"Tinkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... self-sacrificing and friendly guest to keep up the pleasant flow of talk. How much more tactful and delightful was the manner in which another hostess treated a similar situation. The guests were startled by a crash in the butler's pantry, and every one knew from the tinkling sound that it was cut glass. After a few words of instruction quietly given, the hostess laughingly said, "I hope there is enough glass in reserve so that none of you dear people will have to drink champagne from teacups." This was not only a charming, informal ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... approached the herd, about which the dark, slim figures of the dogs were running. From the distance the first sound was the ceaseless blethering of the flock that proclaimed its misery. The next was the musical tinkling of the bells the ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Robin knew not a whit; so he whistled merrily as he trudged along the road beyond Stanton, with his heart as free from care as the yolk of an egg is from cobwebs. At last he came to where a little stream spread across the road in a shallow sheet, tinkling and sparkling as it fretted over its bed of golden gravel. Here Robin stopped, being athirst, and, kneeling down, he made a cup of the palms of his hands, and began to drink. On either side of the road, for a long distance, stood tangled thickets of bushes and young trees, and it pleased Robin's ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... gloaming, with the spectacle of the dying lights of day playing about the crests and pinnacles of the still and solemn upper realm for contrast, and text for talk. There were no sounds but the dulled complaining of the torrent and the occasional tinkling of a distant bell. The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace; one might dream his life tranquilly away there, and not miss it or mind it when ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... on toward the sea, singing its morning song, creating and nourishing beauty at every step of its onward path. Cradled in the heart of a great mountain-range, it pursued its gleaming way, here lying silent in glassy lakes, there rushing into tinkling little falls, foaming great falls, and thundering cataracts. Scores of bridges spanned its width, but no steamers flurried its crystal depths. Here and there a rough little rowboat, tethered to a willow, rocked to and fro in some quiet ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... enumerated, we must give to the word learning the broadest signification. It is safe to accept the statement of the great poet, that a man may be acquainted with many languages, and yet not be learned; even as the apostle said he should become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, if he had not charity, though he spoke with the tongues of men and angels. Learning includes, no doubt, a knowledge of the languages, the sciences, and all literature; but it includes also much else; and this much else may be more important than the enumerated branches. The term ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... sweets to him; the musical fluting of owls, the liquid notes of the cuckoo, the thin pipe of dancing flies, the mournful creaking of the cider-press, the horn of the oxherd wound far off on the hill, the tinkling of sheep-bells—of all these he knew the notes; and not only these, but the rhythmical swing of the scythes sweeping through the grass, the flails heard through the hot air from the barn, the clinking of the anvil in the village forge, the bubble of the stream through the weir—all these had a tale ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... its courtyard, then a large deserted garden, and then immense meadows extending along the skirt of the hill as far as the river and even to the opposite bank. Sheep graze in these meadows, and the tinkling of their bells with the barking of the dogs are heard. It is easy to imagine that you are in the bosom of solitary nature, so profound is the peace, only broken by the song of a bird or the moo of ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... if he would do, he must needs bear and forbear; and his face cleared, and he looked round about again and let his eyes rest calmly on all eyes that he met till they came on the Lord's face again. Then he let his hand fall into the strings and they fell a-tinkling sweetly, like unto the song of the winter robin, and at last he ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... meet with no prodigies of nature, but with miracles of wit; the thunders of his pen are whispered flatteries; its forked lightnings pointed sarcasms; for "the gnarled oak," he gives us "the soft myrtle:" for rocks, and seas, and mountains, artificial grass-plats, gravel-walks, and tinkling rills; for earthquakes and tempests, the breaking of a flower-pot, or the fall of a china jar; for the tug and war of the elements, or the deadly strife of the passions, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... flowers, and soft music sounded through the halls. Silvery bells were vying with the triangle in producing tinkling tones that chimed in sweet accord with the melody that ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... only heard a little tinkling of the chandeliers," said one of the ladies. "Is it such a very alight matter to run down another boat and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... would not sully his reputation for life. Besides, she thought Chapelizod was not safe ground for a young fellow so eccentric, perverse, and impetuous, where pretty faces were plentier than good fortunes, and at every tinkling harpsichord there smiled a possible mesalliance. In the town of Chapelizod itself, indeed, the young gentleman did not stand quite so high in estimation as with his aunt, who thought nothing was good or high enough for her ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was still trying to divide the crowd when the music suddenly ceased, and the tones of the organ died away far up under the western window. It was the moment of the Elevation, and the first silvery tinkling of the bell, the people swayed a little, all those who were able kneeling, and those whose movements were impeded by the press of worshippers bending towards the altar as a field of grain before the gale. The Wanderer turned again and bowed himself with the rest, devoutly and humbly, ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... notwithstanding gifts and parts; as, for instance, that hath been of great use unto me, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, and a tinkling ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... school ourselves into greater conformity to the likeness of our Master, to conquer selfishness, and to purify our souls, or else all this talk about Christian unity is no better than sounding brass, and more discordant than tinkling cymbals. Let us learn the lesson. 'The unfeigned love of the brethren' is not such an easy thing as some people fancy, and it is not to be attained at all on the road by which some people would seek it. Cleanse yourselves, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the table and Keep laid his nose along his paws and turned eyes of worship on his mistress. Long afterwards Mary O'Gara remembered these things and how the wind sprang up and drove a few dead leaves against the window with a faint tinkling sound. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... she gasped her way painfully back to life. All was very peaceful now; the water fell with its soft tinkling sound, there was a low hum of insects; beside her stony pillow grew some stars of Bethlehem, and in between their delicate white and green she could see the arena and the tiers of seats opposite, and out beyond ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of Salt Trace just as the lively tinkling of cowbells, as well as their own appetites, and the setting sun, suggests supper time; and their chafed buttocks, more used to a swivel chair than a saddle, pleaded for the ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... him for his kind present, and then proposed making a trial of my abilities in the exercising way. You, perhaps, may wonder what this exercise was. My cage was made to go round upon wires, so that whenever I moved it went round, and caused a tinkling with some bells that were fixed for that purpose. At this exercise I remained nearly half an hour, and whenever I attempted to stand still, they pricked me with a pin. Luckily the dinner bell rang, or they might have kept me at it half ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous
... out under the trees to the brook-side and stood listening to the tinkling of the cowbells in the wood lot beyond. The light faded early on these September evenings, and the smoky mist had begun to rise from the water when they turned back again. The kitchen windows were already ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this night, it is as though I listen at the boxes and in the pit, in that tinkling time of 'seventy-four. The patched Laetitia sits surrounded by her beaux. It was this afternoon she had the vapors. Next to her, as dragon over beauty, is a fat dame with "grenadier head-dress." "The Rivals" has yet to be ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... the consequences. So it was a fortunate thing that they did not require much herding. He had only to drive them to the pastures on the mountain in the morning, and home again in the evening, and the young ones followed the old ones, round whose necks the tinkling bells were hung. ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... him from some distant ridge or hidden glen the tinkling of a cow-bell, as the herd wandered here and there grazing upon the green uplands. Once—for an instant only—a mirage appeared upon the southern sky, as if in mute testimony to the transitory character of all earthy things, the ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... lantern filled his nostrils. He turned to retrace his steps, with rough words for Wright upon his lips, when a faint sound fell upon his ears; an unearthly thing, which startled him and sent to his heart a thrill of superstitious terror. 'Twas a measured tinkling, as of a silver bell, which rose and fell with steady cadence. Instinctively his hand went to his left hip, but the familiar hilt was absent; he had left it in the room above, guarded by Robert Winter, who ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... was all the good-bye I could make; and I was soon rattling away to meet the coach for Edinburgh and London. Seated on the top, I was soon buried in a reverie, from which I was suddenly startled by the sound of tinkling iron. Could it be that my adversary was riding unseen alongside of the coach? Was that the clank of the ominous shoe? But I soon discovered the cause of the sound, and laughed at my own apprehensiveness. For I observed that the sound was repeated every time that we passed ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... old Mr. King stood up, with quite a regal air, and Phronsie had a little blue and white paper bonnet tied under her chin by Grandpapa's own hand. And caps were flying on to all the heads, and each right hand held a tinkling little bell that had swung right merrily on a green branch-tip. And away to Amy Loughead's second march—on and on, jangling their bells, the procession went, through the long hall, till old Mr. King and Phronsie who led, turned down the broad staircase, ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... mint; with what exquisite nicety he estimated the ingredients; with what solicitous care he capped the compound with the scarlet fruit glowing against the dark green fringe! And then the hospitality and grace with which he offered it, after the selected oat straws had been plunged into its tinkling depths! ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... beyond the summits of Megara lifts a noble cone. It is an old friend, Acro-Corinthus. The plain within the hills is sprinkled with thriving farmsteads, green vineyards, darker olive groves. The stony hill-slopes are painted red by countless poppies. One hears the tinkling of the bells of roving goats. Thus the more distant view; while at the very foot of the hill of vision rises a temple with proud columns and pediments,—the fane of Demeter the "Earth Mother" and the seat of her Mysteries, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... exquisitely, daintily, lawfully Japanese. But I sat by my window till early morning. There was a very ghost of a summer moon. Out of the night came the velvety tones of a mighty bell; the sing-song prayers of many priests; the rippling laugh of a little child and the tinkling of a samisen. Every sound made for simple joy and peace. But I thought of the girl somewhere beyond the twinkling street lights, who, with mixed races in her blood and a strange religion in her heart, had dreamed dreams of this as a perfect ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... is sure to be found Where the sleigh-bells are tinkling clear; As the horses, so strong, Canter gayly along, While the lads give ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... approach did not clash with her fantasies. She mounted a broad staircase, dark but roomy, and, at the command of the concierge, rang a tinkling bell at one of the doorways that faced her. Dr Porhoet ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... the Lord's Prayer, because her mother had taught her that no human petition was ever heard unless accompanied by it. And it seemed as though the lark, winding upward with wide spiral to his song-throne in the sky and tinkling thin music on the morning wind, was her messenger: which thought was beautiful to Joan and made ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... at the extreme end of the small kitchen-garden, and commanded a pleasant view of pastures and cornfields, backed by the blue outline of distant hills. Afar were faintly heard the laugh of the Mayor's happy children, now and then a tinkling sheep-bell, or the tap of the woodpecker, unrepressed by the hush of the Midmost summer, which stills the more tuneful choristers amidst their coverts. Waife lighted his pipe, and smoked silently; Sophy, resting her head on his bosom, silent also. She ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Paul felt this; and his heart was filled with delight at the thought that to that harmony of the world he had added one note which had not been in it hitherto, but without which the whole earth was like sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... out the incantation more effectually, however, all my men were sent for to sit in the open before the hut, when the old doctor rose, shaking the horn and tinkling the bell close to his ear. He then, confronting one of the men, dashed the horn forward as if intending to strike him on the face, then smelt the head, then dashed at another, and so on, till he became satisfied that my men were not the thieves. He then ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... 16 Moreover, the Lord saith: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet— ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... less fleet, but fairer, blow, A ripple laps the coppered side, While phosphor sparks make ocean gleam, Like camps lit up in triumph wide; With lights and tinkling cymbals meet Acclaiming seas ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... he goeth walking in his garden Around his tinkling feet the sunbeams play; The posies they are good to him And bow them as they should to him As he fareth upon his kingly way: The birdlings of the wood to him Make music, gentle music, all the day When our babe he goeth ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... up for the occasion. The walls and the floors, which were all of china, shone by the light of many thousand golden lamps. The most beautiful flowers, all of the tinkling kind, were arranged in the corridors; there was hurrying to and fro, and a great draught, but this was just what made the bells ring; one's ears were full of the tinkling. In the middle of the large reception-room where the emperor sat a golden rod had been fixed, on which the ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... black leopard, crouched once more upon Bumsteadville, and her one eye to be seen in profile, the moon, glared upon the helpless place with something of a cat's nocturnal stare of glassy vision for a stupefied mouse. Midnight had come with its twelve tinkling drops more of opiate, to deepen the stupor of all things almost unto death, and still the light shone luridly through the window-curtains of Mr. BUMSTEAD'S room, and still the lonely musician sat stiffly at a dinner-table spread for three, whereof only a goblet, a curious antique black ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... sachem in his waving feathers and tinkling ornaments drew the blade from the post and gravely carried it ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... charity, of that same heavenly temper of mind in which Christian manhood consists, and which our Lord had already described in the sermon on the Mount; He says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." And then He describes it as suffering long, kind, envying not, vaunting not, behaving seemly, unselfish, rejoicing in the truth, slow to be provoked, bearing all things and hoping all. And with this agrees St. James's account of wisdom, that it is "pure, peaceable, gentle, easy ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... out the bath of sand where the Psammead slept. 'You don't know everything, though you ARE a Divine Father of the Temple of Amen,' said the Psammead shaking itself till the sand fell tinkling on the bath edge. 'There IS a secret, sacred name beneath the altar of Amen-Ra. Shall ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... one's head and ears feel numb with the continuous tinkling of the bells and the loud rattling of the windows, what a charming sensation it is to see your pretty neighbor open her eyes, startled, glance around her, arrange her rebellious hair with her slender fingers, adjust her hat, feel with sure hand whether her corset is still in place, her ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... voices and the tinkling music there now came Daniel's protest, Rupert's persuasions, and Miriam's laughter: then these all died away and the waltz called out ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... startling me with the recollection of a letter I had to send to the friends I had lately left, brought me as it were to myself, made me feel that I had links still connecting me with the universe, and gave me hope and patience to persevere. At that loud tinkling, interrupted sound (now and then,) the long line of blue hills near the place where I was brought up waves in the horizon, a golden sunset hovers over them, the dwarf-oaks rustle their red leaves in the evening breeze, and the road from —— to ——, by which I first set out ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... bell; the whole party listened to the distant tinkling, and after a minute or two of suspense, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... had often listened to in favor of Slavery, and the many wise laws, above alluded to, he could not reconcile himself to his condition. The laws and preaching were alike as "sounding brass, and tinkling cymbals" to him. He made up his mind, therefore, that he must try a free country; that his manhood required him to make the effort at once, even at the risk of life. Father and husband, as he was, and loving his wife, Grace, and son, Alphonso, tenderly as he did, he nevertheless ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... sleigh-bells Tinkling through the snow; Mother knitting stockings (Pussy's got the ball),— Don't you think that winter's Pleasanter than all? ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... conceived a sudden violent hatred of the room. The only thing in the place worth a man's consideration, save a few water-colours, was the honest grand piano, which, because it did not aesthetically harmonize with his squeaky, pot-bellied theorbos and tinkling spinet, he had hidden in an alcove behind a curtain. He turned an eye of disgust on the vellum backs of his books in the closed Chippendale cases, on the drawers containing his collection of wall-papers, on the footling peacocks, ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... their heads, and the fourth with the child. If Antonio has brought any money in with him, I am afraid he will never take it out, and it even strikes me that his jacket and guitar may be in a bad way. But, the look of the young man and the tinkling of the instrument so change the place in a moment to a leaf out of Don Quixote, that I wonder where his mule is ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... his room and presently returned with the rattle. When the baby saw the bright colours and heard the tinkling of the bells he crowed with delight, and reached out his hands eagerly towards it and allowed Slyme to take him without a murmur of protest. Before Ruth had finished making and serving the tea the man and child were on the very ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... her, rose and mixed himself what he wanted, and began to walk leisurely about, the ice tinkling in the glass which he held. At intervals he quenched his thirst, then resumed his aimless promenade, a slight smile on ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... head, kept guard, in oil and varnish, over a most perplexing piece of furniture on a table; in appearance between a driving seat and an angular knife- box, but, when opened, a musical instrument of tinkling wires, exactly like David's harp packed for travelling. Everything became a nick-nack in this curious room. The copper tea-kettle, burnished up to the highest point of glory, took his station on a stand of his own at the greatest possible distance ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... work of a most innocent-looking towhee. It was perhaps this same bird, or his brother, whom I one day heard throwing in between his customary cherawinks a profusion of staccato notes of widely varying pitch, together with little volleys of tinkling sounds such as his every-day song concludes with. This medley was not laughable, like the chat's, which it suggested, but it had the same abrupt, fragmentary, and promiscuous character. All in all, it was ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... struck with a tinkling sound against the masses of ice on either side. Down, down ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... turned up from nowhere in particular, and his voice was the tinkling of a silver bell. It would have taken a score of him to ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... two boys were vigorous young fellows, accustomed to life in the forest, and they hunted high and low, and finally heard the sound of horse-bells in a thicket. Running joyfully forward they fell into the hands of four Indians, who had caught the horses and tied them in the thicket, so that by the tinkling of their bells they might lure into the ambush any man who came out to hunt them up. Young Wetzel made a dash for liberty, but received a shot which broke his arm, and then surrendered and cheerfully accompanied his captors; while his companion, totally ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... his skill upon this point; we never perceived anything more than a sound and a jog, something similar to what you hear in the cabin of a fourpenny steam-boat, and especially mistrusted the "metallic tinkling," and the noise resembling a blacksmith's bellows blowing into an empty quart-pot, which is called the bruit de soufflet. Take our word, when medicine arrives at such a pitch that the secrets of the human heart can be probed, it need not go any ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various
... is He that is born King of the Jews?" the people were surprised, and only wondered who these men were who looked liked princes from a foreign court, for they had armed servants, and from their camels hung tinkling silver bells, and swinging ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... Our Lady, sung by a couple of hundred fresh female voices, ring agreeably through the still village. Towards the end of the festival the fun commences. The managers of the feast keep open houses, and dancing, drumming, tinkling of wire guitars, and unbridled drinking by both sexes, old and young, are kept up for a couple of days and a night with little intermission. The ways of the people at these merry-makings, of which there ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... beforehand, and then by the time I sit down to my work a feeling of unutterable melancholy has come over me. I picture heartbroken lovers parting forever at lonely wayside stiles, while the sad twilight deepens around them, and only the tinkling of a distant sheep-bell breaks the sorrow-laden silence. Old men sit and gaze at withered flowers till their sight is dimmed by the mist of tears. Little dainty maidens wait and watch at open casements; but "he cometh not," and the heavy years roll by and the sunny gold tresses wear white and thin. ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... matters to be learned, the advantage of which was not obvious to him, and the final aim of which he did not perceive. Until a correct touch has been acquired, it is of no use to talk about a fine singing tone. How can we expect to arouse an interest by mere toneless tinkling, while stiff, inflexible fingers are struggling with the notes; while the pupil sees only his inability to do any thing right, and receives nothing but blame from the teacher; while, at the same time, so much is to be kept in mind, and he must ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... decorations had surpassed the usual standard of beauty, holidays were in full swing, and the "Buds" were in great demand. The cold had for five weeks been intense, and the barometer on the last day of January sank to fifteen below zero. Snow had fallen but little, and the ring of merry, tinkling sleigh bells was almost an unknown sound. Tobogganing of course was impossible. But as Gladys philosophically remarked one day, "Where could you find such skating as ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... till he had gashed them all. Richard, following him, saw that a little stream, clearer than the clearest water, began to flow from each, increasing in size the longer it flowed. Before he had reached the last there was quite a tinkling and rustling of the little rills that ran down the stems of the palms. This grew and grew, till Richard saw that a full rivulet was flowing down ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... silence, during which a little tinkling bell resounded in the outer corridor, followed by the tread of sandaled feet on the stone pavement. Heliobas closed the Bible and returned it ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... thrown out in the rear a couple of hundred yards suddenly turned and fired and came running in to take their places, as the two rear companies were halted, swung out right and left in line, fixed bayonets, with the peculiar ringing, tinkling sound of metal against metal, and waited the coming of the third body of the enemy, as strong as the two which ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... back East," he began, "and in the country, just about this time of year. We would wait until the afternoon—why! just about this time, when the sun is getting low. We would push through the bushes at the edge of the woods where the little tinkling birds sing in the fence corners, and would enter the deep high woods where the trees are tall and still. The moss is thick and soft in there, and there are little pools lying calm and dark, and there is a kind ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... upon the bottom of the cavity with no lining; they are creamy or yellowish buff in color, sprinkled, spotted or blotched in endless variety, with reddish brown. Size 1.35 x 1.10. These birds are very noisy, especially when the young are learning to fly, uttering a loud, tinkling, "killy, killy, killy." They have a very amiable disposition, and frequently nest harmoniously in the same tree with other birds, such ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, Or caroling to her spinet ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... Silverfloss to weave you a strand of silver," and he turned to Silverfloss and said some tinkling ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... of books are written about China by two classes of people. There are books written by people who have spent the night in China, as it were, superficial and amusing, full of the tinkling of temple bells; and there are other books written by people who have spent years in China and who know it well,—ponderous books, full of absolute information, heavy and unreadable. Books of the first class get one nowhere. ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... half mile from home, measuring by a straight line through the intervening hill; in time they were two hours away. San Pietro had climbed gallantly, with little silvery bells tinkling at his ears, to the summit of the mountain, and had descended, with conviction and with accuracy, planting firm little hard hoofs in the slippery path where the dark soil bore a coating of green grass and moss. For all their hard morning's work they were ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... restlessly at the falling snow. As he came in she went over to the table and began making tea with nervous hands. She was apparently in the highest spirits, and while she fumbled noisily with the cups and saucers she rambled on in her expressionless voice with tinkling interludes of her shrill, falsetto laughter. As he watched her in shamed silence he remembered with astonishment that it had taken him almost ten years to find out that Connie was vulgar. Now at last ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... were mainly of orange and grapefruit ranged round a spacious beautifully-kept lawn with the regularity of sumptuous decoration. In the middle of the lawn, a little rock foundation threw up a jet of silver, falling with a tinkling murmur into a broad circular basin from which emerged the broad leaves and splendid pink blossoms of an Egyptian lotus. Certainly it was no far-fetched allusion of my classical friend to speak of the garden of Alcinoues; particularly connected as it was in my mind ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... several birds, from their note, like the tinkling of a bell. In Australia, a Honey-eater, Myzantha melanophrys, Gould ('Birds of Australia,' vol. iv. pl. 80), the 'Australian Bell-bird' (the same bird as Myzantha flavirostris, V. and H.), chiefly found in New South ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... the dance-music of all nations, The waltz, some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in bliss, The bolero to tinkling ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... nuclei or crystals of the Walden water. They, of course, are Walden all over and all through; are themselves small Waldens in the animal kingdom, Waldenses. It is surprising that they are caught here—that in this deep and capacious spring, far beneath the rattling teams and chaises and tinkling sleighs that travel the Walden road, this great gold and emerald fish swims. I never chanced to see its kind in any market; it would be the cynosure of all eyes there. Easily, with a few conclusive quirks, they give up their watery ghosts, like a mortal translated before his time to the thin ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... up a straight, long street, with houses just alike on both sides and bits of grass before them, that sometimes were gay with late autumn flowers. A horse-car track ran up the middle, and the cars seemed to be tinkling by all the time, and people getting on and off. They were mostly ladies and children, and they were very well dressed. Sometimes they stared at Barker, as they crossed his way in entering or issuing from the houses, but generally no one appeared to notice him. ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... white pebbles on its way to deep pools where it could be still and think. Now, like Mira, it was cold and quiet, wrapped in its shroud of snow; but Rebecca knelt by the brink, and putting her ear to the glaze of ice, fancied, where it used to be deepest, she could hear a faint, tinkling sound. It was all right! Sunnybrook would sing again in the spring; perhaps Mira too would have her singing time somewhere—she wondered where and how. In the course of these lonely rambles she was ever thinking, thinking, of one subject. Hannah had never had ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for some time she stood harkening to the swift diminuendo of those tinkling sleigh-bells, staring into the night as if to fix in her mind's eye the picture of what she had last seen, the picture of a mighty man riding the rail of a plunging basket sled. In spite of the biting cold he was stripped ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... good works, I reckon, honey!" said the old creature, musingly. "Well, I dunno, but it do seem like 'tinkling cymbals,' and 'sounding brass' to go preaching the gospel to poor sufferin' folks like me, and telling of 'em to be patient and resigned, and suffer the will of Heaven, and all that, if they don't give the naked clothes to cover 'em, and the hungry food to nourish 'em, and to the frozen ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... challenged any man to prove him mistaken at the point of the sword. But no champion appeared to fight for Else, who, kneeling in her cell, beat her breast with her rosary, until the little silver bell attached to it rang loudly as she fervently prayed, "O Lord, send me a champion." The faint tinkling of the bell floated out of the window, and was wafted away to Montsalvatch. It grew louder and louder the farther it traveled, and its sound called the knights into the temple, where Lohengrin received his orders ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... Circus was the gayest thing in London. It mingled the fresh tinkling of water with the odour and flame of autumn blossoms and the variegated colours of shawled women who passed their lives on its margin engaged in the commerce of flowers. Edward Henry bought an aster from a fine bold, red-cheeked, blowsy, dirty wench with a baby in her arms, and left some change ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... the teller. Sherman and his aids were carrying the two sacks into the back of the cage, depositing them on a marble shelf. "See!" The teller turned one over and a tinkling flood of ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... each other's eyes. Nor did either ask a question when the little teacher, with two towels over one arm, led the way down the road, up over a little ridge, and down to a grassy hollow by the side of a tinkling creek. It was hard for the girl to believe that these two boys meant to shoot each other as they had threatened, but Pleasant had told her they surely would, and that fact held her purpose firm. Without a word they listened while she explained, and ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... their safety, retired into forts. But in the ensuing September, as Josiah Pricket and Mrs. Susan Ox, who had left Pricket's fort for the purpose of driving up their cows, were returning in the evening they were way laid by a party of Indians, who had been drawn to the path by the tinkling of the cowbell. Pricket was killed and scalped, and Mrs. Ox ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... I would hear Sis coming softly up the stairs, accompanied by a tinkling of china and glass. I would face ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... dullest of No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard by distant double knocks. The name of this retirement, where grass grew between the chinks in the stone pavement, was Princess's Place; and in Princess's Place was Princess's Chapel, with a tinkling bell, where sometimes as many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a Sunday. The Princess's Arms was also there, and much resorted to by splendid footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the railing before the Princess's Arms, but it had never ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... his pocket and he made a sudden gesture, still laughing, toward Rand's face. The trapper jerked back quickly. Then a great booming swell of laughter went up, even the slow rumble of Kootanie George's voice and the tinkling tremulo of Ernestine Dumont's joining it Ramon Garcia had brought out his gloves and had drawn them ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... across the road; a rat darted down the tiny stream. Now and then birds moved in the undergrowth, and the man, who was struggling all the time with a deadly faintness, felt the silence grow more and more oppressive. He began even to wonder where he was. He closed his eyes. Was that really the tinkling of a guitar, the perfume of almond and cherry blossom, floating to him down the warm wind? He began to lose himself in dreams until he realized that actual unconsciousness was close upon him. Then he set his teeth tight and clenched his hands. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Seven said he never wrote a line of "poetry" in his life, except once when he was suffering from temporary weakness of body and mind? That is because he is a poet. If he had not been one, he would very certainly have taken to tinkling rhymes. What should you think of the probable musical genius of a young man who was particularly fond of jingling a set of sleigh-bells? Should you expect him to turn out a Mozart or a Beethoven? Now, I think I recognize the poetical instinct ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the door snapped and the bar-parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass at the back of the parlour starred and came smashing and tinkling down. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... was buying a silly toy, called, I think, the cricket or cri-cri. It was a short slip of steel fixed by one end to a metallic base. Pressed out of shape by the thumb and released, it yielded a very distressing, tinkling click. Nothing else was needed to take the popular mind by storm. The "cricket" had its day of glory. Oblivion has executed justice upon it so effectually that I fear I shall not be understood when I recall ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... thump of the propeller made me miserable. I leaned over the side, thinking of my brother and his aeroplane. For the life of me I couldn't be sure it wasn't all a dream. The thin whine of the siren sounded very like his cry of 'Charley!' I heard the Old Man bark something, heard the tinkling of the telegraph and the siren bellowed again. We were going full speed astern! Just as I turned away from the bulwarks I saw a green light, the starboard light of a coaster, rush past. I could hear some one shouting ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... exclaimed Alice, petulantly. "Girls ought to be brought up able to do something so they could earn their living if they had to, instead of sitting around doing embroidery or tinkling on the piano. I wouldn't know even how to clerk in a store if I ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... Only don't crush my poor little Erard with Verdi's hoofs. I brought it when I came. It is behind the times, too. And, oh, my dear boy, our organ is still worse. So old, so old! To get a proper one I would sacrifice even this piano of mine in a moment—only the tinkling thing is not worth a sou to anybody except its master. But there! Are you quite comfortable?" And having seen to his guest's needs, and placed spirits and cigars and an ash-tray within his reach, the Padre sat himself ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... meaning.] Unmeaningness — N. meaninglessness, unmeaningness &c adj.^; scrabble. empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil [Lat.]; a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin^, platitude, niaiserie^; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... like a grotesque pantomime with no directing head. Nautch girls tripped along laughing and chatting, bracelets jingling, and tiny bells at their ankles tinkling musically. It depressed him; it was such a terrible juxtaposition of frivolity and the gloomed shadow of idol worship that lay just the bridge's span of the sullen Narbudda: the gloomy, broken scraps of the long since deserted forts that cut with jagged ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... picturesque city it was! The cries of the hawkers, the importunities of the guides, the venders and cabmen, the whining beggars; the clatter of horses and carriages and carts; strolling singers, goats with tinkling bells, the barking of outcast dogs, and the brawling and bawling of children, hundreds upon hundreds of children! Merrihew grew dizzy trying to absorb the whole canvas at once. How the sturdy little campagna ponies ran up and down the narrow winding streets! Crack-crack! ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... some loss in the value and dignity of their minds. He considered also all such decorations and changes, as contrary both to the letter and the spirit of the scriptures. Isaiah, one of the greatest prophets under the law, had severely reproved the daughters of Israel on account of their tinkling ornaments, cauls, round tires, chains, bracelets, rings, and ear-rings. St. Paul also and St. Peter had both of them cautioned the women of their own times, to adorn themselves in modest apparel, and not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array. And the former had spoken ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... am so silly as to faint!" said Inez, with a little tinkling laugh. "But I faint in good hands—I am so grateful to you!" she went on, warmly, her olive ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... Little Teacher. Despite the keenness of David's sorrow the day had been a peaceful, contented one, but when the shadows began to lengthen to that most lonesome hour of lonesome days, when from home-coming cows comes the sound of tinkling bells, a wave of longing swept over him, and he stole away to the orchard. Again, a soft, sustaining little hand ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... Frenchman!" and he struck his breast a resounding blow with the hand that still held the watch. A huge horn button on his buckskin jerkin came in contact with the crystal, and there was a smash, followed by a scattered tinkling of ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... July; but no heats ever withered the green of the Pleasant Valley hills, nor browned its pastures; and no droughts ever stopped the tinkling of its rills and brooks, which rolled down, every one of them, over gravelly pebbly beds to lose themselves in lake or river. Sun enough to cure the hay and ripen the grain, they had; and July was sweet with the perfume of hayfield, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... shells upon the cover, a stuffed bird with bright blue feathers under a glass case, a screen with coloured pictures of battles and horses and elephants casted upon it. He remembered the exact sound that the tinkling bell made when it summoned them to meals, he remembered the especial smell of beef and carpet that was the dining-room, he remembered a little door of coloured glass on the first landing, a cupboard that had in it sugar and apples, a room full ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... bow flew like lightning. His long fingers drummed and slid along the strings of the violin with bewildering swiftness. The little instrument jetted and effervesced its melody. The continuous and resounding noise poured out of it in tuneful bubbles. The air was filled with tinkling fragments of sound. The Lad's body swayed to and fro. His face glowed. His eyes flashed. The sweat stood in drops on his forehead, but still the bow snapped and crinkled, and the instrument continued to burst in musical explosions, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... and cool, and crystal, the ruggedness of the rocks softened by the wealth of foliage. A very limpid spring, high up and out of sight among the leaves, sent its waters tinkling down the face of the cliff, ever filling a crystal-clear lakelet at the foot, which yet was never full. Velvety and beautiful as was the moss surrounding this pond, it was nevertheless too damp to form an acceptable couch for a human being, unless that human being were ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... still, the cups on the tray she was taking out tinkling from her agitation. It was thus policemen spoke at private doors in the dark tenements: "I didna ken ye had the smallpox." But Mr. Traill seemed in no way alarmed. He answered with easy indulgence "That's no' surprising. There's mony a thing you ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... all the homely philosophy of Dr. Primrose, and reflect how the wife will wear, and whether she have the qualities that will keep the house in order. Others, again, are lured into matrimony by the tinkling of the pianoforte, or the elaboration of a bunch of flowers upon a Bristol board. Remember Calfsfoot. His wife actually fiddled him into the church. Was there ever an uglier woman? Two of her front teeth were gone, and she was bald. Fortunately for her, Beauty draws us with a single hair, or she ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... said Mr. PUNCH, "that at present they are too busy smiting the Socialistic big drum, or tickling their sonorous native tongue into tinkling triolets. In this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... a little pause between the dances; Without, somewhere, a tinkling fountain played. The dusky path was lit by ardent glances As forth they fared, a lover and a maid. He chose a nook, from curious eyes well hidden - All redolent with sweet midsummer charm, And by the great primeval instinct ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... A bell, tinkling from an upper room, summoned Sally hurriedly indoors, so Ruth sat down in a large wicker rocker to ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... a model war-ship under a glass case, which, when wound up, rocked on blue-painted silken waves to the tinkling of a musical box. I would beg hard for the loan of this to display its marvels ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... imprisoned Giantess. The Green Monkey could run over the ground very swiftly, and he carried with him the bird-cage containing Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter. Also the Tin Owl could skip and fly along at a good rate of speed, his feathers rattling against one another with a tinkling sound as he moved. But the little Brown Bear, being stuffed with straw, was a clumsy traveler and the others had to wait ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... on some twisted ivy-net, Now by some tinkling rivulet, In mosses mixt [2] with violet Her cream-white mule his pastern set: And fleeter now [3] she skimm'd the plains Than she whose elfin prancer springs By night to eery warblings, When all the glimmering moorland rings ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... the platform was opened and the low, incessant tinkling of the telegraph was heard. Frau Rupius stood up slowly, her features assumed a mild expression, and, stretching out her hand to Bertha, ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... very rabbits must come and sit-up there, the jays and pigeons settle above; everything in all the wood gather. Even one's own heart seemed to be drawn in by those beckoning arms, and the slow enchantment of that tinkling voice, and the look in those eyes, which, lost in the unknown, were seeing no mortal glen, but only that mazed wood, where friendly wild things come, who have no sound to their padding, no whirr to the movement of their ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... the roof with a gentle murmur, tinkling merrily as though it were pleased to hear the happy laughter of the children playing in the garret of Michael Gratz's house in Philadelphia. Six children romped there that Saturday afternoon in early springtime, away ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... Meshach could be successful. One other idea struck him forcibly by reason of its strangeness: namely, that the works was proceeding exactly as usual, raw material always coming in, finished goods always going out, the various shops hot and murmurous with toil, money tinkling in the petty cash-box, the very engine beneath his floor beating its customary monotonous stroke; and his comfortable home was proceeding exactly as usual, the man hissing about the stable yard, the servants discreetly moving ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... barbaric combination The tinkling of the keys, so soft and clear, Is lacking in explosive concentration, And yet there's more in them than meets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 6, 1917 • Various
... years. And a thrill of terror goes through me as I think also of how near I then came to a horrible death; for at the very moment that I reached the farther side of the canon there was a little tinkling sound in the air above me, and the bar that I held was twitched out of my hands, and then came a loud jingling of metal on rock, and as I turned quickly I saw a gleam of sunlight catch the great chain as it went twisting downward into the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... blows Beneath the lintel, where is hung My little bell with winged tongue; Steals from the dawn, that it may be An oracle of peace to me; For hark! athwart my fitful dreams There mingles with the Orient beams A wakening psalm of tinkling bell: "God brings the ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... note of play, "This'll be mine." It lay at the foot of a tiny waterfall, plashing with a tinkling note into transparent shallows. She cast an idle glance on the book he had laid down and read its title, "A History of the Institution of Property," and reflected that she had been right in thinking it had a familiar-looking cover. She had dusted books ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... abruptly focused upon the wharf boat. The General Lytle now seemed a blaze of lights—from lower deck, from saloon deck, from pilot house deck, and forward and astern. A hundred interesting sounds came from her—tinkling of bells, calls from deck to deck, whistling, creaking of pulleys, lowing of cattle, grunting of swine, plaint of agitated sheep, the resigned cluckings of many chickens. Along the rail of the middle or saloon deck were seated a few passengers who had not yet gone to bed. On the lower ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the girl, but Caleb Parish looked suddenly away. His ear had caught a distant sound of tinkling pony bells drifting down wind and he said devoutly, "Thank God, the pack ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... chorus. Far as the eye could reach, the long line of their straggling procession stretched across the wilderness, thousands of camels in strings, laden with bales of merchandise, and each company headed by an animal of superior size, leading with tinkling bells; groups of horsemen, clusters of litters; all the pilgrims armed to their teeth, the van formed by a strong division of Seljukian cavalry, and the rear protected by a Kourdish clan, who guaranteed the security of the pious travellers ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... and fell with a little tinkling crash on to the pavement. Mr. Vyner stooped, and, picking up a pair of clumsily fashioned spectacles, looked swiftly up ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... notes of another phrase, and so on. But the fineness of its quality makes of it an entirely different performance. If you symbolize the hermit thrush by the flute, you must call the wood thrush a chime of little tinkling bells. One is a rendition; the other the essence of liquid music. An effect of gold-embroidered richness, of depth going down to the very soul of things, a haunting suggestion of having touched very near to the source of tears, a conviction that the just interpretation ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the rocks about the verge of the mountain. The horses had been unsaddled, and were picketed in an open glade at a little distance: in recurrent pauses in the talk, the sound of their grazing on the scanty grass came to the ear; all else was silence save the tinkling of a mountain rill,—a keen detached appoggiatura rising occasionally above the monody of its murmurous flow,—and the melancholy chiming of some lingering cicada, the latest spared of ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... interior of the two vermilion avenues so closely with all their fineries and embroideries that not the slightest space remained vacant among them. Not so much as the caw of a crow struck the ear. All that was audible was the report of jingling and tinkling, and the sound of the gold bells and jade ornaments slightly rocked to and fro. Besides these, the creaking noise made by the shoes of the inmates, while getting up ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... gemmed, Brahmin gods. One whole side of the room was occupied by an organ whose thunder in that circumscribed place must have set all these relics of dead epochs clashing and jingling in fantastic dances. As I entered, the vaporous atmosphere was palpitating to the low, liquid tinkling of an invisible musical box. The prince reclined on a couch from which a draping of cloth-of-silver rolled torrent over the floor. Beside him, stretched in its open sarcophagus which rested on three brazen trestles, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... in sight, and save for some gulls circling round they two seemed the only living things. . . . With a sudden smile he stooped down and picked up a stone—several, in fact, and fired a volley. There was a tinkling noise, and the bottle fell. Then he waited for her to look round. For just a little while there was silence, and then she turned towards him with a smile. . . . And in that moment it seemed to him that he had found ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... down the walk and back again, bangles tinkling, jewels radiant on wrist and brow, ankle and bosom. The man watched her with sulky eyes until she turned, then bent his head and stood glowering at the earth and twisting his moustache. She paused before him, hands on hips, and raised her eyes in silent inquiry. He pretended not to notice ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... the bells, Still the tinkling on the plains, And transmute the evening chimes Into war's resounding rhymes, That the invaders may be slain ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... reflection before the library fire. How vividly it all rose up before me. My sudden awakening from a stupid slumber, my firm conviction that some one else was in the room, my timid whispering question, the tinkling sound of something falling upon the floor, and my subsequent surprise on finding this queer, unfamiliar trinket lying at my feet. Now that it was proven to be Ernest Dalton's, the mystery was thicker than ever. How had ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... expression has a real meaning, for his mind is unconsciously saturated with ideas which he has certainly not learnt from his adopted philosophy: but to the pupil it has lost its articulate utterance, and is no better than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Hence the pupil, having thrown off his Christianity, too often follows out the principles of his teacher to their logical conclusions, and divests himself also of moral restraints, except so far as it ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... bells and rattles combined is set agoing to make him depart without delay; while, on the other hand, little bits of dangling glass, tied to strings, small sweet-toned bells and cymbals, hanging in a bunch from the corners of the roof or in front of the windows and door, often by means of their tinkling—a sound not dissimilar to that of an AEolian harp—attract to the house the friendly spirits of good fortune and prosperity. The latter are ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor |
