"Hum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... under the hill of Brent, the hum of voices came down to us, for the day was still, and my guards straightened themselves in the saddle and set their ranks more orderly. But I, clad as I was in the rags of the finery I had worn at the feast ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... blood finds its way into the vein and so does not escape into the tissues. Even if a haematoma forms it seldom assumes a great size. In time a swelling is recognised, with a palpable thrill and a systolic bruit, loudest at the level of the communication and accompanied by a continuous venous hum. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... midsummer, and the quiet, little town of Overton drowsed gently, not to awaken until the sounds of girl laughter and the passing of light feet through its sleepy streets roused it to the realization that it was Overton College that made its hum-drum ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... the bedroom with the child. Slipping him into his little nightdress she made him comfortable for the night, after which she went back to the dining room to keep Jake from thinking she had anything to cry about. There was an added hum of voices, and she went in ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... however, at the road-side chapel, we must proceed to the fair, where the "busy hum of men" announced the approach of the mayor and corporate body to make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... solemn hills, far removed alike from the ambitious strife of cities and the bloody spectacles of war. Lying amid the solitudes of the mountains, where no sounds fall on the ear but the bleating of flocks, the lowing of cattle, the hum of bees, the baying of a watch-dog from the lonely homestead, the murmur of hidden rills, the everlasting rush of the waterfall as it plunges flashing into its dark, foaming pool, pastoral are eminently peaceful scenes. Indeed, ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... trapan[obs3], trepan; kidnap; let in, hook in; nousle[obs3], nousel[obs3]; blind a trail; enmesh, immesh[obs3]; shanghai; catch, catch in a trap; sniggle, entangle, illaqueate[obs3], hocus, escamoter[obs3], practice on one's credulity; hum, humbug; gammon, stuff up*, sell; play a trick upon one, play a practical joke upon one, put something over on one, put one over on; balk, trip up, throw a tub to a whale; fool to the top of one's bent, send on a fool's errand; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... door). "Business of importance!" Hum! I'm glad I'm prepared with a good basin of soup. There's no doing business well upon an empty stomach. Perhaps the business is to lend cash; and I've no great stomach for that. But it will be an honour, to be ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... conquered height Died out the battle's hum; Vainly 'mid living and the dead We sought our leader dumb; It seemed as if a spectre steed To win that ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... shrill musical hum; they raced down the runway; dipped for a second toward the water; rose, and sailed swiftly up and on toward the dark line of Mexico, that lay in the evening shadow cast by the curved surface of the ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... grime-rubbed, the corners and eaves were rusted with rain, and the child who stared at them from the kitchen window was smeary-faced. But beyond the barn was a clump of scarlet geraniums; the prairie breeze was sunshine in motion; the flashing metal blades of the windmill revolved with a lively hum; a horse neighed, a rooster crowed, martins flew in and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... season on Sunday afternoon, about a score of visitors were assembled in Mrs. Cosgrove's drawing-rooms—there were two of them, with a landing between. As usual, some one sat at the piano, but a hum of talk went on as undercurrent to the music. Downstairs, in the library, half a dozen people found the quietness they preferred, and among these was Mrs. Widdowson. She had an album of portraits on her lap; whilst ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... it; I hold duels in abhorrence, as unjustifiable acts of violence, and savage devices of revenge. I have offended against my own conviction,—but, transported with passion at his infamous charges, I was not master of my reason; I accused hum of his perfidy; he denied it; I told him I had it from my father,—he changed the subject to pour abuse upon him; I insisted on a recantation to clear you; he asked by what right? I fiercely answered; by a husband's! ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... little," he confessed as he tuned the neglected instrument, "but it seemed sort of sacrilegious—after coming home and finding my father gone and the ranch about to go. However—why sip sorrow with a long spoon? What's that ballad about the old-fashioned garden, Miss Kay? I like it. If you'll hum it a few times—" ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the time he rescued Buck, but with the continued warm weather even the slight limp left him. And here, lying by the river bank through the long spring days, watching the running water, listening lazily to the songs of birds and the hum of nature, Buck ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... came up after awhile, and streamed in through the vines of the porch. The hazel eyes slowly closed as Elizabeth began to hum an ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... normally the scene of quiet and orderly activity, where the day's work was done to the clicking of typewriters and the hum of subdued voices, but now the rooms were empty and the only sound to be heard was the heavy tread of Varr himself as he walked through the main office to the small room where his own desk was located. He frowned at the difference, ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... great city's lumbering noise Arises with confusing hum, And whistling shrill of butchers' boys; My day begins, my bird ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... pleased me more than at times, when the sultry heats of the day forbid alike study and recreation, to choose for myself some remote and shaded spot, and lying along upon the flowery turf, soothed by the drowsy hum of the summer insects, gaze upon this gorgeous pile of oriental grandeur, and lazily drink in the draughts of a beauty, as I believe, no where else to be enjoyed. When at such hours Julia or Fausta is my companion, I need not say in how great degree the pleasure is heightened, nor what ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... "Hum!" he soliloquized. "Now I see why I sleep so badly. Here goes!" And he speedily flung ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... these, I remember, on which I used to cogitate profoundly, was how to defeat an enemy without having arms. My preoccupation with this question, amidst the hum of the boys reciting their lessons, comes back to me even now. If I could properly train up a number of dogs, tigers and other ferocious beasts, and put a few lines of these on the field of battle, that, I thought, would serve very well as an inspiriting prelude. With our personal prowess let loose ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the charging rack Had forced the moon upon her back; The wind piped up a naval ditty; And the lamps winked through all the city. Before that house, where lights were shining, Corpulent feeders, grossly dining, And jolly clamour, hum and rattle, Fairly outvoiced the tempest's battle. As still his moistened lip he fingered, The envious policeman lingered; While far the infernal tempest sped, And shook the country folks in bed, And tore the trees and tossed the ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sunbright head!" The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: "Osiris comes: Oh tribes of Time, rejoice!" And social architects who build the State, Serving the Dream at citadel and gate, Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum. And glad quick cries will go from man to man: "Lo, He has come, our Christ the artisan, The King who loved the lilies, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... land sakes don't do that again, Zoeth," he protested. "That's the tenth 'Ah hum' you've cast loose in a mile. I know we're bound to a funeral but there ain't no need of tollin' the bell all the way. I don't like it and I don't think Marcellus would neither, if ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rays could penetrate the massy net-work of leaves and branches forming the roof of our fairy passage. Not a single bird could be seen, either seated or on the wing; nor was even a chirp distinguishable above the dreamy hum of millions of mosquitoes floating about, in a calm so profound, that it seemed as if the surface of the water had never been disturbed since the Creation. The air, though cool, felt so heavy and choky, that, by the time we had scrambled to the end of this strange tunnel or watery lane, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... moment. Whenever Mr Scatchard took his walks abroad, he was always accompanied by either his wife or niece, who, when they finally piloted him home, would wear a look of self-conscious triumph. When Mavis came down to breakfast, before setting out for New Cross, there was a hum of infinite preparation. Mr Scatchard was greasing his hair; gorgeous raiment was being packed into a bag; the final polish was being given to a silver trumpet. Both Mrs Scatchard and her niece, besides being cloaked and bonneted, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... post in the middle of the school-room for her quiet village-home in Normandy. Madame herself remained almost entirely invisible, shut up in the sanctity of her own rooms; and so the whole house had a sense of stillness that seemed only heightened by the glory of the autumn sunshine, and the hum of bees and rustle of leaves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... sardonically. "Hum! He is his father's son, not a doubt of that. 'Twill be a most worthy successor to my Lord Ostermore. But the lady? Tell me of the lady. How comes she linked ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... 'Hum!' soliloquised Charles. 'That means that my lady mother has adopted him, and thinks I should laugh at her, or straightway set up a dislike to him, knowing my contempt for heroes and hero-worship. It's a treat to have Philip out of the way, and if it was but possible to get out of hearing ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hillside. By and by the streets were fashioned From the model of McAdam, And adorned the youthful city. Richmond, Mulberry, and Paulding, Danville, Lexington, and Water, Stanford, Campbell, and Crab Orchard, Were the windings of the city. And the noisy hum of traffic, And the roll of cart and carriage, Told of barter and of bargain, Told of human gains and losses, Scared away the beasts and birdlings, Locked and dammed and bridged the rivers, Chained the rolling streams and rivers. Schools were opened, where the ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... afternoon. Store and hotel keeper, citizens in white shirts and broadcloth, jostled blue-shirted cattle men, while here and there a petty politician consulted with the representative of a Western paper. The smoke of cigars drifted everywhere, and the listless heat was stirred by the hum of voices eager and strident. It was evident that the assembly was in an expectant mood, and there was a murmur of approbation when one newspaper man ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... to the farther end, where the great cedar trunk stood. As I went a board creaked under my feet, and I heard—or fancied I heard—a faint rustle inside the trunk. I began to hum a tune, and moved about among the trunks, raising and shutting the lids, as if I were looking for something. Now at last I was beside the dreadful chest, and in another instant I had turned the key. ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... the religion of Abraham, which the pagan Arabs had polluted with idolatry, the Jews in corrupting their holy books. At the same time he heard a Voice, and sometimes he felt a noise in his ears like the tinkling of bells or a low deep hum, as if bees ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... gasolineless Sabbaths supervened were we really able to examine the village and see what it is like. Previously we had been kept busy either dodging motors or admiring them as they sped by. Their rich dazzle of burnished enamel, the purring hum of their great tires, evokes applause from the Urchin. He is learning, as he watches those flashing chariots, that life truly is almost as vivid as the advertisements in the Ladies' Home Journal, where the shimmer of earthly pageant ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the glory of this Danaean shower and half-closed her eyes to stare up at the wonder of it. Presently she heard the sound of twigs and leaves being crushed under advancing feet, but she did not look up, only started to hum a little tune, though she could not hear it for the rising beat of her own heart ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... in some matters. There were some warm discussions between the ladies, and a spirit of rebellion took possession of the wife. This was emphasized by the fact that she found herself very lonely and longed secretly for the hum and stir of the office; for the deference and the courtesy she had received there. Further, the distracted husband, in his roles of husband and son, found himself displeasing both his wife and his mother. ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... the world. I walk every day amongst immense ranks of people, with as much tranquillity as you do in your green alleys. The men I meet with make the same impression on my mind as would the trees of your forests, or the flocks of sheep grazing on your common. The busy hum too of these merchants does not disturb one more than the purling of your brooks. If sometimes I amuse myself in contemplating their anxious motions, I receive the same pleasure which you do in observing ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... his voice: "Come to books!!!" And they came. Not to come meant "war and rumors of war." The backless benches, high above the floor, groaned under the weight of irrepressible young America; the multitude of mischievous, shining faces, the bare legs and feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere—one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one thumb-paper, one stone-bruise, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... "Hum-m-m! Mistress Gordon has likewise a nephew, a vera handsome lad. I hae seen that he takes a deal o' interest in the crewel-stitch likewise. And Neil has seen it too,—for Neil has set his heart on Katherine,—and this afternoon there ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... and elastic character, as the soft enthusiasts who suffer under it are fond of believing. It yields to unexpected and striking impressions upon the senses, to change of place, to such scenes as create new trains of association, and to the influence of the busy hum of mankind. In a few minutes, Quentin's attention was as much engrossed by the variety of objects presented in rapid succession by the busy streets of Liege, as if there had been neither a Countess Isabelle nor a Bohemian in ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... but against those dear to him—his mother and sister. While this pained him, he began to wonder that they should be so much the subject of the conversation. He could not tell what was said of them, but in the hum of voices their names repeatedly reached his ear. He had lain about an hour on the banqueta, when the door opened, and the two officers, Vizcarra and Roblado, stepped within the cell. They were ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... the din of labor augments on every side; the streets are thronged with man, and steed, and beast of burden, and there is a hum and murmur, like the surges of the ocean. As the sun ascends to his meridian, the hum and bustle gradually decline; at the height of noon there is a pause. The panting city sinks into lassitude, and for several hours there is a general repose. The windows are ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... she replied: "why the miners in our town here must never even hum a tune; we must never drive more than just two miles from the gate; and no amusing book, no poem, no novel is ever let come into the house. And added to all this we are perpetually frightened with being told that such a number of thoughts ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... rather ho-hum to me; they are quick to respond to hygienic treatment and easy to resolve. I've fixed lots of them. But an inflamed gallbladder is in no way ho-hum to the person afflicted with it. I've been frequently told that there are no ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... enjoy this trip," purred Isobel Baring, nestling comfortably among the cushions of her deck chair. A steward was arranging tea for two at a small table. The Kansas, with placid hum of engines, was speeding evenly through ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... safely discard all but one. Some fishermen were pulling nets on the bay about half a mile outside the mouth of the Bush River last night. About eleven, a boat running without lights passed them. They said that they could not hear an engine running, but just a dull hum and the gurgle of a propeller. They hailed it, but got no answer. It faded away into the darkness and they think it was headed toward the mouth of the Bush River. They had their nets up and reset in another hour but ...
— Poisoned Air • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... the trees, the men of Keeling build exquisitely modeled canoes. By far the best workmanship in boat-building I saw on the voyage was here. Many finished mechanics dwelt under the palms at Keeling, and the hum of the band-saw and the ring of the anvil were heard from morning till night. The first Scotch settlers left there the strength of Northern blood and the inheritance of steady habits. No benevolent society has ever done so much for any islanders ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure but what you're totally feminine and that I'm ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... veritably to hum with secret and, to judge by the pitch of its rumour, well-nigh panic activity. One divined a scurrying as of rats about to desert a sinking ship. Untoward events had thrown this establishment into a state of excited ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... "Hum," commented Craig, "this was apparently written on the outside wrapper of a paper folded about some sal-ammoniac ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more of their music. All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of mignonette, opposite to the window, and pay me for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds that nature utters are delightful,—at least in this country. I should not perhaps find the roaring of lions ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... London in 1787 the society had just begun operations on a paid-up capital of L35,000. One of the directors, Isaac Hawkins Browne, M.P., was actually down in Scotland choosing the sites for the villages; and Wilberforce was already almost hearing the "busy hum" of the little hives of fishermen, coopers, boat-builders, and ropemakers, whom they were settling ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... when the hum of voices had ceased "I never thought as how I'd have to get up here and make a speech to-night or I might have taken to the woods. Howsomever, mother and Susan says as it's gettin' late it's about time we had some supper. Somewhere in the ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... lately decided before Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." Doe then—and not till then—struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, "Jest so." The chief ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... road-side tempted me to enter into a bye-lane, and take a nearer view of it. A village church, embosomed in a chesnut wood, just rose above the trees on the top of a hill; the setting sun was on its casements, and the foliage of the wood was burnished by the golden reflection. The distant hum of the village green was just audible; but not so the French horn, which echoed in full melody through the groves. Having rode about half a mile through a narrow sequestered lane, which strongly reminded me of the half-green and half-trodden bye-roads in Warwickshire, I came ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... vigorous exercise of leaping water-falls and forging up boiling rapids had developed these sturdy mountaineer trout into prodigies of strength and endurance. Even now my nerves tingle to the tips of my toes as in fancy I hear my reel hum or see the tip of my five ounce split bamboo bend so as to almost form ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... intertwined, Of wildest texture, blacken'd o'er with age, Bound them their mantle green the climbers twine. Beneath whose mantle—pale, Fann'd by the breathing gale, We shield us from the fervid mid-day rage, Thither, while the murmuring throng Of wild bees hum ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... fire-crackers to propitiate the river dragon, the boat was shoved from the jetty, the sail hoisted, and we were soon slowly stemming the broad current of the Yang Tsze. On our right was Hankow, with its million or more inhabitants, the hum of the great city following us for miles; and the mouth of the Han, its surface so covered with junks that their masts resembled a forest, and only a narrow lane of water was left for the passage of boats. Just beyond the Han was Han Yang, once a fine city, but now in ruins, one of the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... having withdrawn itself, a hum of many voices filled the court-house; a munching of biscuits, a sipping of flasks. The silence of suspense no longer reigned. The struggle was virtually over, and the victim was only waiting his doom. It was ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... reading and sitting-rooms are filled with well-dressed men, guests and citizens, who have sauntered here from all parts of the city. Four-fifths are smoking, and the air is hazy with the "vapor of the weed." The hum of conversation is incessant, but the general tone is well-bred and courteous. In the farther end of the great hall a group of stock brokers may be seen comparing notes, and making bargains for the sale and purchase of their fickle ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... (honourable I mean) sit knotting under his Nose when he was writing, and so gave occasion for the changing it instead of Bawdy, that that odious word might not offend her, tho the Phrase was made Nonsence by it—hum—No faith, the case seems to me now to be quite otherwise, and really the effect of downright Hypocrisy, unless done as I said for the last reason; for those that have read his Book, may find sprinkling up and down the other words extreamly plain upon occasion, Ribaldry ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... within him sinking. On the plain He look'd, and there, alarm'd, the watchfires saw, Which, far advanc'd before the walls of Troy, Blaz'd numberless; and thence of pipes and flutes He heard the sound, and busy hum of men. Upon the ships he look'd, and men of Greece, And by the roots his hair in handfuls tore To Jove on high; deep groan'd his mighty heart. Thus as he mus'd, the wisest course appear'd, With Nestor, son of Neleus, to confer, If they some scheme in council might ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... sung to sleep with it by mother, by father, and by servants, and it was one of the first things she herself learned. There was music in the race, and this bright little one had her full share of it, and soon could hum her parent's triumphal march, the talisman of her family, ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... familiar with death, death by the sniper's bullet, by machine gun and shell, by bayonet and poison gas. This was different. It was not war. It was something that touched them more deeply than any of the killing they had seen in war. The low hum of foraging bees about the door, the foxglove swaying in summer airs, the hushed peace of the distant hills and nearer forest,—this was no background for violence and death. It shocked them, chilled and depressed them. Hollister felt a new sort ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... bird, your voice must be heard; Hum out to the flow'rs my lay. As o'er them you hover, oh! say that I love her, And say ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... The hum of wheels has ceased; the crowd of labourers hurry out to their morning's meal; a few short minutes, and the discordant whistles again shriek out their call to work. Tom and Susy, where are they? The gates will soon ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... "You didn't hear what the old lady said at this point, I suppose. I was sitting next to her. She was really a whole play by herself. When Jumbo went smashing against the side, the old lady gave a grunt. 'Hum, that wull sort ye a doot.' Oh! she ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... torrent of ecstatic life, the river had paused in the valley to rest, dreaming, perchance, of the long cool shadows in the uplands, the far altar-fires of daybreak. There were pleasant things to do in the valley, to lie at full length, basking in the sun, to hum a bit of the old music, to touch gently the harp-strings of the marsh grass and rushes, dimpling with pleasure at the faint answer, to reflect every passing mood of cloud and sky, even to hold the little clouds as a mother might, upon its deep and tender bosom. There were lily-pads to look after, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Paradise now came up to me again, followed by a square man, middle-aged, and hum-drum, who, I found was Lord Say and Sele, afterwards from the Kirwans, for though they introduced him to me, I was so confounded by their vehemence and their manners, that I ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... The hum of the streets was hushed. Few sounds came from without; but the silence that had so long reigned in the mansion, was broken by the gentle tones ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... an hour overtime to-night an' Sunday," McGuffey informed the skipper. "An' that hurts me. I don't mind takin' a poke at you myself but I'll be shot if I'll stand idly by an' see somebody else do it. With your kind permission, Scraggs, I'll climb into my dungarees an' make things hum in that engine room." ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... liebe Gott. She had a sweet, clear voice, and it seemed to float to heaven. I sang low, merely to sustain her. Aunt Gredel, who could never rest doing nothing, began spinning; the hum of her wheel filled up the silences, and we all felt happy. When one song was ended, we began another. At three o'clock, Aunt Gredel served up the pancake, and as we ate it, laughing, like the happiest ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... before him. On looking at the galleries, he saw that they were crowded with ladies of rank and fashion. Every thing having been now ready, the lawyers, each with his brief before him, and each with a calm, but serious and meditative aspect, the Clerk of the Crown cried out, in a voice which the hum of the crowd ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... minutes the silence that prevailed was interrupted by a general movement in the outer crowd, when presently the Leather-Stocking made his appearance, ushered into the criminals bar under the custody of two constables, The hum ceased, the people closed into the open space again, and the silence soon became so deep that the hard breathing of the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... believe in you, my Soul ... Loaf with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat;... Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Melissy, hum at last, hey? Why didn't you stay till mornin'? Party business keepin' me up here so late waitin' for you—when I'm eny most tired to death ironin' and workin' like a slave all day—ought to ben abed an hour ago. Thought ye left ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... each bird has his, Across the girding city's hum. How green under the boughs it is! How thick the tremulous sheep ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... of Old Age, and some Long for its Respite from the Hum And Clash of sordid Strife—O Fools, The Past should teach them ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... duskiness, and the weariness of eight hours in the saddle, began to tell, and conversation flagged and finally died out utterly. The squeak-squeaking of the saddles grew very distinct; occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up; now and then a horse sneezed. These things only emphasised the solemnity and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... morning, midday or sunset rambles, and often dominate the landscape in a way I never before thought of—fill the long lane, not by scores or hundreds only, but by thousands. Large and vivacious and swift, with wonderful momentum and a loud swelling, perpetual hum, varied now and then by something almost like a shriek, they dart to and fro, in rapid flashes, chasing each other, and (little things as they are,) conveying to me a new and pronounc'd sense of strength, beauty, vitality and movement. Are they in their mating season? or ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... utter blackness of the room, Mike the Angel could see nothing, and he could hear nothing but the all-pervading hum of the ship's engines. But he could still ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... family, and met her often in the service of the parish, as well as in her official character at the Homestead. It so chanced that one Sunday afternoon they found themselves simultaneously at the door of the school-house, whence issued not the customary hum, but ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sat on the grass, behind a cabin that had been abandoned, where they could see the track while they themselves were hidden from anyone approaching by the road they had come. And before long the rails began to hum. Then, in the distance, there was the ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... did so. We followed suit instantly. Then Hilda rose and began walking slowly round the big drum in the nave, saying aloud at each step, in a sort of monotonous chant, like a priest intoning, the four mystic words, "Aum, mani, padme, hum," "Aum, mani, padme, hum," many times over. We repeated the sacred formula after her, as if we had always been brought up to it. I noticed that Hilda walked the way of the sun. It is an important point in all ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... four hundred at Goodwood, and there were some of my creditors I simply had to give a little to, or they would have pulled me up altogether. You talk about nerves, Ena, but, hang it all, it's enough to give anyone the hum to lead the sort of life I've had to lead for the last few years. I'm nothing more nor less ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the rocks with a haste that was born of nervous tension. She did not see the men again—it was needful to pick a path down the steep descent very carefully—and when she came, breathless, upon the clump of birches among which the tents were pitched it was evident from the hum of voices that the strangers had already arrived. Pushing in among the trees, she stopped, with her heart beating unpleasantly fast, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... sort of fever-pitch, and when I got to work on that play I was at another. No writer while exercising an abnormal faculty is quite sane. His brain is several pitches above normal and his nerves are like hot taut wires—that hum like the devil. If this were not the case he would not be an imaginative writer at all. But he certainly is in no condition to reveal himself to a woman. I have made wild and sporadic love to you—sporadic is the word, for between my ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... then proud, she would be more than ever conspicuous against the background of brilliant toilets, fine jewels, and assured manners which the family would produce for the occasion. As a matter of fact, there was a perceptible hush in the hum of talk as she made her entry into the drawing-room, ostensibly led by Philip Wayne, but really leading him. As she paused near the door, half timid, half bewildered, looking for her hostess, it did not help her to feel at ease to ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... and cools our forehead. It is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the light reflected on it from the Piazzetta. The same light climbs the Campanile of S. Mark, and shows the golden angel in a mystery of gloom. The only noise that reaches us is a confused hum from the Piazza. Sitting and musing there, the blackness of the water whispers in our ears a tale of death. And now we hear a plash of oars, and gliding through the darkness comes a single boat. One man leaps upon the landing-place without a word and disappears. There ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... at school, in the summer. It made her think of rounders in the hot school garden, singing-classes in the large green room, all the class shouting "Gather roses while ye may," hot afternoons in the shady north room, the sound of turning pages, the hum of the garden beyond the sun-blinds, meetings in the sixth form study.... Lilla, with her black hair and the specks of bright amber in the brown of her ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... populous. The harbor was full of ships and boats of all sorts, some lying at the stone quays, others leaving port, others entering. Galleys passed and repassed, and merchant ships with their clumsy sails, and small fishing-boats. From afar arose the deep hum of a vast multitude and the low roar that always ascends from ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... very tyrant, I, an arrant tyrant, If e're I come to reign; therefore look to't, Except you do provide me hum enough And Lour to bouze with: I must have my Capons And Turkeys brought me in, with my green Geese, And Ducklings i'th' season: fine fat chickens, Or if you chance where an eye of tame Phesants Or Partridges are ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... only I might change places with Oceana! If I could get away to some South Sea island, and be my own mistress and live my own life. [Takes photograph.] Oceana! I'm wild to see you! I want to see you dancing. Your Sunrise Dance... and to your own music! [Begins to hum the Sunrise Dance.] ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... "Hum; might ha', they used to say, thirty years agone; I'm over old now. Still, my old woman might like it. Make so bold, sir, but what's ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree stood out against the dark shadows of the ilex. Clarke, in the deep folds of dream, was conscious that the path from his father's house had led him into an undiscovered country, and he was wondering at the strangeness of it all, when suddenly, in place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for a moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence, that was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but all things mingled, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... on Bredon, And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people,"- Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... of you Obstructs my cold, unbiased view, And keeps me from My hard though hum- Ble task, I do not murmur nor complain I do not ululate nor feign A love for vin Or what is ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... we could hear the sound of Tim Curtin's fiddle, and the hum of voices coming from the interior of the building. Our fear was that any of the inmates of the neighbouring dens might be awake, and, catching sight of us, might give the alarm, and allow the men time to escape. As far as I had learned, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... "Hum," said the wagtail, rather astonished at the ease with which the fly was caught; "it wasn't so bad, certainly; but you know you are precious ugly. Why, you have ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... in the long dining-room amid the hum of many voices, the glare of many lights, and the click of the glasses, as the wine was going around, when a young man who sat across the table from me rose with his glass poised between ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... one of the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees showed their buds, when, in the still April mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings. He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old oak-logs that are partially blended with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... considerable silence. He glanced up in an ashamed sort of way, at the other, and saw him standing quite upright and still, again with his back to the fire, looking out across the room. From outside came the hum of the thoroughfare—the rolling of wheels, the jingle of bells, the cries of human beings. He waited in a kind of shame for Dick's next words. He had not put all these feelings into coherent form before, even to himself, and they sounded now even more fantastic than he had thought ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... opened to admit the men, and somebody claiming Kitty's attention at the moment she turned away without reply. For a few minutes the conversation became more general until, after a brief hum and stir, congenial spirits sought and found each other and settled down into little groups of twos and threes. Somewhat to Nan's surprise—and, although she would not have acknowledged it, to her annoyance—Peter Mallory ensconced ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... morning, sunny, calm, inspiriting, and presently Tom began to hum. After a time Henry perceived that Tom was humming the same phrase again and again: 'Some streets are longer than others. Some streets are longer ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... other engagement. All ready, Dale?" for the chauffeur was in his seat, and the engine was purring with the placid hum of a machine ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... She seemed to be listening to something a long way off. Through the open windows of her softly shaded drawing-rooms, odourous with flowers, came the rippling of water falling from a fountain in the conservatory, the lazy hum of a mowing machine on the lawn, the distant tinkling of a hansom bell in the Square. But these were not the sounds which for a moment had changed ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... great spaces of emptiness lay gleaming in the mild sunlight, exhaling freshness like that of dewy lawns. When, under the glare of noon, they lay slumbrous, they were impressive by their prodigality of width and scope; in the bustle and hum of dusk, with the cafes filling, and spilling over on to the pavements, he could not tire of them; but at night, the mystery of their magic enthralled him. How could one sleep in such a city? The Puerto del Sol was then a sea of dark fringed with shores ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... gusto he had not known for years. The jolting, the shaking, the tossing had started his sluggish blood and cleared his business-befogged brain. His food was spiced with the aroma of the hemlocks, and when they took to the road again he began to hum tunes. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... figure vanished, through the same stages of indistinctness, back to the globular, lamp-like whiteness, till it faded into nothingness. Before it had quite faded away, the face of a woman arose, indistinct and calm. The same emphatic hum, though in a subdued note, indistinct and dim. The same paralysis of voice and muscle, the same strange force, as if it were overshadowing me. With the disappearance of this second and far less interesting figure, I recovered my power of ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... the boys, taking their mugs of tea, retired into the shelter prepared for them, and sat and talked over the events of the day, and as to the work for to-morrow; and then, wrapping themselves up in their blankets, lay down to sleep, listening for some time dreamily to the hum of conversation of the men, who were sitting smoking round the fire, and to the hoarse roar of the innumerable frogs in the ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... went into Kenge's office," said Richard, "and if I were placed under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the—hum!— the forbidden ground—and should be able to study it, and master it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and my own ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Jesus is condemning here. The 'judging' of which He speaks sees motes in a brother's eye. That is to say, it is one-sided, and fixes on faults, which it magnifies, passing by virtues. Carrion flies that buzz with a sickening hum of satisfaction over sores, and prefer corruption to soundness, are as good judges of meat as such critics are of character. That Mephistophelean spirit of detraction has wide scope in this day. Literature and politics, as well as social life with its rivalries, are infested ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... in vanity; and so deeply, that at his public suppers—all the Court present, musicians also—he would hum these self-same praises between his teeth, when the music they were set to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... "Hum—haw—you gave me an awful fright, I can tell you." The squire breathed more freely. "You set that little Fluff on to begin it, and you ended it. I won't be the better of this for some time. Yes, let me lean on you, Frances; it's a comfort to feel I'm not without a daughter. Oh, it would have ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... chair, and gazed round at the strange-looking walls and mysterious pictures, and up to the chandelier at the ceiling; then rose, and opened the door, and looked down the lighted passage; but only heard the hum from the roomful below, scattered voices, and a hushed ivory rattling from the closed apartments adjoining. I stepped back into the room, and a terrible revulsion came over me: I would have given the world had I been safe back in Liverpool, fast asleep in my old bunk ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... was mute and dusty, with a tangle of strings; but the Stranger set it against his knee, and began to mend it deftly, talking the while in murmurs as a brook talks in a covert of cresses. By and by as he fitted a string he would touch and make it hum on a word—softly at first, and with long intervals—as though all its music lay dark and tangled in chaos, and he were exploring and picking out a note here and a note there to fit his song. There was trouble in his voice, and restlessness, and a low, eager striving, and ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... a war in France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms, All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, though the dark Scowls ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... floating mills anchored securely in the river. Each mill—a small house with sloping roof, and with so few windows that one wonders how the millers ever manage to see their grist—is built upon two boats. The musical hum of its great wheel is heard for a long distance, and warns one of the approach toward these pacific industries. The miller is usually on the lookout, and sometimes, when a large steamer is coming up, and he anticipates trouble from the "swell" which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... Big hulking men slouched by, and ragged little girls walked gingerly through the confusion with foaming buckets of beer in their hands. There was a clatter and garble of foreign tongues and brogues, shrill cries, quarrels and wrangles, and the Pit pulsed with a great and steady murmur, like the hum of the human ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... different employments at school, and afterwards desiring me in my turn to relate to him all manner of things about Germany. He repeats his amo, amas, amavi, in the same singing tone as our common school-boys. As I happened once when he was by, to hum a lively tune, he stared at me with surprise, and then reminded me it was Sunday; and so, that I might not forfeit his good opinion by any appearance of levity, I gave him to understand that, in the hurry of my journey, I had forgotten the day. He has already shown me St. James's Park, ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... the house: and the hum of the wheel and the singing Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold, Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome, Saying, "I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... "Hum, looks like Jube—no, that first letter's a 'K' I guess," and Mr. Wilson turned it upside down, thinking that ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... possession. Ha! hum! here are ladies: where will we stow our feet? I declare Will is on their skirts already, with more green slime than is carried on the breast of a pond. I believe he thinks them baggage—lay figures, as they've turned aside their heads. Gentlefolks for a wager! ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of the right hand on the thumb of the left)—I went to the sand. I got there when the sun was gone down. The camel lay down, and so did I lay down on the sand. We watched all night. I fear no one but God!—(Here was a general hum of approbation.)—Two hours before the fidger, (break of day) I looked up and saw pass by me, at a distance of from here to The Spring, nine Bughar (wild-bullocks). They came and went, and went and came, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the gerratist queeriosity in the livin' world—a wild mare without no hair— captered on the roarin wild prahayries of the far distant West by sixteen Injuns. Don't fail to see this gerrate exhibition. Only fifteen cents. Don't go hum without seein the State Fair, an' you won't see the State Fair without you see my show. Gerratist exhibition in the known world, an' all for the small sum ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the gay idlers who were wandering about the balconies or through the hotel grounds; while laughs and little shrieks, uttered by the children as their pursuing nurses caught them up for bed, mingled not unpleasantly with the silvery hum arising from the fashionable crowd and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... gorgeous with the crimson streaks which accompanied its setting. Standing in the waggon, Cathelineau could see the crowds of hurrying royalists rushing along the road, wherever the thick foliage of trees was sufficiently broken to leave any portion of it visible, and he could hear the eager hum of their voices both near ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... hum of voices and sat up again. It was merely the Leffingwells in the bed at the far end of the room, talking! Perhaps he had not been asleep more than an hour, and it was natural that they should lie awake a while, ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with a golden light on its long levels and a purple glamour on its hills. And after he had left her, she went with a light heart down the unpaved street that she had lately traversed in unseeing bitterness. The very hum of the mine cars was full of good cheer; children splashed joyously in the ditch; magpies gossiped; the blacksmith-shop rang with ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... literary blow flies will pounce upon the errors with delight, and, buzzing with the ecstasy of infernal joy, endeavour to hum their readers into a belief of the profundity of their critic erudition;—I shall nevertheless, with Churchill, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... grounds, we are finding reason to think otherwise. You are about to make an observation at table and some member of your family makes it before you; you are thinking of a certain tune and someone begins to hum it; you have a certain purpose in mind and, lo, the same thought finds expression in someone else, despite all probabilities. Oh, you may remark, This is only thought transference. Precisely, but what are you except your thought? All being, remember, is conscious ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... beneath the guillotine, or fell by cold-blooded murder at the altar where it ministered. Infuriated mobs hunted them like bloodhounds; and the cloisters of convent and monastery, which had hitherto been disturbed only by footsteps gliding quietly from cell to chapel, or the hum of voices mingling in devotion, now echoed the tread of armed ruffians and resounded with ribaldry and imprecations. An old man, who was for a time my teacher, told me many a tale of those days. He had narrowly escaped, once, by concealing himself under the floor of his room. He said that he felt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... an expensive suite at an apartment hotel near the Fabians, and much to little Mr. Alexander's joy, although much to Mrs. Alexander's disgust, they settled down to a hum-drum life that winter. She sighed as ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... as a sign that he will open the wide jaws of hungry war, even so did Agamemnon heave many a heavy sigh, for his soul trembled within him. When he looked upon the plain of Troy he marvelled at the many watchfires burning in front of Ilius, and at the sound of pipes and flutes and of the hum of men, but when presently he turned towards the ships and hosts of the Achaeans, he tore his hair by handfuls before Jove on high, and groaned aloud for the very disquietness of his soul. In the end he deemed it best to go at once to Nestor son of Neleus, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... on the other, the public road, with its coaches hurrying on to London, its market people halting to drink, its farmers, horsemen, and foot travellers. So, as one's humour is, one can have whichever phase of life one pleases: quietude or bustle; solitude or the busy hum of men: one can sit in the principal room with a tankard and a pipe and see both these phases at once through the windows that open upon either. But through all these delightful places they talk of leading railroads: a sad thing, I am sure: quite ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... started to hang up his hat and coat, but even as his hand was poised half-way to the hook it became paralyzed. Simultaneously Abe looked up from the column of the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and Miss Cohen, the bookkeeper, stopped writing; for the hum of sewing machines, which was as much a part of their weekday lives as the beating of their ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... an odd, light footstep drawing near. In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before been so sharply and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision of success that he withdrew into the entry of ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... without, and through the open casement beats warmly upon the floor within. The birds sing in the joyousness of full-robed summer; the drowsy hum of the bees, stealing sweets from the honeysuckle that bowers the window, lulls the air to a gentle quiet. Her breathing scarce breaks the summer stillness. Yet, she knows it is nearly over. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... There was a hum of approval from the speaker's supporters, whose possessions lay near the higher end of the valley, and dissenting growls from those whose boundaries lay below. After several of the ranchers from the lower valley had ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... for very exhaustion his brain had stopped its tormenting work. He lit a fire and sat by it, huddled in his coat, smoking, dozing, not able really to sleep for cold and hunger. The bright stars, flung all about the sky, mildly regarded hum. Coyotes mourned their loneliness and hunger near and far, and once, in the broken woods above him, a mountain lion gave its blood-curdling scream. Prosper hated the night and its beautiful desolation, he hated the God that had made this land. He cursed the dawn when it came delicately, spreading ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... days the weather changed again and became glorious. Even the Oddities would now join the crowd that hung out on the alighting-board, and would sing of work among the merry, merry blossoms till an untrained ear might have received it for the hum of a working hive. Yet, in truth, their store-honey had been eaten long ago. They lived from day to day on the efforts of the few sound bees, while the Wax-moth fretted and consumed again their already ruined wax. But the sound bees never mentioned these matters. They knew, if they did, the Oddities ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... of the hill, just where the road begins to dip again, at the spot where the last view of the town and the bay is obtained, the lonely traveller paused. He turned round, and for a while stood gazing wistfully at the scene he had left behind. The hum of the town's life, the sudden shoutings of the children at their play, even, as he fancied, the eternal pathos of the ocean's murmuring, were borne upwards to him on the evening breeze. Far off, among the trees, twinkled a ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... the greens of the grasses and leaves and the yellows and blues of the field flowers. It was warm, a spring day, with none of the discomfort of summer heat. Jubilant, Roger spun around in circles, inhaling the fragrance of the field, listening to the hum of insect life stirring back to awareness after a season of inactivity. Then he was running and tumbling, barefoot, his shirt open, feeling the soft grass give way underfoot and the soil was good and rich ...
— Pleasant Journey • Richard F. Thieme
... appellation. No! this little wanderer is held too dear by us all as the harbinger of spring for aught but praise to be bestowed on his mellow notes, which, though full and soft, are powerful, and may on a calm morning, before the everyday hum of human toil begins, be heard a mile away, over wood, field, and lake. Toward the summer solstice his notes are on the wane, and when he gives them forth we often hear him utter them as if laboring under great difficulty, ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... much lumber those Germans can carry around in their heads all their lives, and never work it up into anything. It's a pity they couldn't do the acquiring, and let out the use of their learning to a few bright Americans. We could make things hum, if we could arrange 'em ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "Ha! Hum! I wouldn't like to see myself!" spoke Uncle Wiggily, and he crawled away from the hole just in time, for the snake stuck out his ugly head and was about to bite the rabbit. It was the same snake that had ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it; that is to say, agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... best to approach a place which might be in the hands of an enemy. Her boat was tied at the dock. She had the half-ruined distillery yet to pass. It had stood under the cliff her lifetime. As she drew nearer, cracks of light and a hum like the droning of a beehive magically turned the old distillery into ...
— Marianson - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... is probable that his appreciation will never be as keen as it would have been if he had gathered his literary stock in trade at the same time that his senses were first opening to the world. Then the skies and the flowers, the song of birds and the hum of insects, the quiet reaches of still lakes and the roaring surge, gave to him the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... religionist, and wonderful orthodox; though between you and me, if his heart was looked into, he cares as little for priests and the good of the Church as he does for the Grand Sultan of the Turks. However, whatever that—hum!— Morgatch advises him to do he does. Morgatch brought forward plenty of witnesses to prove that the heretics had been seen in Saveleff's house, and that he and his wife and daughter had served them with food; and what is more, read out of the Bible, and prayed with them. Such ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... the unequal connection between his sublimated soul and its ungainly tenement. During this, deathlike preparation, Mr. Wharton, with a feeling nearly allied to that of his son, led Sarah from the apartment. His retreat was noticed by the divine, in a kind of scornful disdain, who began to hum the air of a popular psalm tune, giving it the full richness of the twang that distinguishes the Eastern [Footnote: By "Eastern" is meant the states of New England, which, being originally settled by Puritans, still retain many distinct shades of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... stood outside the cabin, with the moon high in the sky, a gentle wind sweeping up the canyon and loose masses of clouds drifting in front of the orb of night. Here and there a light twinkled from a shanty and the hum of voices sounded faintly in their ears. Further off, at the extreme end of the settlement, stood the Heavenly Bower, with the yellow rays streaming from its two windows. They could picture the group gathered there, as it had ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... the right foot upon the floor and bowing low as they entered the school-room; the girls upon like occasions equally faithful in the practice of a bewitching little "curtsey" which only added to their charms; the "studying aloud," the hum of the school-room being thereby easily heard a mile or two away; the timid approach to the dreaded master with the humble request that he would "mend a pen," "parse a verb," or "do ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... I began to hum and haw nervously, but he interrupted: "It doesn't matter to me, you know, I'm only asking from curiosity; and I don't expect you to give a date. But is it a matter of days or weeks? I can see it isn't one ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... rule is not to attract a large number of students, to put up imposing buildings, to have endowments, and fill chairs with learned specialists; to grant many degrees, and to keep the hum of a teaching staff and of a student body alive in the ears of a community, marking the college group by flags and colors, cap and gown, processions and occasions. These things are right, but are mainly accessory. We have not all of a university ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... sweeps across it. The larks are so multitudinous that no distinct song can be caught, and amidst the confused melody comes the note of the thrush and the blackbird. A constant under-running accompaniment is just audible in the hum of innumerable insects and the sharp buzz of flies darting past the ear. Only those who live in the open air and watch the fields and sea from hour to hour and day to day know what they are and what they mean. The ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... city wall, the blue car was the one note of modernity; but hardly had we turned in at a great gate worthy to open in welcome for Queen Jeanne of Naples, or Bertrand du Guesclin, than we were in the hum of twentieth-century life. I resented the change, for one expects nothing, wants nothing, modern in Avignon; but in a moment or two we had left the bright cafes and shops behind, to plunge back into the middle ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... summer, and seem, for a brief space, to reanimate the torpid energies of nature. The sun glowed in mid-day fervor, and myriads of the insect tribes, revived by his delusive smile, wheeled their giddy circles in the light, and sent their busy hum upon the calm, clear air. The wild bee, provident for future wants, had sallied from his wintry hive, and sipped from every honied cup, to fill the treasures of his waxen cell; and a thousand birds of passage folded their downy pinions, and delayed their distant flight, till bleaker ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... friends." A good propaganda to induce desertions and surrenders! The Italians generally had the mastery over the Austrians in the air. Their machines, and especially their Capronis, could always be distinguished from the Austrians' by the deeper hum of ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton |
