United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The clock in a neighboring steeple was striking the ninth hour, and the old man paused in his muttering and sat counting the strokes as the iron tongue pealed them forth; counting them in his fear as if each stroke was a knell, and so indeed to him it was, and many of the chimes we listen carelessly to, would be knells to us, if we knew what would happen twixt them and their next chiming.

Lend an ear, then, to this concert of bell towers; spread over all the murmur of half a million men, the eternal plaint of the river, the infinite breathings of the wind, the grave and distant quartette of the four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon, like immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade, all that is too hoarse and too shrill about the central chime, and say whether you know anything in the world more rich and joyful, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes; than this furnace of music, than these ten thousand brazen voices chanting simultaneously in the flutes of stone, three hundred feet high, than this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra, than this symphony which produces the noise of a tempest.

From the building of a protective dyke to the weaver bending over his loom and to the ship carrying valuable Flemish cloth from Bruges to London or any other part of the European coast, there is a natural chain of thought. But the progress accomplished along the coast may also be connected with the foundation and development of the first towns and the chimes of the belfries.

I followed the chimes from the clock of some church nearby I have never learnt its name; and was conscious of a thrill of excitement when they warned me that the hour was actually arrived.... A strange figure appeared noiselessly, from I knew not where, and stood fully within view upon the bridge crossing the cutting, peering to right and left, in an attitude of listening.

We were now but a little distance from Les Barres, and could already see the roofs of the village and the square tower of the church, all alight with the sunset. As we came closer we heard the melancholy chimes of the couvre feu, followed by the barking of dogs, and a few minutes later we reached the hostel. Les Barres itself was an oasis in the desert around us.

At length, however, the "Meddler" chimes in, and Captain Christie immediately looses off his two howitzers in succession. They cannot be laid by sights on the object aimed at, which is hidden from view. All has to be done by calculation of angles, and a fraction of error may make all the difference. So we watch anxiously while the shell a long time in flight follows its allotted parabola.

According to him, whoever, in his sleep, sees bells swinging, is menaced by an accident; if the bell chimes, it is presage of slander; if it falls, ataxia is certain; if it breaks, it is assurance of afflictions and miseries.

Young as he looks, I should judge him to be at least forty-five, and, if I am not mistaken, he is a man who has heard the chimes at midnight or later. I'm quite satisfied." "It's more than I am," Cross said, when at length he and his visitor were standing outside together. "Look here, Bell, you're a great friend of Steel's, whom I believe to be a very good fellow.

There are many other handsome churches amongst the number which the city contains, and I do not recollect ever to have been in a place where there are such a number and variety of chimes. The town-house is an extremely large and handsome building, in the ancient taste, as indeed are most of those in the Netherlands. The city contains many elegant private houses.

The gallery is brightly lighted; but beyond is a vast gloom, continually changing in intensity. A shaft of violet light shoots upward; and a very harmonious and silvery carillon chimes. When it ceases the violet ray vanishes. Zoo comes along the gallery, followed by the Envoy's daughter, his wife, the Envoy himself, and the Elderly Gentleman.