"Monotonous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at present maintained in his establishment. He had got three of these new cars, and while Montague sat upon the quarter-deck of the Triton and gazed at the magnificent scenery of the river, he had in his ear the monotonous hum of Devon's voice, discussing annular ball-bearings ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... the four immovable footmen, till he concentrates on JAMES] Ah! I 'ad a word wiv you, 'adn't I? You're the four conscientious ones wot's wyin' on your gov'nor's chest. 'Twas you I spoke to, wasn't it? [His eyes travel over them again] Ye're so monotonous. Well, ye're busy now, I see. I ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the dinner, which was interminable, and of sixty more speeches from the court gazette, where they had already done service two or three times, and wherein they were again deposited for the use of future generations. There is nothing so monotonous as happiness, and we must be indulgent to those who sing its praises officially. In such cases, the ablest is he who says ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... weary of the show around them because it was so quiet, so regardless of their presence, so moveless, so monotonous. Endless change was going on, but it was too slow for them to see; had it been rapid, its motions were not of a kind to interest them. Ere half an hour they had begun to think with regret of Piccadilly and Regent street—for they ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... time the fog-horn had kept up its monotonous din, the Costons flaring at intervals. The stoppage of either would only have added to the terror now partly allayed by the Captain's encouraging talk, which was picked up and repeated ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to which the more frequent complaint is that it is monotonous, that it lacks variety of incident and of type, the episode, our own business with which is simply that it was the cause of Hawthorne's writing an admirable tale, might be welcomed as a picturesque variation. At the same time, if we do not exaggerate its proportions, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... bring together these general notions on the plains of the New Continent, and the contrast they exhibit to the deserts of Africa and the fertile steppes of Asia, in order to give some interest to the narrative of a journey across lands of so monotonous an aspect. Having now accomplished this task, I shall trace the route by which we proceeded from the volcanic mountains of Parapara and the northern side of the Llanos, to the banks of the Apure, in the province ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... she lay back in his chair and looked at the table over which he had bent for so many monotonous years; she scarcely realised that he had passed out of her life, and that she was alone in the world; and she was only vaguely conscious that her sorrow had, so to speak, a double edge; that she had lost not only her father, but the man to whom she had given her heart, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the waxy blooms, with the gilded salons he had left, bewildered him. It seemed difficult to connect the thought of murder with this fair-smiling and enchanted scene. The soft gravel yielded to his tread, and plashing fountains murmured forth a plaintive and monotonous harmony. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... or is double, or crooked, or has swerved in some other way from its original pattern. But in all these variations there is nothing which recalls the characteristic specific differences among the representatives of the Carp Family, which in their wild state are very monotonous in their appearance all the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... itself in all kinds of inventions with which she mitigated the discomforts of the raw mining camp. As vegetables were exceedingly scarce, the diet of the miners consisted almost exclusively of meat, and Mrs. Osbourne made a great hit by her ingenuity in devising variations of this monotonous fare. She learned how to cook beef in fifteen different ways. Her great achievement, however, was in making imitation honey, to eat with griddle-cakes, out of boiled sugar with a lump of ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... and corrupted. At intervals, the silence of night is interrupted, now by plaintive moans, now by profound sighs, uttered by the feverish sleepers; then all is quiet, and naught is heard but the regular and monotonous tickings of a large clock, which strikes the hours, so long for sleepless suffering. One of the extremities of this hall was almost plunged into obscurity. Suddenly was heard a great stir, and the noise of rapid footsteps; a door was opened and shut several ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... heavy stretches of sand, its incredibly steep clay hills, its ruts and bumpers over which the buckboard rocked like a boat in a choppy sea, and its succession of shadeless habitant houses and discouraged farms, had never seemed to him so monotonous. At eight o'clock, when it was growing dusk, and the moon rising, he reached the landing-place on the Branch, and found his canoe, with his two old canoe-men, P'tit Louis, and Vieux Louis, waiting for him. With their warm, homely greeting his spirits began to revive; and the ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... habitations abutting upon the marshes. Between us and the cottages stretched half-a-mile of lush land through which at this season there were, however, numerous dry paths. Before us the flats again, a dull, monotonous expanse beneath the moon, with the promise of the cool breeze that the river flowed round the bend ahead. It was very quiet. Only the sound of our footsteps, as Nayland Smith and I tramped steadily towards our goal, broke the stillness of that ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... foreign eyes," said the Vicomte, sighing, "but not improved to the taste of a Parisian like me. I miss the dear Paris of old,—the streets associated with my beaux jours are no more. Is there not something drearily monotonous in those interminable perspectives? How frightfully the way lengthens before one's eyes! In the twists and curves of the old Paris one was relieved from the pain of seeing how far one had to go from one spot to another,—each tortuous street ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shepherd when he sang did not insist upon the conditions amid which his uneventful life was passed. It was left to a later, perhaps a wiser and a sadder, generation to gaze with fruitless and often only half sincere longing at the shepherd-boy asleep under the shadow of the thorn, lulled by the low monotonous rustle of the grazing flock. Only when the shepherd-songs ceased to be the outcome of unalloyed pastoral conditions did they become distinctively pastoral. It is therefore significant that the earliest pastoral poetry with ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... failing to find Fairyland upon earth, have transferred it to the kingdom of Death; and it has become the hope for the future. Each Sunday in church the congregation of business men and hard-worked women set aside the things of their monotonous life, and sing the songs of the endless search. To the rolling notes of the organ they tell the tale of the Elysian Fields: they take their unfilled desire for Fairyland and adjust it to their deathless hope of Heaven. They sing of crystal fountains, of ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... monotonous and rather humiliating work that left one very little time for amusement. He could drive a fast horse as well as other young men he met up town, play a clever card game, and beat his friends at pool. His talents were obviously wasted in ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... could be more monotonous than an Alpine valley covered up with snow. And yet to one who has passed many months in that seclusion Nature herself presents no monotony; for the changes constantly wrought by light and cloud and alternations ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Magersfontein trenches. The whole line north of this point was patrolled by colonial volunteers, amongst whom I noticed especially the Duke of Edinburgh's Rifles, with gay ribbons round their "smasher" hats. Nothing could be less exciting or interesting than their monotonous routine of work. We continually came across a little band of, say, twenty or thirty men and a couple of officers stationed near some culvert or bridge. Their tents were pitched on a bit of stony ground, ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... shadowy corners of Westmoreland House, Miss Carew lived a monotonous but anxious life. For days together she hardly saw Molly, and then perhaps she would be called into the big bed-room for a long talk, or rather, to listen to a long monologue in which Molly gave vent to views and ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... tophet, and you done it, and you've got to pay for it," Brackett wailed over and over, bobbing about on the seat. But the Cap'n did not reply. Teams kept coming into sight ahead, and he had thought only for his monotonous bellow ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... we gave each other cap-badges or buttons as a sign of mutual goodwill and returned to our palatial burrows in the sand, a perilous journey in the dark across an area literally honeycombed with similar burrows, into which we fell with monotonous regularity. Our progress was punctuated by a series of muffled but pungent remarks from people whose faces we had stepped on, or who had been suddenly interrupted in a snore of powerful dimensions by the violent impact of a hard head against the diaphragm. By the ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... higher, the heat became greater than during the previous days. At moments when the camels halted there could not be felt the slightest breeze, so that the air as well as the sands seemed to slumber in the warmth, in the light, and in the stillness. The caravan had just ridden upon a great monotonous level ground, unbroken by khors, when suddenly a wonderful spectacle presented itself to the eyes of the children. Groups of slender palms and pepper trees, plantations of mandarins, white houses, a small mosque with projecting minaret, and, lower, walls ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... knocked about the world so long and so disreputably, to feel safe and able to be good. She wondered what it would be like as time went on—if the rest which she felt now at the cessation of the struggle and the consciousness of her security would become monotonous or be always restful. At all events, she knew that she was happy for the day, and she trusted to her own tact and management to make the future as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... possessed of a small but secure income can live with ease and comfort in the country, where he would be condemned to a bitter struggle in a city; that a country life presents incomparable advantages of health and happiness; that it is not dull or monotonous to the man who has a genuine love of Nature, and some intellectual resources in himself; and that what are called the privations of such a life are inconsiderable compared with the real injuries endured by the man of small income, who earns his difficult bread in the fierce struggle of ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... to dwell upon, for it had been terribly monotonous, that time, and sadly punctuated with either mental or physical pain. The mental was all embraced in the one painful thought of Minnie Heath and what had been her fate; the physical was mingled with the pain caused during the healing up of the horrible contused wound above ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... be flabby indeed, criticism must be idiotic, to let such disgusting folly be tolerated for a single day and not hissed off the boards! The actress's voice infuriated Christophe. She had that singing, labored diction, that monotonous melopoeia which seems to have been dear to the least poetic people in the world since the days of the Champmesle and the Hotel de Bourgogne. Christophe was so exasperated by it that he wanted to go away. He turned his back on the scene, and he made hideous faces ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... beginning, as a matter of course, with the Lions' Den, and finishing with Caesar's "Podium,"), to escape a jargon and mechanical survey of the wonders by which he was surrounded, Franz ascended a half-dilapidated staircase, and, leaving them to follow their monotonous round, seated himself at the foot of a column, and immediately opposite a large aperture, which permitted him to enjoy a full and undisturbed view of the gigantic dimensions of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... quarter of the time taken by boat. Within fifteen minutes of our departure from Dovstone we were in French air country. A few ships specked the sea-surface, which reflected a dull grey from the clouds, but otherwise the crossing was monotonous. ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... placed fifteen paces from each other. Each quarter of an hour they called, "Sentinels, look out!" And the soldiers of the marine, placed in the topsails, replied to this by, "All's well," pronounced in a drawling, mournful tone. Nothing could be more monotonous or depressing than this continual murmur, this lugubrious mingling of voices all in the same tone, especially as those making these cries endeavored to make them ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... made of the sounds of the sea. There is first a theme that suggests the monotonous wash of the waters and the crying of sea-birds within the vast spaces of the cavern. Then follows a noble rising passage, as if the spirit of the place were ascending from the depths of the sea and pervading with his presence the immensity of his ocean ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... about them, and are apt to show us only that behaviour which they think we expect. They are afraid of us sometimes. They think we cannot sympathize with them. Our friend felt almost as if she were yielding to some sin in this strange interest in the passers-by. She had lived so monotonous a life, that any change could not have failed to be somewhat alarming. She told Bessie Thorne afterward, that one day she came upon that verse of Keble's Hymn for St. Matthew's ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... distasteful and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, dragging after him a woman once beloved. Attendant, with many a clank and wrench, were lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments, monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitary and ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... reasons for unhappiness and suffering than in the military service of Italy, Austria, or Russia. The American soldier is generally well taken care of and well treated; and while his life, in time of peace, is not exciting, it is easier and less monotonous than that of a factory operative, and it is hard to understand why he should be abnormally disposed to self-destruction. His suicidal tendency, however, is reduced by war, just as that of the civil population is, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Hertford. How should the faded bachelor know that this girl, in a shabby cotton gown, with unkempt hair dragged off her pale face, and with grimy smears from the handles of saucepans and fire-irons imprinted upon her cheeks—how should he know that she was beautiful? It was only during the slow monotonous hours of his convalescence, when he lay upon the poor faded little sofa in Mrs. Kepp's parlour—the sofa that was scarcely less faded and feeble than himself—it was then, and then only, that he discovered the loveliness of the face which ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Caribs," and took him there where they were bound. The Haytien regarded them, but the Caribs were as contemptuously silent as might have been Alonso de Ojeda in like circumstances. Only as Guacanagari turned away, one spoke in a fierce, monotonous voice. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... a certain elderly gentleman did not have to beg the bookmakers to take his money. He passed from block to block in the big ring, stripping small bills from a fat roll, and receiving pasteboards in exchange. Round and round the ring he went, with his monotonous request: ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... centre of the scene, The white-haired matron with monotonous tread Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien Sat, like a fate, and watched ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... round, troubled, as the wind shook the house, and Brangwen saw the small lips move. The mother began to rock, he heard the slight crunch of the rockers of the chair. Then he heard the low, monotonous murmur of a song in a foreign language. Then a great burst of wind, the mother seemed to have drifted away, the child's eyes were black and dilated. Brangwen looked up at the clouds which packed in great, alarming haste ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... grey-blue crawling void that had ever fascinated and repelled him—always wrinkled, always in flat monotonous motion, spreading away, away to ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... a short trip, the one in the compartment car, without change, having been rather monotonous. And yet not dull, for the girls found much to talk about, to speculate upon and ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... for the sake of this lesson, to give them also their page upon the record, to spread these neutral tints in due proportion upon the broad canvas. It is partly for this reason that I turn back to sketch the trivial and monotonous scenes of a winter in barracks. It is well to remind you, dear young friends, feminine and otherwise, at home, that a great many days and nights of patient labor go to one brilliant battle. When your loudest huzzas and your sweetest smiles are showered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... trunk is shortened into lengths. The teamster arrives with oxen in full steam, and rimy with frozen breath about their indignant nostrils. As he comes and goes, he talks to his team for company; his conversation is monotonous as the talk of lovers, but it has a cheerful ring through the solitude. The logs are chained and dragged creaking along over the snow to the river-side. There the subdivisions of Pinus the Great become a basis for a mighty snow-mound. But the mild March winds blow from seaward. Spring bourgeons. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... necklaces were lying on the table. The spectacle would have dazzled a connoisseur in pearls; but Mr. Prohack was not a connoisseur; he was not even interested in pearls, and saw on the table naught but a monotonous array of pleasing gewgaws, to his eye differing one from another only in size. He was, however, actuated by a high moral purpose, which uplifted him and enabled him to listen with dignity to the technical eulogies given by the experts. Eve of course ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... in the clear air, and the flying water bubbles and moans. Oh, yes, all is well—beautifully well—and we need no lights whatever! Then the look-out man whistles "Hist!"—which is quite an unusual mode of signalling; the officer ceases his monotonous tramp and runs forward. "Luff a little!" "He's still bearing up. Why doesn't he keep away?" "Luff a little more! Stand by your lee-braces. Oh, he'll go clear!" So the low clear talk goes, till at last with a savage ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... vast, it is very monotonous. All those new districts that have sprung up within the last half-century, the creatures of our commercial and colonial wealth, it is impossible to conceive anything more tame, more insipid, more uniform. Pancras is like Mary-le-bone, Mary-le-bone is like Paddington; all the streets resemble each ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... from nine o'clock till half-past twelve, I instruct my sisters, and draw; then we walk till dinner-time. After dinner I sew till tea-time, and after tea I either write, read, or do a little fancywork, or draw, as I please. Thus, in one delightful though somewhat monotonous course, my life is passed. I have been out only twice to tea since I came home. We are expecting company this afternoon, and on Tuesday next we shall have all the female teachers ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... pieces, in which there is always a buffoon, whose grimaces and low jests, like those of the buffoons in our own theatres, obtain from the audience the greatest share of applause. The dialogue in all their dramas, whether serious or comic, is conducted in a kind of monotonous recitative, sometimes however rising or sinking a few tones, which are meant to be expressive of passionate or querulous cadences. The speaker is interrupted at intervals by shrill harsh music, generally of wind instruments, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... plausible one, and the preacher altogether sincere. The people did come to hear him, too, as they had not come concerning the other matters he had been used to expound. There was a little mild sensation, and sensation is an agreeable variant of the dulness of grey and monotonous years. Most folks were pleased, it seemed—indeed all were pleased who were of "any real account." Many people even waxed complimentary and the preacher had hard work to keep his humility in flower. The only people who complained were those survivals of far past ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... peak. During this excursion, Hatteras had carefully explored these lands, even beyond Cape Washington; the melting of the snow sensibly changed the country; ravines and hillocks appeared here and there, where the snow indicated nothing but monotonous stretches. The house and magazines threatened to melt away, and they had frequently to be repaired; fortunately, a temperature of 57 degrees is rare in these latitudes, and the mean is hardly above ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... belittled by those he sought to serve. Finally he entered Naples at the head of an army and was proclaimed Dictator. But statesmanship is business; and business is to organize and discipline, and use the forces of monotonous peace. Garibaldi expected too much: he wanted to see the Church uprooted, the princes sent on their way, and the people supreme. This was not to be. He did, however, live to see the Pope relinquish his temporal power, and a United Italy, but with Victor Emmanuel, son of Charles Albert, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... hunt proceeded with more or less zest but neither real nor fancied treasure was discovered. Nevertheless it supplied a new interest each day, and Glen enthusiastically did his share in keeping the interest alive. Every part of every day was in vivid contrast to the dull monotonous life he had been living. And yet he was not satisfied, there remained an eager longing for something, he knew not what; ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... half-raised, was leaning on his hand, But, when again beside him sat the maid, His eyes for one slow minute having scanned Her moonlit face, he laid him down, and said, Monotonous, like solemn-read command: "For Love is of the earth, earthy, and is laid Lifeless at length back in the mother-tomb." Strange moanings from the pine entered ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the passengers, who are all more or less accustomed to the sea. A vacant seat at our table is now very rare; we are beginning to know some- thing about each other, and our daily life, in consequence, is becoming somewhat less monotonous. ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... am not speaking merely of length of life, though that is an important element in the case: there may be sad and quiet years which do not count: we have known existences which crept on in one dull round, from petty pleasure to petty pleasure, from monotonous occupation to monotonous occupation, never roused to storm by any noble passion, never thrilled by an electric touch of sympathy. Some lives are complete within narrow limits: in the few years which are all they have, they ripen into perfect sweetness, or expend themselves ...
— Strong Souls - A Sermon • Charles Beard
... timbers, as lightly as if it were a matter of two feet instead of twelve. He waved a hand to Brydon, and the crib shot on. Brydon sat eyeing it abstractedly till it ran into the teeth of the rapids, the long oars of the three men rising and falling to the monotonous cry. The sun set out the men and the craft against the tall dark walls of the river in strong relief, and Brydon was carried away from what Pierre had been saying. He had a solid pleasure in watching, and he sat up with a call of delight when he saw the crib drive at the slide. Just glancing the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in truth a most extraordinary scene, this wild dance of the hundreds in the depths of the primeval forest. Around and around they went, led by the two medicine men, the bear and the buffalo, and the hideous, monotonous chant swelled through all the forest. It did not now contain the ring of triumph and anticipation. Instead it was filled with grief for the fallen, fear of the evil spirits that filled the air, and of Manitou who had turned his face ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... outbreak of the Revolution, life among most Quakers had ceased to be as strict and monotonous as many have supposed. There were fox hunting, horse racing, assembly dances, barbecues, cider frolics, turtle and other dinners, tea parties and punch drinking, both under private auspices and among the activities of such clubs as the Colony in Schuylkill and the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club, in ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... notice how often Mrs. Baxter used the same word? I am sure she said "trouble" fifty times, if she said it once. She is not a bad-looking young woman, but she is a painfully monotonous talker. I should say she ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Mounted in the regular way. After that—He shrugged his shoulders as he thought of the fourteen months' of service still ahead of him. Until now his adventure as a member of the Royal Mounted had not grown monotonous for an hour. Excitement, action, fighting against odds, had been the spice of life to him, and he struggled to throw off the change that had taken hold of him the moment he had opened the hyacinth-scented letter of Mrs. Becker. "You're a fool," he argued. "You're as big a fool as Bucky Nome. ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... a long one and not exhilarating. Through the open door came no sound of organ or choir, but the deep and monotonous drawl of one voice. There had been no ringing of bells. The north countries, with the exception of Russia, require more than the ringing of bells or the waving of flags to warm their hearts. They celebrate their festivities ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... walks in Brooklyn and picked up night work here and there. It was monotonous clerical work, and being slow at figures I was often at it till midnight. Very late one evening, while making out bills in a hardware store, I suddenly came to a customer whose initials were J. K. It started me thinking of Joe Kramer and our last ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... nighttime, when the blazing fires were surrounded by men who were cooking and passing the time in various ways. Some were cleaning and loading their guns, others mended their clothes. Here and there you would find some genius playing dreamy, monotonous Spanish airs on the guitar, in the midst of a merry group of dancing and singing young Mexicans, many of whom were not older than I. Card-playing seemed, however, to be their favorite pastime; all Mexicans are inveterate gamesters, who look ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... furling sails that tried to beat him off; he was dimly discernible up in a world of giant cobwebs, reefing and splicing; he was faintly audible down in holds, stowing and unshipping cargo; he was winding round and round at capstans melodious, monotonous, and drunk; he was of a diabolical aspect, with coaling for the Antipodes; he was washing decks barefoot, with the breast of his red shirt open to the blast, though it was sharper than the knife in his leathern girdle; ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... stood close to the river listening to them. When the long diminuendo was drawn back into a monotonous murmur which she could scarcely hear, she turned round with a sigh; and she had a strange feeling that a last link which had held her to civilization had snapped, and that she was now suddenly grasped by the dry, hot hands of Egypt. As she turned she faced Hamza, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... yes—yes—yes," murmured the old man, looking vaguely about him; "coffee, to be sure"—and he emptied the cup at a single draught, hardly knowing whether it was coffee or tea. "Now I'll take a roll," he continued, in a monotonous murmur. "Where are the rolls? Here they are. Hot rolls are bad for my digestion—I ought to eat bread. I think I eat too much. Where's my place in the paper?—always lose my place in the paper. Clever editorials this fellow Eastman writes, unbiassed by party prejudice—unbiassed—unbiassed." His ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... did; but Tuesday's work was "meaner" than Monday's. There did not seem to be even so much as a variation. It was all one dull, monotonous, miserable hunt for something he could not find. It was just so on Wednesday, and all the while, as he said, "Money will just melt away; and ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... most lovely afternoon, warm and serene as only an American autumn afternoon knows how to be; and while we hurried past the mute, monotonous, yet ever-shifting array of pines and cedars, the very rays of the sun seemed to be perfumed with the aroma of the fragrant twigs, about which humming-birds now and then whirred and fluttered as we startled them, scarcely more brilliant in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... of the Governor's log house, he thought long and tenderly of his mother and Nancy. If he had only had a magic mirror such as Beauty had in the palace of the Beast, he might have looked into it and seen them going patiently about their daily tasks with nothing to break the monotonous routine of work except a visit from Gran'ther Wattles, who came to see if Nancy knew her catechism. The earthquake had been felt there so very slightly that they did not even know there had been one, until the Captain stopped on his return voyage ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... nobility were numerous, to all of whom he paid particular attention, in duty bound, as a gallant Cavalier and the best bred gentleman in Europe. Indeed, he seemed to gloat on the charms of those terrestrial deities with ecstacy! The introductions were endless, and the etiquette tiresome and monotonous. In fact, after making my humble congee, extrication became my only object, and I effected a retreat with difficulty. My stay was short, and as I had neither inclination nor opportunity for minute remark, I hope, Madam, that you will pardon my incapability of answering your inquiry ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... approached she dozed again, and then she heard a sound that made her heart leap—it was the low, monotonous ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... forts a line of sangars extended, the position of each being marked even now by a glare of light above it, which struck up from the fire which the insurgents had lit behind the walls of stone. And from one and another of the sangars the monotonous beat of a tom-tom ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... noble lancets are executed with great spirit; and although numerous, are arranged, more especially in the central window, in masses which the eye can readily follow, and by occupying so large a portion of the entire surface, leave little room for the monotonous repetitions of foliage or other patterns; the distribution of colour is also thus sufficiently varied without its masses in one part of the window unduly preponderating over those in another, a condition which is never grossly violated ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... that if he were going to fall in love with her at all, that catastrophe should be postponed beyond six months from their first acquaintance. Nor did it seem extraordinary to her that she should actually look forward to those visits, and take pleasure in that monotonous intercourse. Her life was very quiet; it was natural that she should take whatever diversion came in her way, and should even be thankful for it. Mr. Juxon was an honest gentleman, a scholar and a man who had seen the world. If what he said was not always ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... family pressed into service straightway became ardent water savers, and guests who volunteered gallantly somehow never, never came again. Yet it was not an exhausting or complicated task. It was simply so monotonous that it wore down the most phlegmatic nature. So the rural householder will do well to remember that, after all, this is a machine ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... dusty window-panes streaked with rain, its shutters drearily flapping in the wind, and the floor bearing the imprint of many boots burdened with the red clay of the region. The sound of slow strolling feet in the brick-paved hall was monotonous ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the fence still hid bunches of bloom among the half-formed berries. Clumps of white elderberry blossoms spilled their fragrance, and the wind rustling through the long stems of the weeds and prairie grass droned monotonous tunes. She found tufts of crisp sour sheep sorrel which she liked to nibble, while she made ladies out of the flowers, and the pups snapped at the grasshoppers and butterflies. Chicken Little was taking her ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the brothers Grimm are inferior to those of Andersen in plot, lesson and style. The plots are more monotonous and sometimes unnecessarily coarse and rough; the lessons are more obscure and sometimes are of doubtful value; and the style is much less forcible, in fact is often labored and inelegant. Yet many of the stories are attractive and harmless. They may be used to make ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... was adopted, and Will ran swiftly along the road until he discovered the wagon not far in advance of him. It was moving at the same monotonous pace as when it had passed the hiding place of the boys. Will Phelps, when he came within a hundred yards of the wagon he was following, decreased his own speed and endeavored to keep close to the fences by the roadside, so that he would not be seen by the driver ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... Nothing, perhaps, is less monotonous than the personal life of the Spirit. In its humility and joyous love, its adoration and its industry, it may find self-expression in any one of the countless activities of the world of time. It is both romantic and austere, both adventurous and holy. Full of fluctuation and ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... rhymeless, metreless, and broken phrases. To have set them in the sustained arioso style of Tristan und Isolde would have been as impossible as it would have been inept. As it is, the writing for the voices in Pelleas never, as one might reasonably suppose, becomes monotonous. The achievement—an astonishing tour de force, at the least—is as artistically successful as it is unprecedented in ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... had taken on for a month (though he never drawed—except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. "Halloa!" I says to the young man, "what's up!" He rubs his eyebrows with his toes, and he says, "I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"—which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company. ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... monotonous lives of the toiling masses of Dunfermline, more "of sweetness and light," to give to them—especially the young—some charm, some happiness, some elevating conditions of life which residence elsewhere would have denied, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. The many-headed sought further ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the days and nights were of a monotonous sameness as to events; men whose faces Hendon remembered more or less distinctly, came, by day, to gaze at the 'impostor' and repudiate and insult him; and by night the carousing and brawling went on with symmetrical regularity. However, there was a change of incident ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... way—that way," he cried, in a voice of monotonous cadence, but with a note of urgency behind it. "The man stand by dogs. He look—look all the time. Fire all same everywhere. It burn up all. Nothing left. Only two men. Boss Steve and Julyman. Oh, yes. They stan'. They look, too. They no fear. So they not burn all up. The ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... and down the long slopes of Buckeye Hill the flowers were already effacing the last dented footprints of the winter rains, and the winds no longer brought their monotonous patter. In the pine woods there were the song and flash of birds, and the quickening stimulus of the stirring aromatic sap. Miners and tunnelmen were already forsaking the direct road for a ramble through the woodland trail and its sylvan charms, and occasionally breaking into shouts ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... looked on board at the various lights, faintly-seen, with the result that his eyes were rested, while he listened to the monotonous talking of the watch and an occasional burst of laughter from the gunroom, or the regular murmur ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... forward and smoked, while a few who had provided themselves with newspapers or books sat in quiet corners and read. Tom was one of these, for he had picked up a few books on the United States at second-hand bookstalls at Portsmouth, and this prevented him from finding the voyage monotonous. When indisposed to read he chatted with Brown the carpenter and his mates, and sometimes getting a party of children round him and telling them stories gathered from the books now standing on the shelves in his room at Southsea. He was glad, however, when the voyage ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... should be the innocent means of bringing a great and lasting sorrow upon his house. Hour after hour I turned this question over and over in my mind, uncertain how to act. The clocks chimed their monotonous round, the noises died down and rose again in the streets, and daylight found me only just come to a decision. I would not tell them; but at the same time I would make doubly sure that I sailed aboard that ship myself, ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... the lights of the Swanson cottage and slowed down to a walk. His fears for the girl's safety were apparently groundless. The valley lay before him, steeped in moonlight. No sound disturbed the stillness save the far-off cry of the screaming gulls and the monotonous murmur of the distant sea. Walking slowly down the road, grown high on both sides with sage and cactus, he caught a glimpse of a bulky figure ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... footsteps, too, was equally distinct. Two persons were moving about the room, passing and repassing the door, one of them a light, agile person, and the other ponderous and somewhat awkward. Smith's voice went on incessantly with its odd, monotonous droning, now loud, now soft, as he crossed and re-crossed the floor. The other person was also on the move, but in a different and less regular fashion, for I heard rapid steps that seemed to end ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... much of the Swiss meadows and from whose points of view you could look over to the Alps on a clear day, became a torture to both the man and woman. They felt they must get away; the dark firs, the immense green forest became too monotonous for them. Should they not try some seaside resort for once? The sea is ever new. And it was also just the season for the seaside. The wind blew already over the stubble in the fields, as they drove down ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... tiny feet; the patter sounded like the falling of tears, and he wondered if Heath, too, listened to the light persistent noise, and read into it the footsteps of departing hopes and lost ideals, or merely all the terrible monotonous detail that preceded an ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... begin. It is now after midnight, however, and things are not as they were before. The dancers are dull and heavy—most of them have been drinking hard, and have long ago passed the stage of exhilaration. They dance in monotonous measure, round after round, hour after hour, with eyes fixed upon vacancy, as if they were only half conscious, in a constantly growing stupor. The men grasp the women very tightly, but there will be half an hour together when neither will see the other's face. Some couples do not care ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the same roof as Henrietta Temple. What bliss! what ravishing bliss! All his life, and his had not been a monotonous one; it seemed that all his life could not afford a situation so adventurous and so sweet as this. Now they have gone. The squire and his lady, and the worthy rector who recollected Armine so well; they have ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... monotonous enough; and yet, though half of the first volume is devoted to the pilgrimage through the plains of Mongolia, the interest never flags. The little incidents of travel are told good-humoredly, and sometimes are most amusing. Let us take, for instance, the following account given by a Tartar ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... lashes; but she was too thin and faded and narrow-chested for any prettiness now. Her calico gown was unstarched, though scrupulously clean: she wore a thin blue-and-white summer shawl, and her old straw bonnet was trimmed with a narrow blue ribbon pieced in two places. Her voice was slightly monotonous, but low-keyed: as she spoke her hands clasped and unclasped each other. The veins stood out and the knuckles were enlarged, but they were rather white ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... spent his monotonous existence, riding hard and drinking obstinately, but never, even in the latter case, rising into conviviality. A long, bushy beard, and portentous mustache, grizzled, though he was scarcely past middle age, which could not conceal ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... sumptuous iron-work, gilt and faded, the air laden with incense, the silence: Philip almost saw the Canons in their short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in red, passing from the sacristy to the choir; he almost heard the monotonous chanting of vespers. The names which Athelny mentioned, Avila, Tarragona, Saragossa, Segovia, Cordova, were like trumpets in his heart. He seemed to see the great gray piles of granite set in old Spanish towns amid a ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... occurred to change the monotonous order of his existence, for no event affected him except the work of his office, perquisites, gratuities, and promotion. He never spoke of anything but of his duties, either at the office, or at home—he had married ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... objector from Tennessee, a big, scared Pole, and the disdainful Celt whom he had sat beside on the train—the two former spent the evenings in writing eternal letters home, while the Irishman sat in the tent door whistling over and over to himself half a dozen shrill and monotonous bird-calls. It was rather to avoid an hour of their company than with any hope of diversion that, when the quarantine was lifted at the end of the week, he went into town. He caught one of the swarm of jitneys that overran ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fields and trees. The moment you put your foot inside the court, you felt the atmosphere of peace and cheerfulness, though it was a hospital. The nuns all looked happy and smiling—they always do, and I always wonder why. Life in a cloister seems to me so narrow and monotonous and unsatisfying unless one has been bred in a convent and knows nothing of life but what the ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... and rain, the monotonous food, which before port was reached had occasioned many cases of scurvy and reduced the strength of all, was excuse enough for the occasional lapse into overindulgence which occurred, but the long penance ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... gets to be monotonous, but where there are two a "fight" can be arranged for. At the word "go," two boys spin their tops, and then lash them till they crash together. The tops must be kept within a described ring, and the ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... in dull, monotonous tones. His eyes looked wearily and vacantly straight before him. I spoke to him again. He remained impenetrably silent; he appeared not to hear, or not to understand me. The surgeon came in, while I was still at a loss what to say or do next. Without waiting to be asked for his opinion, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... cheeks had the satin frost-glow of the moon; Their eyes the fire of Sirius. They circled, and droned a monotonous tune, Abandoned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... amphitheatre, grown more and more distant, when those of the opposite coast appear to draw near and yet nearer. Often as one has crossed, the sense of a new and strange impression is never wanting. The sense of calm and silence, the great waste of sea, the monotonous 'plash' of the paddle-wheels, the sort of solitude in the midst of such a crowd, the gradually lengthening distance behind, with the lessening, as gradual, in front, and the always novel feeling of approach to a new country—these elements impart a sort of dreamy, poetical feeling ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... practical objects. Consequently, everything is arranged in such a manner as to make the most of the space. All the paths are at right angles or parallel to each other, and the garden generally is laid out with monotonous regularity. Yet no small part of the success of the Government gardens as an institution depends upon the produce of this department. It has for many years enabled the Government to distribute gratuitously the seeds and plants required for various colonial enterprises. Within ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... no sound could I hear but the sighing Of winds, in the Valley of Pines; And the heavy, monotonous dropping Of dew from the shivering vines. But all day, 'mid the clashing of Labour, And the city's unmusical notes, With thoughts that went seeking the hidden, I pondered ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... will, Leonidas. We've been waiting for it a long time, but the chance is here at last. We've had enough of the trenches. It's a monotonous life at best. Ah, I take your pawn, the one for which I've been lying in ambush more ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... loomed on all sides, some near, others distant; and one, a blue spur, splitting the glaring sky far to the north, Cameron thought he recognized as a landmark. The ascent toward it was heartbreaking, not in steepness, but in its league-and-league-long monotonous rise. Cameron knew there was only one hope—to make the water hold out and never stop to rest. Warren began to weaken. Often he had to halt. The burning white day passed, and likewise the night, with its white stars shining ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... ourselves to fall back upon; and as long as that lasted, we bore up against the flatness and sameness of our lives. The sea, of all things, grows heavy and wearing to people whose constitutions are not capable of drinking in health and elasticity from its exhilarating breezes. There is nothing so monotonous as the wailing and lashing sea, especially in the night time, when darkness covers it, and its presence is announced only by that eternal surging and moaning of the waters which strike upon the invalided fancy like the cries of suffering ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... sea was in his blood, and his translation from the auditor's department to the deck of a fighting ship seemed to him like one of those happy dreams when one pinches himself to try and confirm the impossible. Metaphorically speaking, he was always pinching himself and contrasting the monotonous past with the glorious and animated present. The change told in his manner, in the tilt of his head, in his fearless eyes and straighter back. It comes natural to heroes to protrude their chests and walk upon air; and it is pardonable, indeed, in war time, when each feels ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... leave his walls plain, lest the whole should appear lean and cold. He has, therefore, spun his tracery and panelling over the whole surface. Nowhere can the eye rest on a plain piece of wall; everywhere it is fidgeted by monotonous rows of niches and mouldings. In fact, it may be compared to an etching so full of unnecessary details that composition, balance of mass, and beauty of line are all smothered in them. And yet there is much to be said on the other side. ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... those of employees in stores, telegraph offices, etc., in which the two sexes are closely associated in their work, constitute from this point of view a double-edged sword. Other unhealthy and monotonous occupations, combined with bad conditions of food and lodging, and with all kinds of seduction—factory hands for example—have a positively deleterious effect on sexual life, which becomes absolutely depraved when the two sexes work together. The situation is hardly any better when they are only ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... man could be seen riding the mules; both were emaciated and almost cadaverous in appearance. The girl opened her eyes wide on perceiving the Selvas, but the man kept his closed. The others looked at them with a rapt expression, continuing their prayers. The monotonous chant and the beat of the mule's hoofs grew fainter, and at last died away among the heights above. Soon after this sad procession had passed, a party of young men from the city appeared, laughing merrily, and ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... Vere, trotting between the house and the beech-trees on everlasting missions, and reading aloud for hours together from stupid novels, which I am sure bored her to extinction. Vere herself did not seem to listen very attentively, but I think the sweet, rather monotonous voice had a soothing effect on her nerves; she was relieved to be spared talking, and also intent on studying this strange specimen of ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... night a fountain pleads, Telling her beads, Her tinkling beads monotonous 'neath the moon; And where she springs atween, Two statues lean— Two Kings, their marble ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... precision. His head and body above the tablecloth had a rigid immobility. This firebrand, this great agitator, exhibited the least possible amount of warmth and animation. His voice was rasping, cold, and monotonous in a low key. He could not be called a talkative personality; but with his detached calm manner he appeared as ready to keep the conversation going as to drop it at ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... class of difficulties described, let us ask how we are to interpret the development of the musical faculty; how came there that endowment of musical faculty which characterises modern Europeans at large, as compared with their remote ancestors? The monotonous chants of low savages cannot be said to show any melodic inspiration; and it is not evident that an individual savage who had a little more musical perception than the rest would derive any such advantage in the maintenance of life as would secure the ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... to dwell longer on this confused picture, so monotonous in its variety; and the less so, that the Romans were far from original in this respect, and confined themselves to exhibiting a copy of the Helleno-Asiatic luxury still more exaggerated and stupid than their model. Plutos naturally devours his children as well ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... was a stir of awakening interest The travel-wearied passengers, laying aside books and magazines and cards, renewed conversations that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert part of the journey, had lagged painfully. Throughout the train, there was an air of eager expectancy; a bustling movement of preparation. The woman of the observation car platform had disappeared into her stateroom. The young man gathered his things ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... this piece in a monotonous style. Try to express the actual feeling of each quotation; and enter into ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... next hour Graves's memories are keen but monotonous,—a strong smell of stable, arising from the laprobe which had evidently been recently used as a horse blanket; the sound of hoofs, in an interminable "jog, jog—splash, splash," never hurrying; a series of exasperated howls from the captain, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... root of things which, in their view, only cumber the ground; but before other trees had been planted the antiquated and grand-looking ombu had its uses; it served as a gigantic landmark to the traveller on the great monotonous plains, and also afforded refreshing shade to man and horse in summer; while the native doctor or herbalist would sometimes pluck a leaf for a patient requiring a very violent remedy for his disorder. Our trees ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... As their monotonous chant rose high, Nazu was rushed to the edge of the pit. The ghastly, shimmering heat-ghost drifted hungrily to await the flinging of the slight form into its consuming embrace. Carr was glad to see that Ora ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... this lull in our lives; a season of busy yet monotonous calm,—I have heard say that peace itself, to be perfect, ought to be monotonous. We had enough of it to satisfy our daily need; we looked forward to more of it in time to come, when Guy should be at home, when we should see safely secured the futures of all ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Virginia of Washington's boyhood, and find a people without cities or towns, with no means of communication except what was afforded by rivers and wood roads; having no trades, no industries, no means of spreading knowledge, only one occupation, clumsily performed; and living a quiet, monotonous existence, which can now hardly be realized. It is "a far cry to Loch-Awe," as the Scotch proverb has it; and this old Virginian society, although we should find it sorry work living in it, is both pleasant and picturesque in the ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... white flowers round her Nantais cap. After supper the party danced Breton "ronds." The dancers form a large ring (grand rond), holding each other's hands, which they swing violently as they sidle round in a kind of hop-skip-and-a-jump step, accompanied by singing in a most monotonous tone. This went on until midnight. This kind of dance dates, they say, from Celtic times. The music consists of the biniou or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, sometimes with the addition of a drum. The biniou, cornemuse, or bagpipe, is the national instrument ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... ear against the door and listened. There was no sound from inside except a monotonous noise that must be water dripping from a leaky faucet. Finally, he climbed to his feet and reached for his keys. The third one he tried fitted, ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey
... walk was to the grey convent where she now passed her monotonous days. Every evening I returned, and often I stood gazing at her prison and thinking of Flaminia as I used to know her. One evening Fabiani found me thus, and made me follow him home. He spoke to me with unusual solemnity in his voice, but with great kindness. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... poured forth the monotonous words of a prayer that was not meant to be acceptable in heaven, and soon in the pauses of her breath strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually increasing, so as to drown and overpower the charm by which they grew. Shrieks pierced through the obscurity of sound and were succeeded by ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... contemplated for some moments the mists and vapours that rose from the valley and the rivers The clouds seemed to come forth from the earth, and to accumulate the one upon the other. Their colour was a monotonous grey—a natural effect, for there was no light ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... imaginary portraits of her, but he proceeded to urge upon her to come out of her concealment, and to grant him an interview. This she might have refused, in her desire to continue a correspondence which brightened her monotonous life. But there came another thing, and this decided her. He began to give, and to ask, opinions concerning love, marriage, and such topics—and then she perceived it could not possibly be discussed with him, even in domino ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... cart through the sodden filth that is pressed Into ooze, and the sombre dirt spouts up at my hands As I make my way in twilight now to rest. The hours have tumbled their leaden, monotonous sands. ...
— Bay - A Book of Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... lounger; "picking cotton isn't hard work." Isn't it? And it isn't much inconvenience, either, to have one drop of water fall on your head; yet the worst torture of the inquisition is produced by drop after drop, drop after drop, falling moment after moment, with monotonous succession, on the same spot; and work, in itself not hard, becomes so, by being pressed, hour after hour, with unvarying, unrelenting sameness, with not even the consciousness of free-will to take from its tediousness. Tom looked in vain among the gang, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... early life had been shadowed by sorrow. She had seen her father pass away in his prime, and her mother become in consequence a sad and failing woman. The young girl rallied from these early years of depression into cheerfulness, and thoroughly enjoyed what some might regard as a monotonous life; but she never developed any taste for the diversions of society. Thus it may be surmised that Mr. Muir encountered no distractions after business hours. He ever found a good dinner awaiting him, and his wife held herself in readiness to do what ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... before, in this very place, she had been convulsed by a storm of tears; but then she had been alone, free to sob in the darkness till the emotion that wrung her was dried up at its source. However, she knew of no cause of sorrow; her daughter was well once more, and she had resumed the old monotonous delightful life. But it was as though a keen sense of awful grief had abruptly come upon her; it seemed as if she were rolling into a bottomless abyss which she could not fathom, sinking with all ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... in regard to music holds good when applied to the Eskimo, for they have but little music in their souls, and among no people is there such a noticeable absence of "treason, stratagem and spoil." A rude drum and a monotonous chant, consisting only of the fundamental note and minor third, are the only things in the way of music among the more remote settlements of which I have any knowledge. Mrs. Micawber's singing has ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... starboard watch, who were idling about and having a quiet caulk in the waist, he soon made them set about reducing the Josephine's canvas—there being no necessity yet for summoning "all hands," as there was not a breath of air stirring, while the sea had hushed its monotonous roll, calming down to the ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... immorality, the monotonous girl had but one reply to his multiform reasons: "This is no time for ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... reduce life to one monotonous dead level! This in a world in which the majority of people live in cheap cottages, villa residences and tenement houses, read halfpenny newspapers and wear ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... chimneys of the house were already beginning to crumble, and birds and squirrels lived in their crevices and flitted about their lofty tops. At some distance an old negro was singing,—it must have been Milton himself, still unbesought by his dependents, and the song was full of strange, monotonous wails and plaintive cadences, like a lament for war itself, and all the misery that follows ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... streets lined with factories. As she rode she glanced at the windows, where could be seen in dusty air girls and boys busy at furiously driven machines—machines that compelled their human slaves to strain every nerve in the monotonous task of keeping them occupied. Many of the girls and boys paused long enough for a glance at the figure of the man-clad girl on ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... of long yellow-brown grass and thistles," he added, "gets to be rather monotonous at last; but I never weary of the feeling of immensity and freedom which it inspires. Come, dine ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... get away from the monotonous use of the "Next day," "The next day," and "Two years later," style of leader. Say: "The following afternoon," "After five years," "Later in the evening," or "Six months have passed." Even though you find when your story is produced that the director has seen fit to omit ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... but for the workaday world shirtsleeves, heavy brogan boots and shoes, and rough wool hats were, of course, the rule. Salt bacon and "greens," with corn bread and thin coffee, composed the common diet, though milk and butter relieved the monotonous fare for the farmers. "Hog-killing time" was always a happy season, for fresh meats were then abundant. Only in the larger towns did the people have fresh meats throughout the year. An explanation of the enthusiasm of ante-bellum people for political ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... fresh shade, almost overset her, for though she could not tell why, she chose to be persuaded that the first must be hers. But they both ended in the same place. She felt tears coming into her eyes, but she kept them down, and went on reading in a steady monotonous voice, as if the meaning was nothing to her; she asked the children questions in a dry, grave, matter-of-fact way, as if she had not the slightest interest in them or in the subject, though her heart was full ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... expression of opinion. Almost invariably someone responded to the invitation, with the object of asking a question, expressing dissent, or intimating concurrence. I do not recollect a single meeting out of hundreds that could be called monotonous. It did not in the slightest detract from the interest of a meeting that many of the remarks erred on the score of irrelevancy. The attention never flagged from first to last, and it was no uncommon thing for the proceedings to ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... his eel-fishing expeditions, but more for the sake of companionship than from any amusement I found in the sport. I may here confess frankly that I cannot understand anyone being an inveterate eel-fisher, for of all monotonous pursuits, it is the most self-repeating in its forms. Even the first time I went out I found it delightful only in anticipation; and this is the one midnight excursion which I shall ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... down at it hopelessly. She did not try to hush it. "It's cried this way all night," she said, in a monotonous tone. ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... approached at which she was to keep her appointment. But the step she was about to take had difficulties and terrors in her own eyes, though she had no reason to apprehend her father's interference. Her life had been spent in the quiet, uniform, and regular seclusion of their peaceful and monotonous household. The very hour which some damsels of the present day, as well of her own as of higher degree, would consider as the natural period of commencing an evening of pleasure, brought, in her opinion, awe and solemnity in it; and the resolution ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... together, broken, stunted, spongy with rot, straight, and ugly, with ragged tops and shattered arms, seemingly decayed, but still ever renewing themselves with the rapid, moist life of luxuriant forest vegetation. Nothing to my eyes is sadder than the monotonous desolation of such scenery. We in England, when we read and speak of the primeval forests of America, are apt to form pictures in our minds of woodland glades, with spreading oaks, and green, mossy turf beneath—of scenes than which nothing that God has given us is more charming. ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Mademoiselle de Scudery, which his teacher, Mr. Pennypacker, had among his possessions, and which he had once secretly shown to Paul, who was his favorite pupil. But he added, resignedly: "You'd never find a book in all this region up here, Sol. We'd better make up our minds to some monotonous days." ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... showed me that her ball had fallen into a stone-studded cavity in the side of the hill, and she was drawing her niblick from her bag as I passed out of sight. George's voice, blurred by distance to a monotonous murmur, followed me until I was out ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... which is to be found more or less in all other civilised countries. They are both too grave, too busy, and too ambitious to lay themselves out for trifles, which, after all, go far to make up the sum of human happiness. As for the Americans, the general aspect of their society is dreary and monotonous in the extreme. Whatever "our first circles" may say to the contrary, there is a great equality of manners, as of other things, amongst them; but if the standard is nowhere very high, it never falls so low as with us; if there is less refinement and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... and no drink were given to him during the rest of the long, weary, monotonous day. He watched a shaft of sunlight moving slowly across the earthen floor of the wigwam until it became a ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... a half pound loaves are baked daily. This represents bread rations for 440,000 men. The labour involved in such a vast production is very great. Weekday and Sunday alike the Army Bakers are grandly proceeding with their monotonous but most necessary work. So complete is the system employed in the making and distributing of 'the staff of life' that no Unit, however far distant, receives bread older than four days. A French General of ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester |
