United States or United States Minor Outlying Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But on this evening, while he and his half-dozen companions were still on their knees, they were first disturbed by loud drummings on the shoemaker's door, which opened directly into the little room where they were congregated; and then, when they emerged into the street, they found a mock prayer-meeting going on outside, with all the usual 'manifestations' of revivalist fervour sighs, groans, shouts, and the rest of it in full flow.
According to these fakirs, it was the red cross on the Jesuit chapel which frightened away the bird of thunder and caused the drought. Brebeuf, to disarm suspicion, had the cross painted white; yet the thunder-bird still held aloof, and the incantations and drummings of the sorcerers availed not to bring rain. Brebeuf then advised the Indians to try the effect of an appeal to his God.
The heart was decayed and gone, but the outer shell was hard and resonant. The bird would keep his position there for an hour at a time. Between his drummings he would preen his plumage and listen as if for the response of the female, or for the drum of some rival. How swift his head would go when he was delivering his blows upon the limb! His beak wore the surface perceptibly.
At the risk of her life she stole away, on those occasions, into the interior of the island, and looked on, in hiding, at the horrid witchcrafts and idolatries of the blacks; they would have murdered a half-blood, prying into their ceremonies, if they had discovered her. I followed her once, so far as I dared. The frightful yellings and drummings in the darkness of the forests frightened me.
"It may be, and it mayhap so move thee; but I am foreign from the rudiments of counterpoint and technique and such lollipops of harmony." "Then it must be wearisome to hear me prate of the divine art, and much more to hear my poor drummings on the harpsichord, I am sorry " "Nay, be not so. I am more content when thou art at practice than at all other time, save when I am with thee thus, alone."
Instantly the yellings and drummings were redoubled, the mass of worshippers whirled themselves round more furiously than ever, and then another and another man leaped forward and cut himself, each one more savagely than his fellow.
Or is all this a De Quincey's Dream Fugue translated into tone a sonorous, awesome vision? Like De Quincey, it suggests the apparition of the empire of fear, the fear that is secretly felt with dreams, wherein the spirit expands to the drummings of infinite space. Alas! for the validity of subjective criticism.
They split and coalesced into other creatures, and to the drummings of spheric harmonies resolved themselves scaly and monstrous. Never did they cease changing. As the music buzzed he saw the great ladder of life, the lowermost rungs resting in lakes of melted amber, the top threatening the remotest rims of the universe.
Madly and recklessly he danced to the monotonous drummings of the wicked old conjurers and medicine-men, who had been fearful that they were about to lose their grip upon him.
After three drummings to assemble the friends, a procession was formed about a couple of hours after sunset, lit by torches, lanterns and candles, led by the powder-players, followed by the mounted bridegroom, and behind him the bridal box lashed on the back of a horse; surrounded by more excited powder-players, and closed by the musicians.
Word Of The Day