been fed for a week, and when the Shepherd was thrust into their den they rushed at him to tear him to pieces. But the Shepherd took a little flute out of the sleeve of his jacket, and began to play a merry tune, on which the wild boars first of all shrank shyly away, and then got up on their hind legs and danced gaily. The Shepherd would have given anything to be able to laugh, they looked so funny; but he dared not ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... some very disagreeable tricks which many children practice even in families counted well-bred. Such, for example, are drumming with the fingers on some piece of furniture, or humming a tune while others are talking, or interrupting conversation by pertinacious questions, or whistling in the house instead of out-doors, or speaking several at once and in loud voices to gain attention. All these are violations of good-breeding, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... clavi harp is free from all the objections inherent in the ordinary harp. The strings are of a peculiar metal, covered with an insulating material, which has for its object the production of sounds similar to that obtained from catgut strings, and to prevent the strings from falling out of tune. The keyboard, exactly like that of a piano, permits of playing in all keys, without the employment of pedals. The clavi harp has two pedals. The first, connected with the dampers, permits the playing of sustained sounds, or damping them instantaneously. The second pedal divides certain strings ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... hat and tried to walk jauntily to the fire, whistling a bit of a tune. The effort was a sad failure. "Here's where I get off. I'm in sure bad luck. Somebody must have put a copper on me when I was born. I 'low ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... hand of Paul Dubois, one of the most interesting of that new generation of sculp- tors who have revived in France an art of which our overdressed century had begun to despair, has every merit but the absence of a certain prime feeling. It is the echo of an earlier tune, - an echo with a beauti- ful cadence. Under a Renaissance canopy of white marble, elaborately worked with arabesques and che- rubs, in a relief so low that it gives the work a cer- tain look of being softened and worn by time, lies ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... no less than the sweet tune To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot The thoughts of him who gazed on them; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... wind rose, the mist began to lift, the water was running lazily from under our keel, the little boat bobbed and danced to a leisurely tune. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... executed, with such fatal consequences to her heart, at the Garthowen cynos. Up and down, round and across, with uplifted gown, Tudor following with exuberant leaps and barks of delight, and catching at her flying skirts at every opportunity. As she danced she sang with unerring ear and precision, the tune that Reuben Davies had played in the dusty mill, setting to it the words of one refrain, "Gethin's come ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... Proud Jason starts, confounded in his might, Leads back his peers, and dares no more the fight. But the sly Priestess brings her opiate spell, Soft charms that hush the triple hound of hell, Bids Orpheus tune his all-enchanting lyre, And join to calm the guardian's sleepless ire. Soon from the tepid ground blue vapors rise, And sounds melodious move along the skies; A settling tremor thro his folds extends, His crest ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... you might tune the instrument for me," she said. "I almost think the top string is not quite true, and you do ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... Paul's Yard. Having spoken of taverns where "fury and intemperance" reign, and where, "that nothing may be wanting to the height of luxury and impiety, organs have been translated out of the churches for the purpose of chanting their dithyrambics and bestiall bacchanalias to the tune of those instruments which were wont to assist them in the celebration of God's praises," the writer continues: "Your lordship will scarce believe me that the ladies of greatest quality suffer themselves to be treated in one of those taverns, where a curtezan in other cities would scarcely vouchsafe ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... "Good Lord!" and tries to get to his cloak. It is too late. ERN, a very small boy, comes through the trees into the glade. GERVASE gives a sigh of resignation and stands there. ERN stops in the middle of his tune and gazes at him. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... at the door, and after a pretty long interval—occupied by the party without, in whistling a tune, and by the party within, in persuading a refractory flat candle to allow itself to be lighted—a pair of small boots pattered over the floor-cloth, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the brain, is the soul, then certainly the soul, being corporeal, must perish with the rest of the body; if it is air, it will perhaps be dissolved; if it is fire, it will be extinguished; if it is Aristoxenus's harmony, it will be put out of tune. What shall I say of Dicaearchus, who denies that there is any soul? In all these opinions, there is nothing to affect any one after death; for all feeling is lost with life, and where there is no sensation, nothing can interfere to affect ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... weel for th' poit to sing that, but if he hed a railway at stake he wud happen alter his tune, an' espeshully if he wur an eye witness nah, for th' storm wur ragin' at th' heyest, an' th' folks wur waiting wi' pashent expectashun to know whether it wur baan to be at an end or nut, for th' flooid wur cumin' daan thicker ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called themselves "God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant." To the profane, they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a noted humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings always opened to the tune of "The Deil Fly Away with the Exciseman," and that the sacrament was dispensed in the form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked hits at the evangelist, who had been suspected of smuggling in his youth, and had been overtaken ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him, bathed in quiet sunshine; the stork's nest was empty, but the apples still clung to the wild apple-tree; though leaves had fallen, the red hips glistened, and the blackbird whistled in the little green cage that hung in the lowly window of his childhood's home; the blackbird whistled the tune he had taught him, and the old grandmother wound chickweed about the bars of the cage, as her grandson had been wont to do. And the smith's pretty young daughter stood drawing water from the well, and as she nodded to the grandmother, the latter beckoned to her, and held up a letter to show ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... affectation or mere imitation in this taste, for I used generally to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep time and hum a tune correctly; and it is a mystery how I could possibly have derived pleasure ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... drunk with much appreciation. Over the second came a dallying. Nick, experiencing the influence of the spirit, asked for a tune on the fiddle. Victor responded with alacrity and wailed out an old half-breed melody, a series of repetitions of a morbid refrain. It produced, nevertheless, an enlivening effect upon Ralph, who asked for ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... him in silence with lips just parted. For her life she could not speak; but the sun grew dark, and the river changed its merry tune to mournful dirges. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... may be," interrupted the king. "I believe I am only whistling a merry tune to keep up my spirits in the dark. If I were on more familiar terms with what other men call fear I should have ample reason to be afraid; for in the quail-fight we have gone in for I have wagered a crown-aye, and more than that even. To-morrow only will decide whether the game is lost ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and fife band, under the supervision of the Millbrook Band of Hope Committee. Never shall I forget our bandmaster. He was a strict disciplinarian. No looseness was allowed in our playing; thoroughness was stamped on every tune we played. On practice nights he took each of the boys aside, and one by one each had to play the music as set—every note must be clear and distinct. Occasionally our band would march through the village, the drum ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... he's—oh, he's Tim, that's all. And not many of 'em come better. Driving a motor truck, he was, and satisfied at that. It was up at a Terrace Garden dance we got acquainted. No music at all in his head; but in his feet—say, he just naturally has to let his toes follow the tune, and if ragtime hadn't been invented he'd have walked slow all his life. And me? Well, I ought to dance, with Father a born fiddler, and Mother brought up with castanets in her hands. We danced twelve of the fourteen numbers together that night, and I never even noticed ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... governor, were included the care of the clock, which scarcely ever told the hour, and that of the chimes, which were generally out of order. When these chimes used to delight Henry IV, it is to be presumed that they were kept in better tune. It was customary to make them play during all public ceremonies, and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Liston lay wrapt in delicious repose, Most harmoniously playing a tune with his nose, In a dream there appeared the adorable Venus, Who said, "To be sure there's no likeness between us; Yet to show a celestial to kindness so prone is, Your looks shall soon rival the handsome Adonis." ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... just seeing if the strings were well tuned," she said. "It is of no use trying to play if the instrument is out of tune." These last words ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... notes (as it is plain they do) of which they had no ideas. For, though I should grant sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal spirits in the brains of those birds, whilst the tune is actually playing; and that motion may be continued on to the muscles of the wings, and so the bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises, because this may tend to the bird's preservation; yet that can never be ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... expected. The machine was a heavy one, and laboured a good deal in its going. The treadles, as I have said, were very long; the brake did not always act, and the steering apparatus was stiff. Even the bell, in whose music they had promised themselves some solace, was out of tune; and the road was very like a ploughed field. The gaiety of the boys toned down into sobriety, and the sobriety into silence, and their silence into the ill-humour begotten of perspiration, dust, fatigue, and disappointment. Their high old time ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... O sun! Sing on, O birds of song! And in her light my heart fashions a tune Not wholly sad, most like a tender rune Sung by some knight ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 'only one' after our next clean-up in the Falling Wall. And he won't be 'one' if he doesn't change his tune." ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... creates, true harmony! O'er a delicious and mysterious sea, The exulting spirit glides, As some bold swimmer sports in Ocean's tides: But oh, the mischief that is wrought, If but one accent out of tune Assaults the ear! Alas, how soon Our paradise ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... out of tune the Mode and meritless That quickens sense in shapes whom, thou hast said, Necessitation sways! A life there was Among these self-same frail ones—Sophocles— Who visioned it too clearly, even while He dubbed the Will "the gods." Truly said he, "Such gross injustice to their own creation ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... and sang to an accompaniment of weird music. Their posturings and gesturings were elaborate and graceful, but their voices were stringently raspy and unpleasant, and there was a good deal of monotony about the tune. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his voice laughed a little, and he spoke of his people.... Nobody could have quite told what he said to them about his people. But flutes sang. The sound of feet was on the grass—touching it in tune—swift-flitting feet that paused and held a rhythmic measure while it swung. Quick-beating feet across the green. Shadowy forms. The sway of gowns, light-falling, and the call of voices low and sweet. Greek youth and maid in swiftest play. ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... herself as she turned to work, but somehow ambitious aspirations were not in a flourishing condition that morning; her heart was not in tune, and head and hands sympathized. Nothing went well, for certain neglected home-duties had dogged her into town, and now worried her more than dust, or heat, or the ceaseless clatter of tongues. Tom, Dick, and Harry's ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... of tune, you see, Master Ned." He was evidently looked upon as something of a critic in music. He rather liked to be so considered, and thought it unnecessary to assure them he knew nothing about it. The old piano ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... be adduced. At the attack of Onore, he sailed in a brigantine sitting in a chair, having a famous musician beside him playing on the harp. When the balls from the enemy began to whistle past the ears of the musician he stopt playing, on which the count desired him to proceed as the tune was excellent. One of the gentlemen near him, seeing his unconcernedness, requested him to expose himself less to the danger, as if he were slain all would be lost; "No such thing," answered he, "for if I am killed there are men enough who ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... of several minutes, Hetty began to sing. Her voice was low and tremulous, but it was earnest and solemn. The words and the tune were of the simplest form, the first being a hymn that she had been taught by her mother, and the last one of those natural melodies that find favor with all classes, in every age, coming from and being ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... knows, that Mrs. Wadman affects my brother Toby—and my brother Toby contrariwise affects Mrs. Wadman, and no obstacle in nature to forbid the music striking up this very night, yet will I answer for it, that this self-same tune will not be play'd ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Municipio; a good-bye to the public scriveners sitting at their little tables by the San Carlo; sharp round the corner, and along by the Porto Grande with its throng of vessels. All the time he sings a tune to himself, caught up in the streets of the tuneful city; an ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... atque ira: et temerarius omnia nullo Consilio aggreditur, dictis melioribus obstat, Deteriora fovens: non ulla pericula curat, Dummodo id efficiat, suadet quod coeca libido. . . . . . . . . "Succedit gravior, melior, prudentior aetas, Cumque ipsa curae adveniunt, durique labores; Tune homo mille modis, studioque enititur omni Rem facere, et nunquam sibi multa negotia desunt. Nunc peregre it, nunc ille domi, nunc rure laborat, Ut sese, uxorem, natos, famulosque gubernet, Ac servet, solus pro cunctis sollicitus, nec Jucundis fruitur dapibus, nec nocte quieta. Ambitio hunc etiam ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... trying, for this was plainly meant to annoy. But Anthea would not give herself time to think this. She led the way up the stairs, taking three at a time, and bounded to the level of Jane, who sat on the top step of all, thumping her doll to the tune of the song she was trying ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... misgivings as to the treatment he would receive from the boys of the neighborhood. The question of his social standing had been settled. He even got ready to whistle a tune, so that if any boy's back was turned, and there was danger of Johnnie's not being seen, he could call attention to himself—he, the intimate friend of ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... of his mouth. If the ten or twelve weeks since his marriage had been counted by his locks, they might have reckoned as ten or twelve years. He stood at the window mechanically picking leaves from a pot of heath placed in front of it, and drearily humming the forlorn fragment of a tune. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... demonstration, I, of course, shall have to respond to it, and I shall have nothing to say if I dribble it out before. I see you have a band. I propose now closing up by requesting you to play a certain air or tune. I have always thought "Dixie" one of the best tunes I ever heard. I have heard that our adversaries over the way have attempted to appropriate it as a national air. I insisted yesterday that we had fairly captured ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay, Cuckoo, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... suitable words than those to which it was commonly sung.[31] At this period he often resorted, in his botanical rambles, to the wooded and sequestered banks of the Kelvin, about two miles north-west of Glasgow;[32] and in consequence, he was led to compose for his favourite tune the words of his beautiful song, "Kelvin Grove." "The Harp of Renfrewshire" was now in the course of being published, in sixpence numbers, under the editorship of his college friend and professional brother, John Sim, and to this work he contributed his new song. In a future number of the work, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... did the child like it? He asked the shepherd to play the tune again, and it was such beautiful music that the keen enjoyment of it made the tears ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... to go right that spring, and yet nothing was absolutely wrong. At times I became irritated, bewildered, out of tune, and unable to understand why. The weather itself was uneasy, tepid, with long spells of hot wind and dust. I no longer seemed to find refuge in my work. I was unhappy at home. After walking for many ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... shouldn't she lead and direct Riseholme instead of Lucia? She had long wondered why darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak the omission by saying that they resembled eleven ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... felt better, or worse, had he been able to tune in on a conversation between Tom Dodd and Steve Ames that was going ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... company being entertained with a whole hogshead of claret, he was not aware of champagne being ever served in a tub before. The company were too determined to be merry to have their pleasantry put out of tune by so trifling a mishap, and it was generally voted that the joke was worth twice as much as the wine. Nevertheless, Dick could not help casting a reproachful look now and then at Andy, who had to run the gauntlet of many a joke cut at his expense, while he waited upon the wags ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... love, And list to the love of these, She a window flower, And he a winter breeze. When the frosty window veil Was melted down at noon, And the caged yellow bird Hung over her in tune, He marked her through the pane, He could not help but mark, And only passed her by, To come again at dark. He was a winter wind, Concerned with ice and snow, Dead weeds and unmated birds, And little of love could know. But he sighed upon the sill, He gave the sash a shake, ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... ridge-top, I could at least keep in sight of the house by the clump of oaks on the hillside. Last week I should have moped and fumed here, and cursed my luck in being bound to a log on a day like this. Now I turned my face to the sunlight and drank in the keen air. Now I whistled as merry a tune ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... could rivet his attention; he every moment began, quitted, and resumed his labour; he walked about without any object; inquired the hour, and looked at his watch; completely absorbed, he stopped, hummed a tune with an absent air, and ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... coffin, had made his way down to Ballawhaine. He had never been there before, and he felt confused, but he did not tremble. Half-way up the carriage-drive he passed a sandy-haired youth of his own age, a slim dandy who hummed a tune and looked at him carelessly over his shoulder. Pete knew him—he was Boss, the boys called him Dross, son ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... a moment; but another glance at Philippa's smiling face seemed to reassure her, and she sang, in a low voice, to a sweet, weird tune:— ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... a ship can only receive wireless messages from a ship that is 'in tune' with her own radio apparatus. The Universal Detector should make it possible to catch every wireless sound. I am very anxious, if I perfect it, to get it adopted in the navy. It would be of great value in time of war, for by its use every message sent by an enemy, even if ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... had a good shillelah in our hands, we would be after making them sing a different tune," exclaimed Desmond, turning round every now and then, and casting a contemptuous look on the mob. Higson and Archy Gordon walked on, however, in an unconcerned manner, thinking it more dignified to take no notice of the ill-feeling ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... The tune always recurs to me, whenever my memory goes back to the night of that miserable evening party, with all its attendant scenes and circumstances; ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... waving frantically to the doctor while from the tender came the deep, gay voices of the students who had cheered Louis singing "We want more Beer" to the tune of ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... whistle where Will had directed him to look, and brought it to him. "Now, that is a clever fellow; and I think the least I can do, in return, is to play you a tune. I hope you like music; it is the chief pleasure we shepherds have; and it seems to me that it never sounds so sweetly as it does up among the hills." So saying, he began to play a pretty Scotch air upon Tom's whistle. When he had finished, John, whose eyes were sparkling with delight ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... apropos of evolution, which will account for his present recantation. I said in my book "Selections," &c., that when Mr. Allen made stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumped upon them to some tune. I was a little scandalised then at the completeness and suddenness of the movement he executed, and spoke severely; I have sometimes feared I may have spoken too severely, but his recent performance goes far to ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... through an open door! A footfall like the wind's upon the grass! A rustle like the wind's among the leaves!... Dim as a dream of pale peach blooms of light, Blue in the blue soft pallor of the moon, She comes between the trees as a faint tune Falls from a flute far off into the night.... So Death might come to one who knew ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... you devils!" he blurted out with glee. "Come in and dance, by thunder, while I play ye the tune! Now hearken to it." ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the chest. Elise and Eva, and more particularly Petrea, endeavoured, on account of Henrik and Jacobi, to jest back again the former merriment, but it would not come, and nothing more could succeed. Everybody, but more especially Jacobi, were out of tune, and they now began to speak ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... orderly. The music made them so. The oldest daughter was only seventeen, but she looked twenty-three. She showed that she'd had enough experience in her life, though, to be gray. There was a tortured soul behind her music. Even when she played a ragtime tune she would repeat the same notes slowly and get a chord out of them that went straight to the heart. The men all bought rounds of drinks freely between the numbers, but they let them remain untasted; they drank, rather, ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... The soldiers of the allies outnumbered him two to one. On October 17, 1781, four years to a day since the surrender of Burgoyne, a drummer boy appeared on the rampart of Yorktown and beat a parley. Two days later the British soldiers marched out to the good old British tune of "The world turned upside down," and laid ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... far happier situations than that—lying bent nearly double across the yard of an enemy's ship on a black night, but at the moment, so sincerely rejoiced was I to be off that sagging rope, I felt like humming a tune. Yet I contented myself with sliding along the smooth spar until I discovered a firm strand of rope beneath my feet, ventured then to stand upright, and clung for support to the cloth of the sail. At last I gave our signal, and, as ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-natured reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present about a stockbroker's family in Russell Square, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... saved from his companion's loquacity. Baffled, but not beaten, the old fellow began to sing, at first in a low, droning tone; but growing louder as the fire of patriotism warmed him, he shouted, to a very wild and somewhat irregular tune, a ballad, of which Walpole could not but hear the words occasionally, while the tramping of the fellow's feet on the foot-board ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the other side of the table, and promptly said it again—said it many times, dancing derisively upon her toes and waving her towel; sang it, too, in the most insulting manner to the tune ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... to be found in a state of dilapidation, together with a very hungry-looking proprietor, who, for want of customers upon whom to exercise his ingenuity, pulls away all day long upon the accordion to the tune of We're a' noddin'. The other end of Our Terrace has its butcher, its public-house, its grocer, and a small furniture-shop, doing a small trade, under the charge of a very small boy. Let thus much suffice for the physiology of our subject. We proceed to record its ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... that ushers in the soup, as though giving it a warm welcome. There should be a mincing minuet-like movement for the entrees, a sparkling air for the champagne, and something robust for the joint. A sporting tune for the game: sweet melody for the sweets, and a grand and grateful Chorale—a kind of thanksgiving service as it were—when the last crumb and the last bit of cheese ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... its only about 30 miles from Dover to Callay; maybe it is on a calm day, but believe you me derie, we went up the hills of water to the tune of about a hundred miles. It was all-rite goin up, but Julie goin down is when everything "comes up." That's if you have anything left to ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... sometimes say things that don't come from the heart, you know, Jack. Wait, me boy, till I get good and rested up, and mebbe I'll sing a different tune. Ask Ned here if it's me that often shows the white flag when ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... London which inform me that the Lord North is but a puppet, and as the king pulls the wires he will dance to whatever tune the king likes. He was a nice, amiable young fellow when I stayed at his father's, my Lord Guilford's, and not without learning and judgment. But for the Exchequer—a queer ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... the tune of "Yankee Doodle." The verses may be given by a single voice, with the chorus by the school, or selected voices on ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... her shoulders. "I, too, like good music, dear; but I do not think the want of it should keep me from church." Mary again shrugged her shoulders, remembering, as she did so, that her sister-in-law did not know one tune from another. Lady Alice was the only one of the family who had ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... starting from their barge; "you get no end of exercise out of your tub, I should think, by the style you work those paddles. They go in and out beautiful! Splish, splash; splish, splash! You must be one of the wherry identical Row-brothers-row, whose voices kept tune and whose ears kept time, you know. You ought to go and splish-splash in the Freshman's River, Giglamps; - but I forgot - you ain't a freshman now, are you, old feller? Those swells in the University ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... thirty sous in her hand. The holes in her shoes spat water forth like pumps; they were real musical shoes, and played a tune as they left moist traces of their broad soles ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... the wealthiest citizens of New Ipswich was the fortunate owner of a piano, the only instrument of the kind in the place; but his treasure was almost useless to him, for the reason that it was out of tune and seriously damaged in some respects. It had lain in this condition for a long time, no one in or near the place being able to make the necessary repairs. In this extremity the owner bethought him of Jonas Chickering, who had acquired an enviable reputation for skill in his trade, and it ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... good rough Soul who works the Boat and chews his Tobacco in peace. An Aldbro' Sailor talking of my Boat said—'She go like a Wiolin, she do!' What a pretty Conceit, is it not? As the Bow slides over the Strings in a liquid Tune. Another man was talking yesterday of a great Storm: 'and, in a moment, all as ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... pass over merit, but that's what's been done to women all the time. The good-lookin' ones got all the honours, whether they deserved 'em or not, and those complainin' agen this was jeered at an' called 'Shrieking sisters,' but it's a different tune now." ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... they felt they could spare was sold, so that there might be a little ready money in the house against the arrival of winter. There was rarely anything left, and sometimes the cupboard was bare before the end of the winter; whatever was eatable had been eaten by the tune spring came on, and most often father and son knew what it was like to go hungry. Whenever the weather was fit, they put off in their boat but often rowed back empty-handed or with one skinny flat-fish in the bottom. This did not affect their outlook. They ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various |
