"Whirring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soft murmuring melodies. Under the shade of the luxuriant hop-vines, that covered the rustic porch in front of the little dwelling, the light step of Catharine Maxwell might be heard mixed with the drowsy whirring of the big wheel, as she passed to and fro guiding the thread of yarn in its course: and now she sang snatches of old mountain songs, such as she had learned from her father; and now, with livelier air, hummed some gay French tune to the household melody of her spinning wheel, as she advanced ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... less. Hundreds of glow-worms were shimmering in the hedge. The grass-hoppers were whirring in the mielles beyond; a flutter of wings went by overhead. The leaves were rustling gently; a fresh wind was coming up from the sea upon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... discovered a very slight inequality and roughness at the extremity of the recess. He was aware instantly that there was some secret spring; he pressed with some force on the spot, and he felt the board give way; he pushed it back towards him, and it slid suddenly with a whirring noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his sight. He peered in, and drew forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary lines till it rested on ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is alive with the whirring of motors. The machines are coming back and all converging to one point. They vol-plane to the earth and gracefully settle down within a short distance of each other at the rendezvous. The pilots collect and each relates the intelligence he has gained. The data are collated ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on their ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... he said. "Oh! no. I was only dreaming that I was hunting with father, and he shot at the beautiful pheasants that were making such a whirring of wings for me. It was music. When can I hunt ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... great drums pounding, And the small drums steady whirring, And every blow of the great convulsive drums, Strikes me ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... back and was camping near; his wives, came along to the big tree. There the Gayandi swung, making a whirring noise. ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, dusty "pitching off" and "mowing in"—a fine process, an honest process: men sweating for ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... the great morass lay in white and sinister tangle under the wild spring moon, when the dark and dreadful swamps were rife with horrible croaks and snaps, the whirring of the wings of waterfowl or the noise of a disturbed puff adder, Philip stretched himself upon the seat of the music-machine and slept through the twilight and the early evening. When the camp ahead, glimmering ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... small birds flew out of the hedges, with a whirring sound, to settle further on, while an incessant chatter was kept ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the forest On four nimble feet that runneth, On four lengthy legs that stalketh, But repair'd to hear the music, When the ancient Woinomoinen, When the Father joy awaken'd. E'en at Woinomoinen's harping 'Gainst the hedge the bear up-bounded. There was nothing in the forest On two whirring pinions flying, But with whirl-wind speed did hasten; There was nothing in the ocean, With six fins about that roweth, Or with eight to move delighteth, But repair'd to hear the music. E'en the briny water's mother {38} 'Gainst ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... that the myriads of insects, whose hum and buzz make a good part of the noise and stir of a summer afternoon, are all gone. No whirring wings rush past; there is no sound of "dragon-fly, or painted moth, or musical winged bee" to break the stillness; all the insect-world seems dead, or flown south with the swallows—though, as there are still spiders' webs to be seen, each delicate thread marked in sharp outline, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... proclaimed the merciful conditions of the conquerors and called on the people to lay down their arms. Great piles of surrendered weapons rose in the streets, guarded by Soudanese soldiers. Many Arabs sought clemency; but there were others who disdained it; and the whirring of the Maxims, the crashes of the volleys, and a continual dropping fire attested that there was fighting in all parts of the city into which the columns had penetrated. All Dervishes who did not immediately surrender ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... go on chirping and shrilling and rasping and kricking and tapping and whizzing and whirring and buzzing all about you; and if you listen sharp, perhaps you can understand some ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... was only a bad dream. That it was a very bad reality was shown just as the last pack went on, when one of our Otomi Indians gave a howl as an arrow went through his leg, and I felt a sharp little nip on my forehead where an arrow just grazed it, and there was that queer, faint whirring sound in the air that only a flight of a good many arrows ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... a whirring in the air and a joyous shout were heard. It was Prince Ricardo flying home on his ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... away," I commanded in desperation. At that moment my clock began whirring and wheezing ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... mulberry grove had planted itself, proclaiming the spring which the party were seeking. And thither the guide conducted them, careless of whistling partridges and lesser birds of brighter hues roused whirring from the reedy coverts. ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... chair and began to dress, choosing his clothes carefully. Gordon stretched out his arms and clenched the edges of the bed, fighting back a desire to cry out. His head was splitting and whirring, his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever in his blood resolving itself into innumerable regular counts like a slow ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... hutches, Ambrose's owl, a jackdaw, a squirrel, and a wonderfully large family of white mice. Besides those captives there were bats which lived free but retired lives high up in the rafters, flapping and whirring about when dusk came on. Pigeons also flew in and out, and pecked at the various morsels of food left about on the ground, so that the barn was a thickly-peopled place, with plenty of noise and flutter, and much coming and ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... the roof; knocked huge cantles out of the buttresses, and pitted and starred the paved square outside. They were at work, too, that very afternoon, though I do not think the cathedral was their objective for the moment. We walked to and fro in the silence of the streets and beneath the whirring wings overhead. Presently, a young woman, keeping to the wall, crossed a corner. An old woman opened a shutter (how it jarred!), and spoke to her. The silence closed again, but it seemed to me that I heard a sound of singing—the sort of chant one hears in ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... he rattled on for some minutes, obviously talking himself down and trying to prevent me from thinking. But the grim moment came at last, and it was like the empty gap of time when you are waiting for the whirring of the clock that is to tell the end of the old year and the beginning of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... sapientiae consultus," and strikes from his careless lyre the notes that attest a god! Some proud shadow chases another from the throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thunder the rush of Diespiter, and identifies Providence with the Fortune that snatches off the diadem in her whirring swoop. But fronts discrowned take a new majesty to generous natures: in all sleek prosperity there is something commonplace; in all grand ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... leaned forward. When he straightened there came a dull report, a lurid flash of light, and with a sharp whirring sound a model torpedo about half the regulation size, leaped through the darkness and with a clear parting of the waters disappeared. A green Very star cleaved the night. Intense silence followed. One second, two seconds, elapsed and then from the practice boat out in the ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... time over the simple operation. His impulse towards unreserve puzzled him, and several seconds of silence passed before he spoke again; silence, emphasised by broken snatches of talk and laughter; by the sharp crack of guns; and the whirring of a hundred wings, like the restless murmuring in ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... you, Copas," said Brother Bonaday slowly, his eyes fixed now on the reel, the whirring click of which drew his attention, so that he seemed to address his speech to it. "It is very kind, and I thank you. But I hope the Master will not refuse: though, to tell you the truth, there is another small difficulty which makes me shy ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and, stooping, gathered up a dying thing, whose watchfulness was all over. The glass was broken; the case was open; it lay in his hand a mangled creature. Mary heard the rush of its departing life, as the wheels went whirring, and ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... knew it would call, or soon or late, as it calls the whirring wings; It's the olden lure, it's the golden lure, it's the lure of the timeless things; And to-night, O God of the trails untrod, how it ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... cast big, black shadows on the water. They could hear little lapping waves splashing against the pillars, and presently a tug went swiftly down to the Pool. Neither of them spoke. Behind them the tramcars went whirring by, and once when John looked round, he felt as if he must cry because of the beauty of these swift caravans of light, gliding easily through the misty darkness of a London night. He had turned quickly again to contemplate the river, and as he did so, Eleanor stirred ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Captain Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him—for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang—when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... a series of tiny dials on the table edge. There were at least two score of them, laid in a triple bank. Dials to record the passing minutes, hours, days; the years, the centuries! Larry stared at the small whirring pointers. Some were a blur of swift whirling movement—the hours and days. Tina showed Larry how to read them. The cage was passing through the year 1880. In a few moments of Larry's consciousness it was 1799. Then 1793. The infant American nation ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... caution, I noticed, in that end of the hut which stood over the stream, a gap, or window hole. The sound issued through this like the whirring of a dozen looms. "He must be an astonishing fellow," thought I, "that can snore in this fashion. I'll have a peep before I wake him." I waded down till I stood under the sill, put both hands upon it, and pulling myself up quiet as a mouse, stuck my face in at the window—and then ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... and there in the cavern, carrying Rinkitink upon his back, and neither of them paid the slightest heed to the whirring knives, although the glitter of the hundreds of polished blades was rather trying to their eyes. Perhaps for ten minutes the knives darted about them in bewildering fury; then they disappeared as suddenly as ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... outstretched hand, and affect to be wing-broken and wounded, and yet have just strength to tumble along, until she has drawn you, fatigued, a safe distance from her threatened children and the young hopes of her heart; and then will she mount, whirring with glad strength, and away through the maze of trees you have not seen before, like a close-shot bullet, fly ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... he flew on whirring pinions, Scattering all of Hiisi's terrors, Brought the hissing of the serpents, And of snakes the dusky venom, 240 And of ants he brought the acid, And of toads the hidden poison, That the steel might thus be poisoned, In the tempering ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... water in it?" Sam asked coolly. "That small whirring sound you hear isn't the hydrogen-helium conversion; it's a fan blowing air through a cooling coil. Even in the Sahara Desert there's enough moisture in the air to run ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... As to the Order, Haycroft seemed to feel he owed it to himself to smile at all such toys, but he did not disdain to amuse the pretty lady with the one in question, any more than being humane (and even genial sitting before Mrs. Freddy's menu), he would have refused to show the whirring wheels of his watch to a nice child. The two got on so well that the anxious look quite faded out of Mrs. Freddy's face, and she devoted herself gaily to the distinguished foreigner at her side. But Haycroft at a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... ever and anon, the tired and sleepy citizens are startled from their dreams by whoops, hurrahs, snatches of songs, and outbursts of rude laughter ringing through the frosty air and mingling with the clattering of horses' feet and the whirring rumble of swift-revolving wheels, as some party of roystering blades, excited by deep potations, drive shouting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... about this time they were taught 'whirring.' A partridge can rise on the wing silently if it wishes, but whirring is so important at times that all are taught how and when to rise on thundering wings. Many ends are gained by the whirr. It warns all ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... roused her from her musings. There was a ripping, grinding noise and she could see the outline of the car move, sink back, and then lurch forward again. There was another whirring and grinding and then Claybrook's triumphant shout. She rose to her feet and walked over to him. They had succeeded. The car was standing, all four wheels on the hard, level surface, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... second time in clouds of glory, with the nations gathered around Him and angels—" at the word a shaft of glorious light fell full upon the child, while without came the tramping of unnumbered feet and the whirring ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... her feet—out of the way of the heavy mowing machine which Weeden was pushing with a whirring, droning noise ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... solitudes afar, till paused her feet, Where highest 'mong hoar climbing peaks, uprose A mountain crest. It was the third day's close. In those untrodden ways there was no sound, No sight of living thing, the barren heights around. No hum of insect life, no whirring wing of bird. Bare rocks alone, all fissured, blotched and blurred As with red stain of battle-fields unseen. Far, far below, still vales were shining green. And leaping downward swift, a mountain stream Crept soft to sleep, where ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... was heavy with the scent of rockets and phlox and ragged pinks and candy-tuft. Through the sweet-scented dusky silence some small and very wakeful bird was trilling. Great misty-winged moths came whirring and hovering among the blossoms, pale blurs in the darkness, and everywhere the drifting lamps of fireflies lighted and died out against ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... rare possession since it was the only one in the Village. The Indian carefully wound it up and lowered it into the hole. There was a craning of masked heads, . . . a period of grunting approval, . . . and then faintly from below came a whirring, a sputtering and a high, cracked voice of announcement. The White Chief's face wore its sardonic smile as the gravel was being shoveled into the grave for the little tin phonograph was bravely playing: There'll be a Hot Time in the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... should like one of them as a wife for his only son; but as he was afraid of descending among them, he made a noose with a long piece of rattan, lowered it gently, and slipping it over one of them, drew her up into the tree. She cried out, and they all disappeared with a whirring noise. The girl he caught was very young, and she cried sadly because she had no clothes on; so he rolled her in a chawat (long sash), and immediately heard the gongs at his own house, which he had thought was a long way off. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... awed by the fantastic spectacle these glimpses of the sea's heart showed to them. At other times the nearer alarm would set them quaking, and crying "Hist!" they would listen for steps in the silence or other sounds than that of the engine's pulse and the whirring fans. The very stillness, I think, made them afraid. The horrors of the windows—above all, that horror of the nameless fish—could frighten a man as no spectre of God's earth above. If I had accustomed ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... was ready, and Robert the Devil went well. The long streets rolled behind us, and were lost in the rain; then with a rhythmic drumming of hoofs and a constant splashing from under the whirring wheels, we swept out into the blackness of a treeless plain. I knew the road and did not take the shortest one; and it was rapture to draw the rugs and apron round Grace's waist, and feel the soft furs she wore brushing against me. The ten miles passed in what seemed to be scarcely ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... would say, and quite properly, "What a horrible life!" But it naturally seems stimulating to simians. Boys envy the fellow. On the other hand whenever we are told about factory life, we instinctively shudder to think of enduring such evils. We see some old workman, filling cans with a whirring machine; and we hear the humanitarians telling us, indignant and grieving, that he actually must stand in that nice, warm, dry room every day, safe from storms and wild beasts, and with nothing to do but fill cans; and at once we groan: "How ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... bustle and breeze, The whirring of wheels and the murmur of trees; By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly, Whatever my mood is—I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... of the sun was just appearing over the edge of the trees as Jacques pressed the button which set the self-starter whirring. The engine roared and the pilot listened intently for any sound of defect to come to his well-trained ear. An aviator must know by the sound just what is wrong with his motor; there is no chance to search for the cause of the trouble when you are a ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... to see, Thy whirring sound is dear to me: Oh, swiftly turn by night and day, And toil for ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... into de airy space ob de zeneth am extremely discommodatiousness to a pusson what ain't used to it," remarked Washington with a broad grin as he oiled a whirring motor. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... Second, the darkness—a single green-shaded electric light directly over where any girl was working, but there were areas where there were no workers. Up the end of the floor, among the power presses, all belts and machines and whirring wheels, there were only three or four shaded lights. Windows lined both sides of the floor, but they had never been washed since the factory was built, surely. Anyhow, it was dark and rainy outside. The walls once had been white, but were now black. Dim, dirty, uneven boxes containing brass parts ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... d'antan? As I transcribe once more that ancient sigh, perhaps the most real sigh in all literature, it is high mid-summer, and the woodland surrounding the little cabin in which I am writing lies in a trance of green and gold, hot and fragrant and dizzy with the whirring of cicadas, under the might of the July sun. Bees buzz in and out through my door, and sometimes a butterfly flits in, flutters a while about my bookshelves, and presently is gone again, in search of sweets more to his taste than those of the muses, though Catullus ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... a real and actual danger made itself known. The wind rose to such a point of violence that it was little short of a hurricane. Trees began to go down here and there, and the passage of the gale through the forest on each shore was like the whirring flight ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... whirring round, Mother, mother? Oh, mother, are they giants bound, And will they growl forever? Yes, fiery giants underground, Daughter, little daughter, Forever turn the wheels around, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... was that whirring, singing sound? Was that a new signal that Barney was trying? Was it—Whirr, s-st! Down like a shot dropped Tam's head, and like an arrow he leaped forward, swerving sideways to escape the danger he had scented,—the danger of a lariat flung by ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of life, in action's storm, I float and I wave With billowy motion! Birth and the grave A limitless ocean, A constant weaving With change still rife, A restless heaving, A glowing life— Thus time's whirring loom unceasing I ply, And weave ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... his burrow, Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming, Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Rattling in his hoard of acorns, Saw the pigeon, the Omeme, Building nests among the pine-trees, And in flocks the wild-goose, Wawa, Flying to the fen-lands northward, Whirring, wailing far above him. "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend on these things?" On the next day of his fasting By the river's brink he wandered, Through the Muskoday, the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... sun, or else they moved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sang triumphantly. 'For the day is for us,' they said, 'whether our great and sacred father the Sun shall bring up more life like us from the marshes, or whether all the world shall end to-night.' And ...
— Selections from the Writings of Lord Dunsay • Lord Dunsany
... "Hymn to the Flowers" was a continual delight to me, after I made its acquaintance. It seemed as if all the wild blossoms of the woods had wandered in and were twining themselves around the whirring spindles, as I repeated it, verse after verse. Better still, they drew me out, in fancy, to their own forest-haunts under "cloistered boughs," where each swinging "floral bell" was ringing "a call to prayer," and making ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round: Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... yielded; and Janice, with glad tears in her eyes, turned and thanked Philemon by a glance that meant far more than any words. Then she went to her room, only to lie for hours staringly awake, listening to the wild whirring and whistling of the wind as she bemoaned her unintentional treachery to the aide, and sought for some method ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... leaving the meadow where we dined we plunged again into the thick forest, where every now and then some splendid grouse or the beautiful plume-crowned California quail went whirring away from before our horses. Here and there a broad grizzly "sign" intersected our trail. The tall purple deer-weed, a magnificent scarlet flower of name unknown to me, and another blossom like the laburnum, endlessly varied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... The man with the camera began turning a crank on one side, and a low whirring noise blended softly with the roar of the rushing water. Hiram saw dripping men and women dancing about like maniacs before ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... there came to the ears of all a sudden hammering and crashing, together with the whirring sound of a buzzer. Instantly the entire ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... good, daddy!" she exclaimed. Everything was of intense interest to her. The sudden glimpse of some great mountain towering above the trees; the velvety green, billowy moss; the merry little brooks they crossed; the whirring flight of a startled partridge and now the sinking sun flooding the silent woods with gold. When she was not in ecstasies over these, her brown eyes glanced at the clean-cut, handsome profile of the young woodsman who was so skilfully driving the ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... tearing it open, fumbling with an obstinate fold, holding it before her while the typewritten page glared out and struck at her. Then it fluttered like a bird to the floor. The house that had seemed whirring, buzzing a moment since, was suddenly very quiet; a breath of air crept in through the open front door carrying the noise of a passing motor; she heard faint sounds from upstairs and then a grinding racket in the pipe behind the bookcases-her husband ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fills the kitchen, Drear and lonely our retreat, Speak a word and break the silence, Dearest little Mother, sweet! Has the moaning of the tempest Closed thine eyelids wearily? Has the spinning wheel's soft whirring Hummed a cradle ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... home below could hear them whirring along, cutting fancy figures in the ice, and calling ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... moment her ear caught a whirring sound, as of wings, and looking upwards, she beheld a beautiful bird pursued by a hawk darting down towards her at the utmost speed that terror could lend it. Scarcely had she seen its danger, when the little fluttering fugitive ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... dancing over the water in the still sunshine, and the trout jumping for them—oh, it's the bonny, bonny place. You would think so too. You would like it, tramping knee-deep in the heather, to see the moorcock rise whirring at your feet; you would like to set sail with the fisher folk after the silver herring. It would make you feel good to see the calm faces of the shepherds, the peace in the eyes of the women. Ay, that was the best of it all, the Rest of it, the calm of it. I ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Puffing and whirring the big automobile started off up the road, the old lady sitting stern and erect, as if she thought her driver needed watching, and she was determined to keep a ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... blue bee hums past, a brilliant butterfly flashes across the path, or a humming-bird hangs in the air over a flower like, as St. Pierre says, an emerald set in coral, but "how weak it is to say that that exquisite little being, whirring and fluttering in the air, has a head of ruby, a throat of emerald, and wings of sapphire, as if any triumph of the jeweller's art could ever vie with that sparkling epitome of life ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... to catch glimpses of darker specks dotting the heaving flank of some huge wave. But it was not until the wild ducks rose through the phantom light and came whirring in from the sea that his gun, poked stiffly skyward, flashed in the pallid void. And then, sometimes, he hobbled back after the dead quarry while it still drove headlong inland, slanting earthward before ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... at first. It seems to run along very rapidly without any very clearly defined melody. Still, it is by the same composer as the "Spring Song," so it may be worth trying over again. It is more familiar now, and you begin to associate the rapid, whirring phrases with its title—with the idea of "spinning." How clear it suddenly becomes. You even conjure up in your mind the picture of some young woman in quaint garb seated at a spinning wheel in an old-fashioned room—and you find yourself experiencing all the ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... with the air-liner's whirring rush. She hovered, dropped with a wondrous precision that proved her rider's consummate skill, made a perfect landing on the long take-off that stretched from rudders to wing ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... as if it came in answer to her poignant wish for some untoward happening, there was a quick double knock at the front door of the Blanchard's dwelling, and a sharp whirring ring at the push-bell below the knocker. The sounds seemed to go violently through and through the little house in rapid waves ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... but wholly lonely scene, save for the partridges rising, after every few rods, from the path in rapid whirring flight, or standing still for a moment with sharply nodding heads and a quick, short note of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... was interrupted by the discharge of a gun in the field adjoining the hedge along which he was passing, and the boisterous whirring of a great cock-pheasant over his head, which caused his horse to start and stop short, and to nearly pitch Jorrocks over his head. The bird was missed, but the sportsman's dog dashed after it, with all the eagerness of expectation, regardless of the cracks of the whip—the "comes to ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the avenue he could hear the whirring of the car coming back from Cheltenham; the lines of the beech trees opened fan-wise to let it through. He saw Colin sitting ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... The dull, whirring sound of that hellish machine had stopped abruptly, cut short by the sudden weight of Strange's lunging body as he fell upon it. I saw the livid, fiery snake of white light twist suddenly upward through that coil of wires: and in another ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... it, its reds and blues and browns smiling cheerfully at whoever entered. The walls were hung with prints, judiciously chosen and arranged. Through a window to the left, healthfully open at the bottom, the sun streamed in, bringing with it the pleasantly subdued whirring of automobiles out on the Drive. At a desk at right angles to this window, her vivid red-gold hair rippling in the breeze from the river, sat the girl who had been working at the typewriter. She turned as Mr. Pett entered, and smiled over ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... blue above my head, The prairie green below, And flickering o'er the tufted grass The shifting shadows go, Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds Fleck white the tranquil skies, Black javelins darting where aloft The whirring ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... night, and the other both day and night. I thought the morning and evening warble of birds delightful; but I find I can listen to these strange insects with just as much pleasure. A single locust is now heard near noon from a tree two hundred feet off, as I write—a long whirring, continued, quite loud noise graded in distinct whirls, or swinging circles, increasing in strength and rapidity up to a certain point, and then a fluttering, quietly tapering fall. Each strain is continued from one to two minutes. The locust-song is very appropriate to the scene—gushes, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... life to be seen. But occasionally, with a whirring sound of rushing wings, a bright-plumaged jungle cock with his attendant bevy of sober-clad hens swept up with startled squawks from under the huge feet and flew to perch high up on neighbouring trees, chattering and clucking indignantly in their fright. The pretty black and white Giant Squirrel ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... two other cricketers were fighting back to back on the other side. Carroll was clubbing his way toward Mr. Brewster, but his weapon was now in his left hand. Matters looked dark indeed, when there shrilled fiercely from above them the whirring peal ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... unawares, as when climbing the wall of the canyon, for he had slain too many of the reptiles in his distant home not to understand their nature. Whirlwind, like all of his kind, had a mortal dread of every species of serpents, and he showed his timidity the moment the locust-like whirring sounded from the bush at the side of the path the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... music, as if his little heart was so full of happiness he was compelled to pour it forth to all who chose to listen. Our party would gladly have listened for a long time, and have omitted the story altogether; but after some minutes of delicious song the strains suddenly ceased, and a little whirring noise in the lilacs indicated that the bird ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... day, just at dawn, came a new sound, a great whirring like a thousand racing automobiles, and then two loud explosions, one after the other, different from the roar of cannon or the shots from the field guns that night at El Paso. The whole building shook ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sounds which eddied the enveloping silence seemed to echo in his ears the tread of mediaeval warriors. In the wraith-like shadows he saw the armored forms of Conquistadores in mortal strife with vulpine buccaneers. In the whirring of the bats which flouted his face he heard the singing of arrows and the hiss of hurled rocks. In the moan of the ocean as it broke on the coral reef below sounded the boom of cannon, the curses of combatants, and the groans of the dying. Here and there moved tonsured monks, now absolving ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the lawn, very slowly, and kicking wretchedly at the turf. Presently his father came along with the whirring machine, while the sweet, new grass blades spun from the knives. In a low ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... in the hot afternoon sunshine, that the whirring noise of the insects seemed quite loud. Beautiful blue-billed gapers, all claret and black and white, flitted about, catching glossy metallic-looking beetles; little green chatterers, with their crested heads, flew from spray to spray; and tiny sun-birds, in their gorgeous mail of gold and bronze ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Dane, and both very poor. Bertel's ambition when a little boy was to work his mother's spinning-wheel, which, of course, he was never permitted to do. One bright, moonlight night his parents were awakened by a soft, whirring sound, and found their little son enjoying his realized ambition. In the moonlit room he had successfully started the wheel and begun to spin, much to his parents' astonishment. This was the beginning ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... little brown mouse That lives in somebody's house; And in that same house there's a clock, That says, "Tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock!" And I've not forgotten yet quite, How once, on a very still night, I was sitting just over the clock, When it gave such a terrible knock, With a whirring and whizzing, And buzzing and fizzing, That I tumbled headlong from my perch on the shelf, And, scampering wildly, I crowded myself Right under the door, through such a small crack, That I scraped all the hairs off the top of ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... past five minutes. Until the departure of the last guest she had kept an icy command of herself and shown an unruffled front to the world. She had even contrived to smile. But now, with the final automobile whirring homewards, she had thrown off the mask. The very furniture of Lord Marshmoreton's study seemed to shrink, seared by the flame of her wrath. As for Lord Marshmoreton ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sorrowful, with no harvest sheaves to offer as witnesses for his toiling, suddenly back of him he heard a marvellous, many-toned, soft whirring, as of innumerable light wings, and over his head flew a countless crowd of silver-white birds, and floated in the air beyond. And as he gazed, surprised, at their loveliness, without speech again ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Hill, I'll come and pick you up and we 'll be off like a streak of lightning across the hills to New Hampshire. How lucky that Riverboro is only thirty miles from the state line!—It looks like snow, and how I wish it would be something more than a flurry; a regular whizzing, whirring storm that would pack the roads and let us slip over them with ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... into the next room, where Jean became so fascinated by the whirring wheels and the men whose steady hands guided them that it was with difficulty she could be persuaded to leave and ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... all the inexplicable feminine whirring inside her—socially reconciled with Boyce. Where the deuce was this reconciliation going to lead? I have told you how my lunatic love for Betty had stood revealed to me. Had she chosen to love and marry any ordinary gallant gentleman, ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... There was no farmhouse on this short bend. Then north for five miles. The road was as level as a table top—a good, smooth, hard-beaten, age-mellowed prairie-grade. The land to east and west was also level; binders were going and whirring their harvest song. Nobody could have felt more contented than I did. There were two clusters of buildings—substantial buildings—set far back from the road, one east, the other one west, both clusters huddled homelike and sheltered in bluffs of planted cottonwoods, ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... while the train was still running around, and Miss Davis had to catch it and leave it turned upside down with the little wheels whirring around while she marched her class into Miss May's room for the ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... Koreans go far beyond the Eskimo and number their demons by thousands of billions; they fill the chimney, the shed, the living-room, the kitchen, they are on every shelf and jar; in thousands they waylay the traveller as he leaves his home, beside him, behind him, dancing in front of him, whirring over his head, crying out upon him from air, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... smart clap. This set off Boz in his most humorous vein. He imagined the door sticking fast, or only half-opening, the poor trumpeter behind pushing with his shoulder to get out, then giving a feeble gasping tootle with much "whirring" and internal agonies; then ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... taken hold of him. In them lay no abstracted student's languor, no reflex burning of a solitary lamp; but a quiet grappling force engaged the penetrating look. Gazing upon them, you were drawn in suddenly among the thousand whirring wheels of a capacious and a vigorous mind, that was both reasoning and prompt, keen of intellect, acting throughout all its machinery, and having all under full command: an orbed mind, supplying its own philosophy, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... among some seats, heard a shouting and the whirring rattle of weapons, struggled up and was knocked back again, perceived that a number of black-badged men were all about him firing at the rebels below, leaping from seat to seat, crouching among the seats to reload. Instinctively he crouched amidst the seats, as stray shots ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Peace on the whirring marts, Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams, Peace, God of Peace! peace, peace in all our homes, And peace ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... headquarters camp frequently received shots from the point of Lookout Mountain also, but fortunately no casualties resulted from this plunging fire, though, I am free to confess, at first our nerves were often upset by the whirring of twenty-pounder shells dropped inconsiderately into our camp at untimely hours ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... A shady freshness, chafers whirring, A little piping of leaf-hid birds; A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring, A cloud to the eastward snowy ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... cut in another battery, then another. As he touched the switch after attaching the third battery, a loud whirring sound rewarded him. ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... captured by his Squire, and borne off, struggling and kicking as if Osmond had been his greatest foe; but the young Norman's arms were like iron round him; and he gave over his resistance sooner, because at that moment a whirring flapping sound was heard, and the poor hawk rose high, higher, over their heads in ever lessening circles, far away from her enemies. The servant who held her, had relaxed his grasp in the consternation caused by ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... so that the little invalid would not have to set foot upon the ground, and finally carried the latter with his own strong young arms onto the train and into a large, cool stateroom where a fan was already whirring and the white-clad nurse waiting to minister to the ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... bright, frosty and star-light, with a nice, crisp breeze, which, the river being there about two miles wide, raised quite a sea. Thousands of wildfowl, all on their way south, were flying, whistling and whirring about in every direction, and rising from the water quite close to the boat. My dog "Snipe" and I crept into the cabin out of the cutting wind, which was dead ahead, and proceeded to discuss our impromptu Christmas fare, which, after all, was ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... was a deep stillness in the house. Outside the tempest raged wildly. It seemed to Joan as if hours passed in that interval of heart-trembling; she was almost shocked when the old clock gave its long whirring warning and then struck only one. Her first look was to the fire. It wanted replenishing. Her next was at Denas. The girl was fast asleep. Her hands were across the open Bible, her face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... step. Beside her loomed the blank warehouse wall, and from the narrow passage-way below came the smell of garbage. The clanging of cars and the rumbling of trucks mingled with the nearer sounds of whirring sewing machines in Lavinski's sweat-shop on the floor below. From somewhere around the corner came, at intervals, the sharp cry of a woman in agony. With that last sound Nance was all too familiar. The coming and going of a human life ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... found the business very pleasant. Perhaps I recollect driving down (with a certain trunk and carpet-bag on the box) with my own mother to the end of the avenue, where we waited—only a few minutes—until the whirring wheels of that "Defiance" coach were heard rolling towards us as certain as death. Twang goes the horn; up goes the trunk; down come the steps. Bah! I see the autumn evening: I hear the wheels now: I smart the cruel smart again: ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there was a report; a pistol in the hand of the first teamster smoked, and a poor little squirrel, that had been whirring on the limb of a basswood, dropped to the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... quality of the air. The distant snow-peaks were as plainly seen, though they appeared as if in moonlight. This seemed due to no cloud or mist, but rather to a fading of the sun itself. The occasional flurry of wings overhead, the whirring of larger birds in the cover, and a frequent rustling in the undergrowth, as of the passage of some stealthy animal, began equally to attract her attention. It was so different from the habitual silence of these sedate solitudes. Kate had no vague fear of wild beasts; she had been ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... silence, Eveley sat down on the floor to take off her shoes—a most childish habit carried over into the years of age and wisdom—and was immediately wrapped in happy thoughts where stunning motor clothes and whirring engines and Nolan's pleasant eyes were harmoniously mingled. And when at last she started up into active consciousness again, and rushed pellmell to bed, mindful of her responsibility as a business girl, sleep came very slowly. And when it came at ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... The whirring partridge, from a branchy holm Beheld him, as beneath the turf he plac'd His son's lamented body, and with joy Flutter'd his feathers; while his chirping song Proclaim'd his gladness: then the only bird Known ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Behind him, with a whirring sound, a metallic voice assailed them in a gabble of words, at first husky and broken, then clear, nasal, a voice from neither Europe nor Asia, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... Sanford to take a bath, and with the clear vision of seven years Sanford noted that no distinct place for this process had been recommended. So he retired to a sun-warmed tub of rain-water behind the stables, and sat comfortably armpit deep therein, whirring a rattle lately worn by a snake, and presented to him by one of the Varian tribe, sons of his father's foreman. Soaking happily, Sanford admired his mother's garden, spread up along the slope toward the thick cedar forest, and thought ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... worked as though they were wire and whipcord instead of flesh and blood. An utter silence reigned over all the broad stream, broken only by the lap-lap of the water against their curving bow, the whirring of the night hawk above them, and the sharp high barking of foxes away in the woods. When at last morning broke, and the black shaded imperceptibly into gray, they were far out of sight of the citadel and of all trace of man's handiwork. Virgin woods in their ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle |
