"Whir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... revolution, spinning, gyration, turning about an axis, turning aound an axis, circulation, roll; circumrotation^, circumvolution, circumgyration^; volutation^, circination^, turbination^, pirouette, convolution. verticity^, whir, whirl, eddy, vortex, whirlpool, gurge^; countercurrent; Maelstrom, Charybdis; Ixion. [rotating air] cyclone; tornado, whirlwind; dust devil. [rotation of an automobile] spin-out. axis, axis of rotation, swivel, pivot, pivot point; axle, spindle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... The fertile prairies of the far West not only supply the inhabitants of the Eastern States with food, but they export large quantities of meat and of grain. The workshops and factories resound with the whir of wheels and the hum of well-paid labor, which, in turn, furnishes a market for agricultural and horticultural products. There has been of late a fomentation of ill-feeling and jealously between classes dependent ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... town now you are gone! A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls Eery, distorted, as it long had shone On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone. The whir of motors, stricken through with calls Of playing boys, floats up at intervals; But all these noises blur to one long moan. What quest is worth pursuing? And how strange That other men still go accustomed ways! I hate their interest in the things they ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... uttermost to reach a zone of safety. Our prow plunged into the surging seas, and showered boat and crew alike with silvery, sparkling foam. The engines were being urged to their greatest power, and the whir of the propeller proved that below, at the motor valves, each man was doing his very best. Anxiously, we measured the distance that still separated us from our prey. Was it diminishing? Or would they get away from us before our guns could take effect? Joyfully we saw the interval ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... all the choir, ....... Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... our rear in this way, for our men fell into confusion, the horses and mules plunging and trying to break away. There were now men leaning on their elbows, blood dripping from their mouths. There were cries, sounding far away, inconsequent to us still standing. The whir of many arrows came, and we could hear them chuck into the woodwork of the wagons, into the leather of saddle and harness, and now and again into something that gave ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... dodging between the vehicles that were standing around the disabled truck, helping to pull it from the car-tracks. Getting into a clear road, he opened the throttle and they proceeded like the wind for about six blocks. Then, for no apparent reason, the car slowed down, and with a whining whir of machinery came to a dead stop. "I'm afraid I can't make good my promise to catch that car," said the friend in a vexed tone, after vainly trying to start the car for several minutes. "I'll have to be towed to a garage," Nyoda and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... started with a whir, and Herr Heinrich passed out of the gates and along the same hungry road that had so recently consumed Mr. Direck. "Give him a last send-off," cried Teddy. "One, Two, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... obeyed with no little difficulty. My cork came up in the back water under the rock on which I stood, and there, almost at my very feet, it disappeared. I could not believe that a bass had taken it, but all doubt on the subject was dispelled by the shrill whir of my reel as the fine silk line spun out at a tremendous rate. The fish had darted across the current, and only stopped after he had taken out over two hundred feet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... of the Lafayette was a stirring affair. Promptly at three o'clock P. M. the vessel moved away from her moorings, amidst the din of the band, the waving of flags, the whir of the movie machine, the blowing of whistles and the cheers of ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens. Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them. Reverend walked he among ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... seconds the whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the spring that she must have pressed as she entered. It seemed to them both that there could be ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the ball-room, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor as the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... cold darkness of eternity he sits, this god who has grown old. His rounded eyes are open on the whir of time, but man who made him has ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... He heard the whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he went over and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be a furniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, but there were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked cars ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... for the birds had begun to shift perches, and to exchange slaps as well as to call names—the movement setting toward the tree-tops. None of the sparrows had left the roost. The storm of chatter increased and the buzz of wings quickened into a steady whir, the noise holding its own with that of the ice-wagons pounding past. The birds were filling the top-most branches, a gathering of the clans, evidently, for the day's start. The clock in Scollay Square station ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the distant, sullen thunder, followed by the unmistakable whir of a Parrott shell. Suddenly shrapnel shells began to come over, screaming, exploding, filling the air with the rush ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... had passed, when I heard a whir and a crash in the windows of the bath (where I had dined and was about to sleep), occasioned by the settling and again the flight of some pheasants. Abdul entered. 'Beard of the Prophet! what hast thou been doing? That is myself! No, no, Lippi! thou never canst have seen her: ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... The burning sky. Hot lie the glimmering plain And uplands parched. 'Behold, the bending grain, Fair in the springtide, now is dead; and dry The brooks. If yet the rainfall fail, we die Of famine sore. No bleating lambs I hear in fold Safe shut, nor lowing kine; nor on the wold The whir of mounting bird: Nor thrives about me Any living thing. So seemeth, end must be Of striving. Since all the land is cursed, What matter if by famine scorched, or thirst, We die?' he saith. "And thick the warlock swarm Above his head, wide-spreading dark wings warm, Fast flitted ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... wraithest of wraithly things! Tickle me, Love, in these Lonesome Ribs! 'Tis a fair Whing-Whangess, with phosphor rings, And bridal-jewels of fangs and stings; And she sits and as sadly and softly sings As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings,— Tickle me, Dear, Tickle me here, Tickle me, Love, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... Civilisation. Even now, as I sit on this trunk waiting for the hour of departure, I have a foretaste of the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children, the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars, the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating, smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A musician might extract some harmony from this chaos of noises, this jumble of sounds. But I—extract ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... to await the critical moment of the attack. Then, while they waited, the long white beam from a man-o'-war at sea settled along the ridge on the left and showed the strong wired entrenchments of the outpost. Whir-r-r went a shell overhead, and the first shot of the battle burst in an eruption of black smoke ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the world had been narrowed down to a few yards around us, we drove to some tall bushes growing on the bank of the slough. Faye was hunting, and about to make some ducks rise when he heard a great whir over his head, and although the snow was so thick he could not see just what was there, he quickly raised his gun and fired at something he saw moving up there. To his great amazement and my horror, an immense swan dropped down and went crashing through the bushes. It was quite as white ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... king. A simple word of command spoken in that room was the thunder of the law in the wilderness about, and men obeyed. There's a bat living there now. He tumbled about me in the dull light, filling the silence with the harsh whir ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... think that nothing is happening because you do not see yourself grow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul said for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew "from character to character." "The inward man," he says elsewhere, "is renewed from day to day." ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... red projection was within a foot of the Hoobat now and its fellows had frozen as if to allow it the honor of battle with the feathered enemy. To all appearances Queex did not see it, but when it sprang with a whir of speed which would baffle a human, the Hoobat was ready and its claws, halting their rasp, met around the wasp-thin waist of the pest, speedily cutting it in two. Only this time the Hoobat made no move to unjoint and consume the victim. Instead it squatted in ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... With a whir and a twang the elastic wood flung upwards, and the bound man was shot away from its tip with the speed of a lightning flash. He sang through the air, spinning over and over with inconceivable rapidity, and the great crowd of rebels held their breath in silence as ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... steamship, it looked, on that little lake dotted with pleasure craft, like a leviathan. Men were busy in the cars, fore and aft. The mooring ropes were cast off as the vessel gained an offing, and ballast being thrown out she began to rise slowly. The propellers began to whir, and the great craft swung around breasting the breeze and moved slowly up the lake. The crowd cheered. Count von Zeppelin, tense with excitement, alert for every sign of weakness watched his monster creation with mingled pride and apprehension. Two points were set at rest in the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... gracious trees, forming so many isles of greenery, where the bland calm air was fragrant with the sweet subtle odours breathed from magnificent cactuses, orchids, and irises. Thousands of birds, surprised among the tall grasses by the passing caravan, sprang aloft, and filled the air with the whir and winnow ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... took, alternately running and walking. The Belgian trenches were perhaps a half mile beyond us, and we could make out the tap-tap of the rifle fire which had been only a continuous cracking a mile in the rear. Into this the machine guns cut with a whir. Spent bullets dropped here and there in the inundated field to the west of us, but the German shell fire must have been ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... all summer. I heard the noise of spinning in the house, and my dog scurried off after the cat as I went in the door. I saw Miss Polly Marsh and her sister, Mrs. Snow, stepping back and forward together spinning yarn at a pair of big wheels. The wheels made such a noise with their whir and creak, and my friends were talking so fast as they twisted and turned the yarn, that they did not hear my footstep, and I stood in the doorway watching them, it was such a quaint and pretty sight. They went together ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... The whir of "B's" was interrupted, and slowly and deliberately came an "I, I, B." Alex leaped in his chair, and again ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... settled down to his work under the guttural snarl of his driver; at times the whole throng burst into impartial applause as a horse gained or lost a length; but the quick throb of the hoofs on the velvety earth and the whir of the flying wheels were the sounds ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... still, listening to the tireless whir of the machine, and looking out at the purpling range with tear-mist eyes. At last she said: "I shall never think of my father as a bad man, he was always so ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... mind as a rule worked in rather a languid and restful sort of way, but now it got going with a rush and a whir. He glared round the room. He had never seen a room so devoid of satisfactory cover. And then there came to him a scheme, a ruse. It offered a chance of escape. It was, indeed, ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... the scene unmoved, as if the two girls—she whom the master had scolded, and she who slyly gazed at him—were not his own daughters. And now the round was resumed and the three men quitted the women's workshop amidst profound silence, which only the whir of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... in the angel-fall from Heaven, is hope? The wing-whir discord of the legion's fall From God forever, mocks my heart's loud call. Empty of beauty from its base to cope, The Earth is hollow. Where, then, can I grope And not be met by echoes that ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... copper of their skins burnished, squaws sat with bead work, young fellows were playing games with smooth stones or throwing at a mark. French women had brought their wheels out under the shade of some tree, and were making a pleasant whir ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... beat out its seconds with the same monotonous sound, and the finger crept towards the fateful hour. Then came the wheeze and whir preliminary to the strokes of four, conveying to familiar ears that only eight more minutes remained. At this warning Joseph arose from his seat, and, walking out into the graveyard, made direct to an eminence overlooking the long trend ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... hatchet-hacked willows near the creeks, a tin can placed upon a stake or a bit of rag flying from a twig; all these but poorly marked the paths which were seldom pressed by the foot of a human being. Weeks might elapse, or months even, when no soul passed that way. Perhaps the whir of a partridge's wing as he flew from one feeding ground to another on the tundra was the only sound disturbing the still air for hours; or when a red fox, made sprightly by hunger, left as few foot-prints on the snow as possible, by leaping with ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... it again and turned again to the bright world outside. With arms raised and hands resting against the timbers of the doorway, she stood dreaming. A flock of pigeons passed with a whir not far away, and skirted the woods making down the valley. She watched their flight abstractedly, yet with a subconscious sense of pleasure. Life—they were Life, eager, buoyant, belonging to this wild region, where still the heart could feel ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... park made them both hot, and it was a relief to sit down on her favourite tree-root above the stream and yield herself to the luxury of summer idleness. A robin was chirping far overhead, and from the grass at her feet there came the whir of a grasshopper. Otherwise, save for the music of the stream, all was still. An exquisite, filmy drowsiness crept over her, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... how few inches he had missed the jaws of his pursuer. Away he would go in a long, long curve, and, meeting the ship in his flight, would rise in the air, turn off at right angles to his former direction, and spin away again, the whir of his wing-fins distinctly visible as well as audible. At last he would incline to the water, but just as he was about to enter it there would be an eddy—the enemy was there waiting—and he would rise twenty, thirty feet, almost perpendicularly, and dart away fully ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... it better now, and I'm not one moment too soon," leading her unsuspecting escort up to Madame, who stood leaning on the arm of Lord Rivers, her husband near welcoming late arrivals; and the air was sweet with perfume, and laden with the ceaseless murmur and everlasting whir-whir with the music of the laughter of the beautiful, the noble, and the fair, and as they follow, and crowd around Madame, their goal, the ball-room, some condole with others on their later entree, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... was so eager to have him go on that she had forgotten all about being afraid of him. "And when they whir up from the road, sir, they say, ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... still going on. You should hear the machines whir and the tongues clatter in the sewing room. Our most cowed, apathetic, spiritless little orphan cheers up and takes an interest in life when she hears that she is to possess three perfectly private dresses of her own, and each a different color, chosen by herself. And you should see ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... leather straps at my heels; yet I did not turn to see what pursued me, for I was intent upon reaching my father. Suddenly like thunder an angry voice shouted curses and threats into my ear! A rough hand wrenched my shoulder and took the meat from me! I stopped struggling to run. A deafening whir filled my head. The moon and stars began to move. Now the white prairie was sky, and the stars lay under my feet. Now again they were turning. At last the starry blue rose up into place. The noise in my ears was still. A great quiet filled the air. In my hand I found my long knife dripping with blood. ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... comes the robin. In large numbers they scour the fields and groves. You hear their piping in the meadow, in the pasture, on the hillside. Walk in the woods, and the dry leaves rustle with the whir of their wings, the air is vocal with their cheery call. In excess of joy and vivacity, they run, leap, scream, chase each other through the air, diving and sweeping among the trees with ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... swayed most violently, and, more than once, I was compelled to hold that awful figure down upon the seat before me, lest it should slide to the floor. On we sped, past hedge and tree, by field and lonely wood. And ever in my ears was the whir of the wheels, the drumming of hoofs, and the crack of the whip; and ever the flitting moonbeams danced across that muffled face until it seemed that the features writhed and gibed at me, beneath the folds of ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Why, he would be too frightened to do anything but cry; and yet there are many birds, who, when taken away a long distance, will perch on top of the weather-vane, perhaps, make up their little bits of minds which way to go, and then with a whir-r-r-r fly off over house-tops and church-steeples, towns and cities, rivers and meadows, until they reach the place from ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... had just passed through the wood of young larches close to Castle Dare, and were ascending a rough stone road that led by the side of a deep glen, when a sudden whir close by them startled the silence of this gloomy morning. In an instant Macleod had whipped his gun from his shoulder and thrust it into Ogilvie's hands. By the time the young man had full-cocked the right barrel and taken a quick aim, the bird ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... of the woods. The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the chariot sprang to earth That glorious man: he swung the long spear up. But in his brawny hand his foe hath seized A monstrous stone: full at the golden shield Of Neoptolemus he sped its flight; But, no whir staggered by its whirlwind rush, He like a giant mountain-foreland stood Which all the banded fury of river-floods Can stir not, rooted in the eternal hills; So stood unshaken still Achilles' son. Yet not for this Eurypylus' dauntless ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... I heard a whir like the echo of a sawmill, and saw several yards of steel spring shoot out of the inwards of the machine. I heard a sort of frantic shriek from Maud S. I saw a sudden cloud of pebbles and dust in the road, such as I should imagine would be ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... laughed, a bit hysterically, because laughter is, after all, akin to tears. And the little green car shot off with a whir as I turned to enter ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... strong feeling, namely, of the briefness of time, and the certainty of the messenger's return to fetch herself. Her soul did not sink into peace, but a strange peace awoke in her spirit. She heard the spring of the great clock that measures the years rushing rapidly down with a feverous whir, and saw the hands that measure the weeks and months careering around its face; while Death, like one of the white-robed angels in the tomb of the Lord, sat watching, with patient smile, for the hour when he should be wanted ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... fly along. This deep gravity in childhood is peculiar to the East. What could that boy, standing on his lump of earth as a Stylites on his pillar, be thinking of? From time to time flocks of pigeons, busy feeding, flew off with a sudden whir as the train passed by, and alighted farther away on the plain; aquatic birds swam swiftly through the reeds that outstretched behind them, pretty wagtails hopped about, wagging their tails, on the crest of the levees; and in the heavens at a vast height, soared hawks, falcons, and gerfalcons, sweeping ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... dropping into the death of sleep! how much sweeter then must it not be to sink into the sleepiest of sleeps, the father-sleep, the mother-bosomed death of nothingness and unawaking rest! Then shall all this endless whir of the wheels of thought and desire be over; then welcome the night whose darkness doth not seethe, and which no ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... just missing his skin. Afore the sarpent could strike again, the captain made a sweep with his gun bar'l that knocked off his head. He was a whopper, and the captain pulled out his knife to cut off his rattles to bring to the block-house, when he catched the whir of another rattler just behind him, and if he hadn't jumped powerful lively he would have catched it that time sartin. Howsumever, the sarpint couldn't reach him, and the captain shot the mate, and brought the music box of each ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... and troops of squirrels, with footprints here and there of the grizzly bear, and a drove of wild turkeys, with red heads aloft, rushing over an eminence at our left as we approached, and an occasional whir of a rattlesnake at our feet, sufficiently indicated the kind of denizens by which the plateau ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... maltreated him, Azuma-zi went presently to the Lord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O my Lord!" and the angry whir of the machinery seemed to answer him. Thereafter it appeared to him that whenever Holroyd came into the shed a different note came into the sounds of the dynamo. "My Lord bides his time," said Azuma-zi to himself. "The iniquity of the fool is not yet ripe." And he waited and watched ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... no resounding street With babel of electric-garish night And whir of endless wheels has put to flight The liberty of leisure. Sandaled feet And naked soles that feel the friendly dust Go easily along the never measured miles. A land at which the patron tourist smiles Because of gods in whom those people trust (He boasting One and trusting not ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... should quadruple the fitly trained teachers, the school sittings, the adequately equipped recreation centres and all incitements to higher uses of leisure time. The early years of every child should be held sacredly apart from the whir of wheels and the din of machinery; he should then rehearse in some degree, as will be later shown, the handicraft age of industry and its personalizing influence. His entrance into the world of modern labor should be not a plunge or a tumble but along ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... sooner was there an answering blast of a steam whistle, indicating that the steamer had seen the torch, than something cold, wet, leathery, and slimy slipped around my neck. I dropped the torch, and drew my knife, while I heard the whir of the static machine as ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... winter, and I shall die, as one of my own humming-birds would die, did you cage him here, and prevent him from fleeing home to the sunny South when the first leaves begin to fall. Dear children of the sun! my heart goes forth to them; and the whir of their wings is music to me, for it tells me of the South, the glaring South, with its glorious flowers, and glorious woods, its luxuriance, life, fierce enjoyments—let fierce sorrows come with them, if it must be so! Let me take the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... ball of fire low down in the southern horizon, and a peculiar gloomy twilight hung over the white wintry landscape. I could not overcome the impression that the sun was just rising and that it would soon be broad day. A white ptarmigan now and then flew up with a loud whir before us, uttered a harsh "querk, querk, querk" of affright, and sailing a few rods away, settled upon the snow and suddenly became invisible. A few magpies sat motionless in the thickets of trailing-pine as we passed, but ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... you are in Josie Fifer's kingdom—a great front room, unexpectedly bright and even cosy with its whir of sewing machines: tables, and tables, and tables, piled with orderly stacks of every sort of clothing, from shoes to hats, from gloves to parasols; and in the room beyond this, and beyond that, and again beyond that, row after row of high wooden cabinets stretching ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... off at the little station and hunted our way up, making great sweeps and jogs, as hunters must, to take in certain spots we thought promising—certain ravines and swamp edges where we are always sure of hearing the thunderous whir of partridge wings, or the soft, shrill whistle of woodcock. At noon we broiled chops and rested in the lee of the wood edge, where, even in the late fall, one can usually find spots that are warm and still. It was ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... friends of my childhood enchanted— The clear, laughing eyes looking back in my own, And the warm, chubby fingers my palms have so wanted, As when we raced over Pink pastures of clover, And mocked the quail's whir and ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... structure is balancing itself, and quivering through every fibre and leaf and twig on the few unsevered tendons that have not yet felt the keen edge of the woodman's steel. See the first leaning it cannot recover. Hear the first cracking of the central vertebra; then the mournful, moaning whir in the air; then the tremendous crash upon the green earth; the vibration of the mighty trunk on the ground, like the writhing and tremor of an ox struck by the butcher's axe; the rebound into the air of dismembered branches; the frightened ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... little rise, I heard the whir of a motor engine and the raucous voice of a Klaxon horn. Before I realized what it meant, I was in the midst of a mass of plunging, snorting animals, shouting carters, and kicking mules. In a moment the caravan scattered wildly across the plain and the road was clear save ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... night had put an end to the struggle. A sputter of rifles would break out now and then, followed perhaps by a spiritless hurrah. Occasionally a shell from a far-away battery would come pitching down somewhere near, with a whir crescendo, or flit above our heads with a whisper like that made by the wings of a night bird, to smother itself in the river. But there was no more fighting. The gunboats, however, blazed away at set intervals all ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the two girls were working over their sewing-machines, the whir of the numerous machines filling the great ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... the voices rose to a sawing like the shrill whir of wood being cut by machinery.... A derisive laugh broke into the strange sound. It was Fraulein Pfaff's laughter and was followed by her voice thinner and shriller and higher than the other. Miriam listened. What could be going on?... both ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... crying so bitterly?" "Oh!" answered the girl, "I have to spin straw into gold, and haven't a notion how it's done." "What will you give me if I spin it for you?" asked the manikin. "My necklace," replied the girl. The little man took the necklace, sat himself down at the wheel, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the bobbin was full. Then he put on another, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the second too was full; and so it went on till the morning, when all the straw was spun away, and all the bobbins ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... near bother the life out of me. They creep in through the cracks and crannies and eat the grain. If I go over by the grain chest, the first thing I know, there's a whir, and a cloud of them darts up in front of my face. Sometimes it makes my heart come right up in my mouth. I wish there wasn't a whale ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... tiny encampment was hidden from them by the thick boughs, but through the screen of delicate, aromatic leaves they could see the bridge of rock. Around them was the stir and murmur of the summer afternoon—the wind in the trees, the whir of insects, the song of birds, the babble of the water—but far above, where the great arch cut the sky, the world seemed asleep. The trees dreamed, resting against the crimson and gold of the heavens. The Indian's appreciation of the wonders of nature was limited—with a grunted, "All safe: ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... pushing back the garage door. It was by far the most desperate step in life she had ever taken, and she felt ready to faint. She clambered into the car and released the clutch, more dead than alive, as she thought. With a leap and a whir she was down the road to ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... he heard the whir of a late trolley. He glanced at his watch. It was half past one. If only a taxicab would come along. But no taxi was in sight. The girl was begging him to put on his overcoat. She had drawn it from her own shoulders and was holding ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... people poured out through the open doors the unceasing roar of the great city's life swept in drowning the soft strains of the organ—the jar and whir of wheels, the wheeze of brakes, the tremor of machinery, the rumble of cab, the clatter of hoof-beat, the cry of child and hackman, the haunting murmur of millions like the moan of the sea borne on breezes winged with ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... acclivity, whiz—piff—whir! came the balls over my head; and pitter-patter, pitter-patter! they fell on the body of the elephant like drops of rain. The enemy were behind me; I knew it, and quickened my pace. I heard the gallop of their horse: they came nearer, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... line with Harry between himself and the snake, so dared not shoot. Harry's automatic had dropped from his nerveless fingers at the first alarming whir of the vibrating rattles. Unable to make a sound or move a muscle the lad stood entirely unnerved while the great ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... a monkey-wrench in her hand. Where? Right over the hill on the edge of town. The immediate stampede for the cow ponies was averted by a warning chug-chug that sounded down the road, followed by the appearance of a flashing whir that made the ponies dance ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... been continuing its smooth whir through fields, wooded lands, and queer, dead-and-alive little villages for some time before it drew up at last at a small station. Bereft by the season of its garden bloom and green creepers, it looked a bare and uninviting little place. On the two benches against the wall of the platform ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... terrific whir the propeller flashes round. The sound increases, and then decreases slightly, and increases again. The gadfly moves. Moves more rapidly. Skims along the ground. Rises, rises, rises. Ah, the beautiful river! Every time I have flown the beauty of that river catches me in the throat. But this featureless ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... moment the airman stood watching and listening. The whir of the receding car died away in ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling shrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he noted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart road. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at the left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way round the rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall some two or three feet high. ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... soil was black and deep and the forest magnificent. Great beeches and hickories were mingled with the willows and live oaks and cypresses, and the foliage was thick, green, and beautiful. The birds seemed innumerable, and now and then flocks of wild fowl rose with a whir from the creek's edge. Keen, penetrating odors of forest and wild flower ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with that stifling stillness that precedes a summer storm, and feathers and fur were tense and nervous. The birds were singing only a few broken snatches, and flying around, seeking places of shelter. One moment everything seemed devoid of life, the next there was an unexpected whir, buzz, and sharp cry. Inside, a pandemonium of growling, spatting, snarling, and grunting ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... underbody colloid, swings the heavy pithing-iron out of its rack which in liners is generally cased as a settee, and at two hundred feet releases the catch. We hear the whir of the crescent-shaped arms opening as they descend. The derelict's forehead is punched in, starred across, and rent diagonally. She falls stern first, our beam upon her; slides like a lost soul down that pitiless ladder of light, and the Atlantic ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... her brother. "It's a chap I met last night; he's just out of a convalescent home, and a bit down on his luck." His voice died away in a complicated jumble of whir and buzz, the bell rang frantically, and Norah, like thousands of other people, murmured her opinion of the ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... snow as he rose,—a picture of vigor and success. He knows how to take care of himself, and to find both food and shelter in the evergreens, when the snow lies fresh upon the ground. There, in some sunny glade among the pines, he will ensconce himself in the thickest branches, and whir off as you come near, sailing down the opening with his body balancing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... but is blighting to a generation aspiring to Americanize the globe. The genius of our nation should cause our ploughs and harrows to prepare the valley and delta of the Nile for tillage; be responsible for the whir of more of our agricultural machinery in the fields of India; locate our lathes and planers and drilling machines in Eastern shops, in substitution for those made in England or Germany; be responsible for American locomotives ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... overpowered here. One perceived only that pungent aroma of death which the chestnut-trees gave out from their fresh wounds and their spilled sap of life. One also could scarcely hear the spring birds for the broad whir of the saw-mill, which seemed to cut the air as well as the logs. Even the gurgling rush of the brook was lost in it, but not the roar ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... an hour later a whir-r and a single note. "Half-past five," I said to myself. "Will Peter never find that mistake?" Once during the long wait the night watchman shifted his leg—he was on the other side of the stove—and once Peter reached up above his head for a pile of papers, spreading ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... which the railway station has usurped, with its long slate roof, wooden signal-box, and advertisements in blue and white enamel, I can recall a still pool shining between beds of the flowering rush; and to this day, as I wait for the train, the whir of a vanished water-wheel comes up the valley. Sometimes I have caught myself gazing along the curve of the narrow-gauge in full expectation to see a sagged and lichen-covered roof at the end of it. And sometimes, of late, it has occurred to me that there never was such ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... large front room, sat her mother and her aunt, busy with their sewing. The blinds were closed, to keep out the warm sun of a sultry July day, and only an occasional breath of air found its way in between their tightly turned slats. The whir of the locust outside, and the regular creak, creak of Aunt Jane's tall rocking-chair were the only sounds to break the stillness. This peaceful scene was ruthlessly disturbed by Polly, who came flying into the room and dropped into a ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... mocking-bird trills out, and far up the rocks the hoof-strokes of the mountain sheep strike with a rattle of stones that seems music in the crystal air. Yonder the wild turkey calls from the pine trees, or we hark to the whir of the grouse or the pine-hen. Noisy magpies startle the silence of the northern districts, and the sage-hen and the rabbit everywhere break the solitude of your walk. Turn up a stone and sometimes you see a revengeful scorpion: ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... sing with humming whir, the wheel goes round and round. For my brother's sake, the charm I'll break, ...
— The Rescue of the Princess Winsome - A Fairy Play for Old and Young • Annie Fellows-Johnston and Albion Fellows Bacon
... Expresses, panting with as much impatience as the disciplined English expresses ever suffer themselves to show, await them in the stations, which are effectively parts of the great hotels, and whir away to London with them as soon as they can drive up from the steamer; but many remain to rest, to get the sea out of their heads and legs, and to prepare their spirits for adjustment to the novel conditions. These the successive ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... to return to the chateau. To arrange various combinations of color in vases was her peculiar joy—and her flower decorations were her special care. She was just entering the great towered gate of Heronac where resided the concierge, when she heard the whir of a motor approaching in the distance, and she hurriedly slipped inside old Berthe's parlor. She disliked dust and strangers, who, fortunately, very seldom ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... prepense' toward the feathery flocks. The pigeons flew from tree-tops o'er my head; I heard the flap of wings—and they were gone; The pheasant whizzed from bushes at my feet Unseen until its sudden whir of wings Startled and broke my wandering reverie; And then I whistled and relapsed to dreams, Wandering I cared not whither—wheresoe'er My silent gun still bore its primal charge. So gameless, but with cheeks and forehead tinged By breeze and sunshine, I returned ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... summon. The westering sun began lengthening the shadows on the Inyan-kara, and with the cool of evening his strength began to revive. Now he fought the ghost with renewed spirit, calling from time to time on his medicine-bat, till at last when all the shadows had merged and gone together, with a whir came the little brown ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... sound to the shrieking of the siren and from the multiple-compartments shafts came the whir of elevators dropping with Gern forces to kill the humans trapped ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... money-getting, despise us; and yet our eyes are as yellow as their louis d'or. Stupid men that they are, they believe us good for nothing but to catch rats; we, the wise, the meditative, the independent, who have slept upon the prophet's sleeve, and lulled his ear with the whir of our mysterious wheel! Pass your hand over our backs full of electric sparkles—we allow you this liberty, and say to Charles Baudelaire that he must write a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... a visit was paid to Simpson's Corner, where numerous shelves laden with a profusion of self-recording instruments, electric batteries and switchboards were to be seen, and the tickings of many clocks, the gentle whir of a motor and occasionally the trembling note of an electric bell could be heard. 'It took me days and even months to realize fully the aims of our meteorologist and the scientific accuracy with ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... glowing colour of the sky was reflected in the waters of the Arno, which flowed beneath its many bridges like a stream of molten gold. Pigeons wheeled and circled above the roofs, and the air was filled with gentle croonings and the whir ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... shriek, drawn out for a second or more, coming terrifyingly near; a crash far louder than the nearest thunder; a colossal thump to the earth which seems to move the whole world about an inch from its base; a scatter of flying bits and all sorts of under-noises, rustle of a flying wood splinter, whir of fragments, scatter of falling earth. Before it is half finished another shriek exactly similar is coming through it. Another crash—apparently right on the crown of your head, as if the roof beams of the ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... scuttled off to cover, and often with the whir of drumming wings a grouse rose noisily and lumbered away with spread tail into the painted foliage. But all the beauty of it was a beauty of wildness and of nature's victory over man. For such beauty Ham felt no ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... any where in these hills 'pays'—to borrow the slang of this bank-note world—for itself. It is a pure enjoyment. On our return we repeatedly saw young partridges in our path, nearly as tame as the chickens of the Casse-cour. The whir-r-ing of their wings struck a spark even from our sportsman's eye, and—a far easier achievement—started the blood in my father's veins. The instinct to kill game is, I believe, universal with man, else how should it still live in my father, who, though he blusters like ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a whir and a mighty lurch as the clutch went in, the automobile started forward in ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... sound ran round and up And down the height, most like the whir of wings Through tangled trees of forests old and dim. A moment thus—the time a crisped leaf, Held, armlength overhead, will take to fall— And then a man was sitting face ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... twined and hung among its branches, and all along its ditch border the starry stitchwort lifted its childish faces and chorused in lines and masses. Never had I seen such a symphony of note-like flowers and tendrils and leaves. And suddenly, in its depths, I heard a chirrup and the whir ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... to the late-afternoon concert, soon to begin. They hummed a few bars of one melody, then of another; and at last, Angela's voice leading, there burst upon the room in full chorus, to the rhythmic whir of the wheels, the melodious music and maudlin ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... city. As Jerusalem is in the hill country, the morning air on this occasion was not a little crisp. The rays of the sun, with their promise of warmth, lingered provokingly far up on the battlements and turrets of the great piles about, down from which fell the crooning of pigeons and the whir of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Lutra made her daytime abode in a "holt" among the alder-roots fringing this pool. She loved in the long winter nights to hear the winnow-winnow of powerful wings as the wild ducks circled down towards the pool, the whir of the grey lag-geese far in the mysterious sky, and the whistle of the teal and the gurgle of the moorhens among the weeds ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... agreed, raising his voice to make himself heard above the whir of the propellers and the noise of the engine. "I wouldn't mind ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... motor and the Snowbird began to quiver throughout her frame. He touched the lever by which the propellers were started. With a whir and a bound the flying machine ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... low flight which ends in a nearly perpendicular slide down to within ten or twelve feet from the ground, the bird being closely followed by a second one pursuing. In reality I did not see the birds, but I heard the fast whir of their wings. ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... to be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the sound that no man in his senses can possibly mistake—the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates when the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute afterward there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened—indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had become of the doolies. I ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... have ventured on thy strident streets, Mid whir of traffic in the vibrant hour When Commerce with its clashing cymbal greets The mighty Mammon in his pomp of power.... And in the quiet dusk of eventide, As wearied toilers quit the marts of Trade, Have I been of their ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... with all his new chivalry around him, dashed down the narrow valley—the white standard of France on one side of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other—and began to deploy the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge—whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet wedged in the narrow space behind. Now came the English onset. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... once there was a whir-ring sound in the air, and the cup was knocked from his hands. The water was all spilled upon ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... Never a whir of wing, no bee Stirred o'er the shameful slain; Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in, Stooped, and came ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... to hide it, her fingers thrust the card back inside its envelope. And she was tucking it away in its warm hiding place within the scant fullness of the white blouse when the clock on the wall behind her began to beat out the hour with a noisy whir of loosened cogs. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... which,' observed Jinny, watching the introduction. Her voice ran past him like the whir of a shooting star through space—far, far away. 'Excuse me!' she cried, as she cannoned off Monkey against Cousinenry. 'I'm not a terminus! ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Clamour rings in his sad ear; And noise so slight it would surpass Credence:—drinking sound of grass, Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth: The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake— Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, Without relief seeking ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his soul ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... was a busy scene, with Miss Dora and two other ladies making the machines whir and groups of workers getting material ready for the machines or "finishing off." Mrs. Thurston, appealed to from all sides, quietly directed the work,—while Miss Fanny was here, there, and everywhere, ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett
... the carpet so foolishly, was prompt enough now. For a moment they paused, beak to beak, eye to eye, furious, with necks outstretched and hackles stiff with the rage of battle. They began to rise and fall like two feathers tossing in the air, very quietly. But for the soft whir of wings there was no sound in the room. Taffy could scarcely believe they were fighting in earnest. For a moment they seemed to touch—to touch and no more, and for a moment only—but in that moment the stroke was given. The home champion fluttered down, stood on his legs for a moment, as if ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... above the city streets, above the noise and whir, There seems to come a fragrant breath of frankincense and myrrh. I saw a woman, bent and wan, and on her face a light The look that Mary might have worn that other Christmas night. And as the little children passed, and one lad turned and smiled, I saw within ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... lances of the young corn leaves rustling in the twilight. Nothing was changed; all nature was as she had found it before, evening upon evening; but in the stones and the dry weeds, amid the fragrance of the air and the light whir of falling leaves, Camilla sensed a new strangeness, a vast ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... the weary years of battling for this. It had been such a hard fight, and now at last it was won. To me the whole battle with the slum had summed itself up in the struggle with this dark spot. The whir of the lawn-mower was as sweet a song in my ear as that which the skylark sang when I was a boy, in Danish fields, and which gray hairs do not make ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... voice died away, and simultaneously the three dignitaries, who seemed to be officiating priests, from their solemn gestures, stepped backward, passing beneath the protruding arms of the idols. There sounded the deep whir of some mechanism somewhere, and the same invisible force that had Jim and his two companions in its control suddenly began to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... anything at it myself, and thus pick up an additional dollar or two in the week. Of course, you would accomplish more than I could, and it would be a hundred times better than stitch! stitch! How I hate the whir of the thing!" And Bernard, with his juggler gift of mimicry, proceeded forthwith to turn himself into a sewing-machine, jerking his feet up and down in imitation of the motion of the treadle, and making an odd ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... soldier, you follow the career of arms! Never heed what is said on the subject by a querulous painter! The desire of fame may be folly in civilians: in soldiers it is wisdom. Twin-born with the martial sense of honour, it cheers the march; it warms the bivouac; it gives music to the whir of the bullet, the roar of the ball; it plants hope in the thick of peril; knits rivals with the bond of brothers; comforts the survivor when the brother falls; takes from war its grim aspect of carnage; and from ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shoulder. His fingers sought the trigger. Cautiously he thrust it through the bars of the gate. Bending down, he took a long and deliberate aim. The fates seemed to be on his side. Rochester suddenly stiffened into attention, his gun came to his shoulder, as with a loud whir a pheasant flew out of the wood before him. The two reports rang out almost simultaneously. The pheasant dropped to the ground like a stone. Rochester's arms went up to the skies. He gave a little cry and fell over, a huddled heap, upon ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was perfectly silent, not so much as the whisper of a reed or the whir of the wing of a nightbird fell upon their ears; and at last, in ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... hear my next door neighbour, Madame Adversity, tirling at the door pin; so give me my down bed, Tom, and I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, and before I recover from my surprise, launches forth, with a loud whir, mattrass and all, leaving me, Pilgarlic, lying on the paillasse. Well, her nest is scarcely cold, when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit gizzened anatomy of an old woman—"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is it no enough that you consort with that scarlet ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... at her best. After a time, finding that the more he tried to cheer her, the more brokenly she wept, he grew silent, only stroking her head, while the summer sounds came in through the window: the mill-whir of locusts, the small monotone of distant farm-bells, the laughter of children in the street, and the gay arias of a mocking-bird singing in the open window of the next house. So they sat together through the long, still afternoon of the ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... he at once saw the wounded bird. After a short, sharp struggle, he dispatched her, and was in the act of tying the lifeless body to his hunting belt when he was startled suddenly by a loud whir of wings, and something hit him a stinging blow on the back of his head. The male eagle, attracted by the shrill cries of its mate, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... beauty of the cobra fascinated me. I have never quite forgotten. There was a lolling trailing grace about the lifted length, the head slightly inclined to us, the hood but partly spread—something winged in the undulation, a suggestion of that which we could not see, faintly like the whir of a humming bird's wings. That is it—an intimation of forces we had not senses to register—also colours and sounds! . . . My hand was lost in the great hand. My uncle did not turn back. He was speaking. There was that about his tones which you had to listen for—a low softness ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... As he pulled the lanyard, the little bronze cannon spit out fire viciously, and the long projectile, to which had been attached the end of the coiled line, sailed off on its errand of mercy. With a whir the line spun out of the box coil after coil, while the crew peered out over the breaking seas to see if the keeper's aim was true. At last the line stopped uncoiling and the life-savers knew that the shot had landed somewhere. For a time ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... war-shout, the dark-faced Asiatics dropping upon the decks, the whir of javelins, the scream of dying men, the clash of steel on steel. A frantic charge, but stoutly met. Themistocles was in the thickest melee. With his own spear he dashed two Tyrians overboard, as they sprang upon the poop. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... sun at noon, Above the center of the earth; But with a sad and sallow light, As it had sickened of the night And fallen in a pallid swoon. Around me I could hear the rush Of sullen winds, and feel the whir Of unseen wings apast me brush Like phantoms round a sepulcher; And, like a carpeting of plush,0 A lawn unrolled beneath my feet, Bespangled o'er with flowers as sweet To look upon as those that nod Within the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... trees, individual aspects of houses emerged. Soon I could see people going about the streets and laundry-maids hanging out the family washing in the back gardens. I even came low enough to witness a minor household tragedy—a mother vigorously spanking a small boy. Hearing the whir of my motor, she stopped in the midst of the process, whereupon the youngster very naturally took advantage of his opportunity to cut and run for it. Drew doubted my veracity when I told him about this. He called me an aerial eavesdropper ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... Las Vegas took more time than Malone had bargained for. He had to hunt from store to store to get a good, representative selection, and there were crowds almost everywhere playing the omnipresent slot-machines. The whir of the machines and the low undertones and whispers of the bettors combined in the air to make what Malone considered the single most depressing sound he had ever heard. It sounded like a factory, old, broken-down and unwanted, that was geared only to the production ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... with its large stones and trees, and over opposite the solitary spot was shut in by yellow corn fields. In the tree-tops above him the turtle-doves were cooing now and then a faint note, and through the branches of the trees by the "Freemen's Tribunal" the wild hawk-moths were beginning to whir with their red-green wings. Gradually the ground in the forest also began to show signs of life. A hedgehog crept sleepily through the underbrush; a little weasel dragged his supple body forth from a crevice in the rocks no broader than a quill. Little hares darted with cautious leaps ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... he was standing in a long, low attic, amidst the whir and clatter of many looms. The meagre daylight peered in through the grated windows, and showed him the gaunt figures of the weavers bending over their cases. Pale, sickly-looking children were crouched on the huge crossbeams. As the shuttles dashed through the warp they lifted ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... heard a vicious, locust-like whir, whose meaning he recognized. An immense rattlesnake was in the bushes, and Fred had descended almost upon it. But for the tremendous effort of Jack he would have dropped squarely upon the velvety body, with consequences too frightful to be thought of; but his great leap carried ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... scabbard and handle before him, while Rodriguez held the bare sword. And so they came to a room lit by the flare of one candle, which their guide told them the Professor had prepared for his guest. In the vastness of it was a great bed. Shadows and a whir as of wings passed out of the door as they entered. "Bats," said the ancient guide. But Morano believed he had routed powers of evil with the handle of his frying-pan and his master's scabbard. Who could say what they were in such ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... Buz-z-z-z! whir-r-r! He was back in the wheat-stack once more, listening to the dull humming of ten thousand bluebottles. From without came the sound of heavy tramping feet, whirring wheels, rough, human voices. The wheaten mass rocked and vibrated above ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... and alas! just as breakfast was coming to an end, there was a whir and a hoot, and a motor-car was heard rushing up the spacious avenue and stopping before ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade |
