"Intonation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sub-divisions of the celenterata or the natural orders of endogenous plants, he was expending his energies in endeavouring to recall the words of the song which his cousin had sung the evening before, or to recollect the exact intonation with which she remarked to him that it had been a fine day, or some other equally momentous observation. It follows that, as the day of the examination came round, the student, in his lucid intervals, began to feel anxious for the result. He had known his work fairly well, however, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as he might, he could not account for it. The words of blasphemy that had scorched his ears as the key entered the lock, had been uttered, he was sure, in no voice known to him; nay more, in no voice of human intonation. How could he explain them? How account for them save in one way? How defend his cowardice save on one ground? He shuddered, gazing at the house, and murmuring now a prayer, and now a word of exorcism. But the day had come, the sky was red, and the sun was near its rising before he ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... blue cloth, the captain's shoulders moved impatiently. Staff heard him say something indistinguishable, but of an intonation ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... flashes of white teeth and lively glances of black eyes, at first in a sort of anxious baby-talk, then, as he acquired the language, with great fluency, but always with that singing, soft, and at the same time vibrating intonation that instilled a strangely penetrating power into the sound of the most familiar English words, as if they had been the words of an unearthly language. And he always would come to an end, with many emphatic shakes of his head, upon that awful sensation of his heart melting within him ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... on the other side of the stage. As soon as Majkowska entered there began a scene upon the stage for she repeated each word after Mela in an undertone and in a false intonation, laughed aloud at her acting, ridiculed and ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... these early devotions. In the ecclesiastical habit, but with their swords under their robes, the conspirators mingled with the procession, lurked in the angles of the chapel, and expected, as the signal of murder, the intonation of the first psalm by the emperor himself. The imperfect light, and the uniformity of dress, might have favored his escape, whilst their assault was pointed against a harmless priest; but they soon discovered their mistake, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... Bronte was much "struck with the beauty of the scene, the fresh verdure of the turf, and the soft rich masses of foliage." From remarks on the different character of the landscape in the South to what it was in the North, she was led to speak of the softness and varied intonation of the voices of those with whom she conversed in London, which seem to have made a strong impression on both sisters. All this time those who came in contact with the "Miss Browns" (another pseudonym, also beginning with B), seem only to have regarded them as shy and reserved little ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... moments in such vivid intensity that his eyeballs ached; then all was black again for a few moments, and then came the deep-toned roar as of hundreds of distant mighty cannons; not a sudden, sharp, metallic crash as in the last instance, but a deep murmurous intonation which made the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... that you might like to see, Miss Bart." She spoke the name with an unpleasant emphasis, as though her knowing it made a part of her reason for being there. To Lily the intonation sounded like a threat. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... to divide the octave into twelve equal parts or semi-tones, thus rendering all keys alike. To do this it is necessary to slightly flatten all the fifths and sharpen the major thirds. The difference from just intonation is about one-fiftieth of a semi-tone. Although recommended and used by J. S. Bach, equal temperament was not introduced into English organs ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... Postage Department should be. What that is, at present, I do not exactly know. However. Excursion trains will be run from distant shires to see this Postage Department. American visitors to London will do it before going on to the Tower. And now,' he broke off, with a crisp, businesslike intonation, 'I must ask you to excuse me. Much as I have enjoyed this little chat, I fear it must now cease. The time has come to work. Our trade rivals are getting ahead of us. The whisper goes round, "Rossiter and Psmith are talking, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... explain." Aoyama smiled. He might have made some formal excuse for this eccentricity. Saburo[u]zaemon spoke out for him—"Don't be obtuse, O[u]kubo Uji. The one lacking here is the cause of the feast. O'Kiku Dono still delays. Is it not so, Aoyama Uji?" He spoke with cold certainty, a curious intonation in voice. Aoyama was black with a fury about to burst forth when O[u]kubo sprang up. He looked around. "Just so! Wait but a moment. We'll have her here." Aoyama was turned aside, and would have detained him. "Hikoroku Dono, it is useless. Kiku is not in the yashiki." To the dubious look ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... my woman morpheean." There was a hideous edged intonation in the word, like the whine of some ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was the first child born on the island. Bronzed warriors smiled on her fair infancy; sometimes they called her, with affectionate intonation, "The Daughter of the Regiment." She deserved the notice they bestowed,—as infancy in general deserves all it receives,—but Elizabeth for other reasons than that she had come whence none could tell, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... amplification of this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the action of the right hand, the bowing, which, analogous to the pianist's touch, makes the sound spring into life. It is through the medium of ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... language like? I explained that it was a sort of Argot-English. When I gave him some phrases he was astonished—"It sounds like English!" he cried, and retailed his stock of English phrases for my approval. I tried hard to get his intonation of the Arabian, and he helped me on the difficult sounds. America must be a strange ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... replied the boy in the slouchy speech and intonation of the hills. "I jest came in with dad this mornin', bringin' a wagon load ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... song sung with feeling and expression is good, however accompanied. Otherwise, the pianoforte is not much to my mind. All its intervals are false, and temperament is a poor substitute for natural intonation. Then its incapability of sustaining a note has led, as the only means of producing effect, to those infinitesimal subdivisions of sound, in which all sentiment and expression are twittered and frittered ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... figure, which he carries erect and trim; and the ends of his moustache curl up, elastic as watchsprings, giving him an air which, but for its Spanish dignity, would be called jaunty. He is on the pleasantest terms with Don Juan. His voice, save for a much more distinguished intonation, is so like the voice of Roebuck Ramsden that it calls attention to the fact that they are not unlike one another in spite of their ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... his faults, MOLE contrives to find accents so tender, so affecting; he envelops his voice, as it were, with sounds so soft, so mellow, and at the same time so delicate, that the audience, fearing to lose the most trifling intonation, dare not draw their breath. Mademoiselle CONTAT replies, and, although she has to express the same degree of feeling, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... sorrowful, almost reproachful, intonation in her voice? He was foolish enough to fancy so, weak enough to encourage this sudden rapid beating ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... voice had resumed its usual slow intonation. The first anger had left it with a harsh, cold attempt at composure; his eyes moved from object to object, and his soft white fingers worked nervously with the tassel of his dressing-gown: if ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... could not speak naturally. She did so evidently feeling there was a charm in the exaggerated, honeyed modulation of the syllables. It was, of course, only a bad, underbred habit that showed bad education and a false idea of good manners. And yet this intonation and manner of speaking impressed Alyosha as almost incredibly incongruous with the childishly simple and happy expression of her face, the soft, babyish joy in her eyes. Katerina Ivanovna at once made her sit down in an arm-chair facing Alyosha, and ecstatically kissed her several ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... tragic character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become altogether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mock-majesty of those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot permit Hamlet to make use of a single provincial intonation, although it should only be in his conversation with ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... sentiment, captivating clothes, and all those distinguishing characteristics which have tended to fasten upon the female sex the epithet of gentle. It will generally be admitted that women of homely presence, clumsy in their gait, dowdy in their dress, and raucous in their intonation, are much safer from the infliction of gallantries at the hands or lips of mortal men than those whose attributes are more pleasing; and it is safe to assert that many a male monster has been rooted to his seat in ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... French and German like a native; he could imitate an Englishman's intonation to perfection; and yet he came to manhood with his own honest Ohio accent untouched. And where had he learned it? Not in Ohio, surely. He had been about as much in Ohio as I have in the moon. It was in his red blood, I suppose, to speak as the men of his family spoke—less so, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... longer concealed, when we pass from the activity of understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically to be compared with ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... she answered, with that intonation he did not like. "Of course, if you would like to meet Miss Roche, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... children practice the national game; grave and ardent, already strong, they throw their pelota against the wall, while, in a singing voice and with the needful intonation, one of them counts and announces the points, in the mysterious tongue of the ancestors. Around them, the tall houses, old and white, with warped walls, with projecting rafters, contemplate through their green or ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... once that these Indians were much more primitive than those he knew at the Bay and, unfamiliar as he was with the Indian language, he noticed a marked difference in the intonation and inflection when the ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... finished that repast. Of these was one Major Muncheon, somewhat celebrated for his remarkable powers of making away with whatever the table furnished. One day, Wilkins, the host, who was addicted to a slightly nasal intonation, addressed him, when he had just risen from his seat,—"Major, I can't dine you any more for twenty-five cents." "Why not?" asked the well-satisfied trencherman. "I tell you, Major," said his host, "the ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... inspired us with confidence in the man, whose frank face was an index to his character, and whose sympathetic soul breathed through every intonation of his gentle voice. ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... Paris had the look of Victor's traditional hospitality. Nataly smiled at her incorrigibly lagging intelligence of him, on hearing that he had invited a company: 'Lady Grace, for gaiety; Peridon and Catkin, fiddles; Dudley Sowerby and myself, flutes; Barmby, intonation; in all, nine of us; and by the dear old Normandy route, for the sake of the voyage, as in old times; towers of Dieppe in the morning-light; and the lovely road to the capital! Just three days in Paris, and home by any of the other routes. It's the drive we want. Boredom in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Yellow Press, which does not tend to clear definition on points of theology. The mass of all this controversial stuff is no more absurd, no more frantic, than it used to be: but in language it has lost its dignity with its homeliness. It has lost the colouring of the Scriptures, the intonation of the Scriptures, ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... a marvellous experience to see her transformed, by the mere putting aside of her cloak, from the sweet-faced, thoughtful girl to the stern, accusing, dark, and tense woman of the play. Her voice took on the quivering intonation of the seeress, and her spread hand seemed to clutch at the hearts of her perfidious friends. At such moments Douglass sat entranced, afraid to breathe for fear of breaking the spell, and when she dropped her role and resumed her ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... his club, and dealt a sound douse or two on each side of him; and then, like a coach-horse pricked by the spur, started off at once into the full career of his address, and by dint of active prompting on the part of Dickie Sludge, delivered, in sounds of gigantic intonation, a speech which may be thus abridged—the reader being to suppose that the first lines were addressed to the throng who approached the gateway; the conclusion, at the approach of the Queen, upon sight of whom, as struck by some heavenly vision, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... thought Mr. Parkinson; and envied him and internally noted, and with an unholy fervor cursed, the adroitness of intonation and the discreetly modulated gesture with which the colonel gave to every point of his merry-Andrewing its ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... memories, and simple outlook upon life. The fear of the Lord is over their lives. If they wander elsewhere, making homes for themselves among the southern or western Irish, or, further still, to England or America, they may learn to be in appearance as other men are—may lose the harsh northern intonation from their talk, but down in the bottom of their hearts will be an awful affection for their sea, which is like no other sea, and the dark overwhelming cliffs whose shadow never wholly leaves their souls. ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... close to the first: The man must enthrone his will to rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... expert, so awake to anything the least ridiculous, and of a type with which the preaching of passion somehow so ill consorted—he was so much all these things that he had absolutely to take account of them himself. And he did so, in a single intonation, beautifully. Milly liked him again, liked him for such shades as that, liked him so that it was woeful to see him spoiling it, and still more woeful to have to rank him among those minor charms of existence that she gasped at ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... your pardon," the stranger said, addressing him in pure and limpid English, which sounded to Philip like the dialect of the very best circles, yet with some nameless difference of intonation or accent which certainly was not foreign, still less provincial, or Scotch, or Irish; it seemed rather like the very purest well of English undefiled Philip had ever heard,—only, if anything, a little more so; "I beg your pardon, but I'm a stranger ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... had kept every intonation of her voice under her control. There was no hint of irony or triumph. She was a respectful lady's maid, frankly answering questions about her dead mistress. But she did not so successfully keep sentinel over her ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... particle. Ex. Mika na klatawa okook sun? do you go to-day? Interrogation is, however, often conveyed by intonation only. ...
— Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon • George Gibbs
... to be in the frozen-out state of mind, and might walk up and down singing "I've got no work to do,"'—to which she gave the well known intonation. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the old-fashioned inn called the Pot d'Etain, we shall find much to remind us of the 15th century. If we take a walk by the beautiful banks of the Rille on a summer's evening, or in the fields where the peasants are at work, we shall find the aspect curiously English, and in the intonation of the voices the resemblance is sometimes startling; we seem hardly amongst foreigners—both in features and in voice there is a strong family likeness. There is a close tie of blood relationship no doubt, of ancient habits and natural tastes; ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... child?" she said, with a question in her voice, though with no intonation of doubt ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... learning to understand some things better,' she went on. 'But of course she is very young for her age. At first she was far too ready to rush into bosom friendships and enthusiastic admirations and all that sort of thing. And she perfectly adores games,' with a slight intonation ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... out of his preoccupation a little vaguely. "Why, yes. Yes, of course," he said absently. Then, coming a little further, and with a different intonation, he went on: "We're really getting pressed for time, you see. And the opening won't wait for anybody. It's ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the melancholy, nasal intonation of the priest died away, and the exquisite women's voices in the gallery took it up with exultation, and yet with something like a ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... thy nation, Komel, who would choose an humble mountaineer to a Sultan," said the monarch, with a bitter intonation ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... veiled. Her singing obscured the imperfect talents of the Malibrans, the Sontags, and the Fodors, in whom some one dominant quality always mars the perfection of the whole; whereas Marianina combined in equal degree purity of tone, exquisite feeling, accuracy of time and intonation, science, soul, and delicacy. She was the type of that hidden poesy, the link which connects all the arts and which always eludes those who seek it. Modest, sweet, well-informed, and clever, none could eclipse Marianina unless it ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... to read with facility from any book, giving the proper intonation and pauses, and to write portions that are read aloud for that purpose, spelling the words and punctuating ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... something in his intonation that made me look him in the face; he stood a little on tiptoe to look right and left about the ship, like a man filled with curiosity, and his whole expression and bearing ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... many a successful merchant in the character of Atys. But it is not a deity to cultivate in youth. If a man lives to any considerable age, it cannot be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... after him. You're no better than swindlers, both on you. Don't be a bullyin' ME. I won't stand it. Pay us our selleries, I say. Pay us our selleries." It was evident, from Mr. Trotter's flushed countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had had recourse to ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marguerite who was speaking, the proud young girl with a queenlike bearing, whose voice rang out like crystal? Was it she indeed, who imitated the harsh, coarse dialect of the lower classes with such accuracy of intonation? Ah! at that moment, as her past life rose so vividly before her, it seemed to her as if she were still in the years gone by, and she fancied she could still hear the voice of ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... flights of thought so common in dreams I heard the hoarse falsetto of the bric-a-brac dealer, repeating like a monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so enigmatical an intonation: ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... thundering ferocity the appalling roar that burst upon our ears immediately after that shot was fired. I can compare it to nothing, for nothing I ever heard was like it. If the reader can conceive a human fiend endued with a voice far louder than that of the lion, yet retaining a little of the intonation both of the man's voice and of what we should suppose a fiend's voice to be, he may form some slight idea of what that roar was. It is impossible to describe it. Perhaps Mak's expression in regard ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... interjected ambiguously) and his mother, with an insatiable curiosity for anything that was rare (filially humorous accent here and a softer flash of teeth), was very anxious to have me presented to her (courteous intonation, but no teeth). He hoped I wouldn't mind if she treated me a little as an "interesting young man." His mother had never got over her seventeenth year, and the manner of the spoilt beauty of at least three counties at the back of the Carolinas. That again ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... science or theology, and writing too often with the blood of some innocent victim. The poor patient student is meanwhile gazing on the moon in dreamy devotion; until as the writing on the mirror is read with solemn intonation, it all appears before his moon-struck gaze as a heavenly revelation. Woe to the truth-loving critic who breaks the enchantment and the mirror, crying out in the vernacular tongue, Your mysteries are myths, your writings are frauds; and the fair moon is innocent ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... than want of depth and fineness of intonation in a period, is all gross excess of colour, because excess of colour is connected with graver faults in the region of the intellectual conscience. Macaulay is a constant sinner in this respect. The wine of truth is in his cup a brandied draught, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... asked, at my impatient prompting, of the placid Lascar quartermaster during the past fortnight. And the answer generally elicited a sigh from the good-natured captain of the Actaea, a sigh which I reproduced with a good deal of added woe in its intonation and a slight dash of feminine impatience. For this easterly bearing was all wrong for us. "Anything from the south would do," but not a puff seemed inclined to come our way from the south. Seventeen days ago we scraped over the bar at the mouth ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the old man over as they rode along side by side. He was lean, wiry and probably sixty-five. His hair, worn long, gave him the look of the old-time ranger. He carried no reata and did not look like a ranchman. He had the southern intonation, and his eyes were wonderfully young for the ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... with gravity and an even intonation, but his voice rose with pride at the last. Nothing of the white man's training was left to him but the slow, precise English. It was the Indian, the pride of his Indian race, that spoke. Dick recognized it ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... honour?"—his host took him up with an intonation that often comes back to him. "That's what I want you to go in for. I mean the real thing. ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... necessary to the existence of speech arose with articulation, and it is intelligence that has converted the vocal instrument into the speaking instrument. For whereas correct intonation depends upon the innate musical ear, which is able to control and regulate the tensions of the minute muscles acting upon the vocal cords, it is intelligence which alters and changes the form of the resonator by means of movement of the lips, tongue, ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... addressing an assembly: thus Caius Gracchus always on such occasions had a slave behind him, whose duty it was to aid him to commence his orations in a proper pitch, and when his voice sank too low, or became too shrill, to call him to a better intonation by the ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... mean?" said they, with just a slight intonation to signify that they did not look upon her as a "Miss." Their further answer represented the exact extent of their knowledge in the matter. "She didn't come much for a good while, but last week she came to tea. It is arranged for mamma to ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... not a copy, is before them. It would then remain to learn the mechanism of my art; that is, to choose the salient points and to bring them out, to calculate the effects and keep them in proportion with the unfolding of the plot, to avoid monotony in intonation and repetition in accentuation, to insure precision and distinctness in pronunciation, the proper distribution of respiration, and incisiveness of delivery. I must study; study again; study always. It was not an easy ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... purity of intonation which Isaac had never heard before from other than ladies' lips. Her slightest actions seemed to have the easy, negligent grace of a thoroughbred woman. Her skin, for all its poverty-stricken paleness, was ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... is very simple and elegant, but cold, colder than that of the English. A Touarghee elevates deliberately the right hand to a level with his face, turning the outspread palm to the individual, and slowly but with a fine intonation says, "Sălām Aleikoum." This is all. When using his own language, a few words are added. How strikingly contrasted are the habits of different people. Amongst the Moors and Arabs this mode of saluting ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... are takin' all kinds of chances," he said, in a voice that had little pleasantness of intonation. "I had some scare when I see you come over the hills ther'. The darn neches bin out the way you come, burnin', an' massacrin'. How you missed 'em beats me to death. But I guess you did miss 'em?" he added ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... "Your intonation is awful," said the Actor. "But listen. In my interpretation I use no words at all. I merely carry the skull quietly in my hand, very slowly, across the stage. There I lean against a pillar at the side, with the skull in the palm of my hand, and ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... you talk English as well as I do," said the host, whose intonation and words were, on the whole, a ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... through directly, see if he is not," reiterated the senior clerk with kindly intonation. "Don't make a noise, there's a good fellow;" and once more John Clark, the dean of the office, guilefully buried ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a kind of musical and melancholy cadence, which was followed by an unconscious absence of mind, evidencing the fact, that her thoughts were what is vulgarly termed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... The drooping horse looked as though it had been fished out, half unconscious, from a pond. Mrs Fyne found some relief in looking at that miserable sight, away from the room in which the voice of the amiable visitor resounded with a vulgar intonation exhorting the strayed sheep to return to the delightful fold. "Come, Florrie, make a move. I can't wait on you all ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... lying a little way from the river-bank, and occupied by a seven-story loft-building, was owned by the previously mentioned Redmond Purdy, a long, thin, angular, dirty person, who wore celluloid collars and cuffs and spoke with a nasal intonation. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... to obtain every species of intelligence respecting the movements of the English and the hunted Bruce, whom he pretended to condemn and vilify after the fashion of the Anglo-Scots, and feeling perfectly secure not only in the disguise he had assumed, but in the peculiar accent and intonation of the north-country peasant, which he could assume at pleasure, he made himself a welcome guest, and with scarcely any trouble received much of the information he desired. He was told of the first capture and rescue of the Countess of Buchan; that it was through one of the men left for dead ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Antonina on the previous night, was doubled in intensity as he thought on her now. Again he recalled her eloquent words, and remembered the charm of her gentle and innocent manner; again he dwelt on the beauties of her outward form. Each warm expression; each varying intonation of voice that had accompanied her petition to him for safety and companionship; every persuasion that she had used to melt him, now revived in his memory and moved in his heart with steady influence and increasing ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... largely sensual, but each movement of his fat hands was protective, every word he uttered was kind, the very intonation of his voice was comforting. He was, in a word, human, and this attracted all that was human ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... more wanted than yourselves to break this chain. You have tried, I have no doubt, in the course of your lives, more and more resolutely, to cure yourselves of some more or less unworthy habits. They may be but mere slight tricks of attitude or intonation, or movement. Has your success been such as to encourage you to think that you can revolutionise your lives, and dethrone the despots that have ruled over you in the past? I leave the question to yourselves. To me it seems that the world of men is certain to go on ignoring ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... old man, with emotion, "I ain' narvous; but dat saw, a-cuttin' en grindin' thoo dat stick er timber, en moanin', en groanin', en sweekin', kyars my 'memb'ance back ter ole times, en 'min's me er po' Sandy." The pathetic intonation with which he lengthened out the "po' Sandy" touched a responsive chord in ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... truly done?" There was no gladness in her voice, only relief. Doubt was in every intonation of her sentence; incredulity in every ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... accidentally took a seat in a place that enabled me to see the legs of one of the fortune-teller's customers; and, I thought, immediately, that the striped stockings were familiar to me; when the nasal, and very peculiar intonation of Jason, put the matter out of all doubt. He spoke in an earnest manner; which rendered him a little incautious; while the woman's tones were low and mumbled. Notwithstanding, we all overheard the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... grow interesting!" says Lady Rylton. There is a silence for a moment, and then: "Do you mean to tell me that this girl," with a scornful intonation, "has a—Really" with a shrug, "considering her birth, one may be excused for ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... with that judicial intonation characteristic of time-pieces that measure sacred time and wasted opportunities. At intervals the pastor, with an innocent affectation of having just observed the silence, would remark: "There is yet opportunity. . . . . Time is passing, brethren. . . . . Any brother or sister. . . . . We shall ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... unearthly sounds. Finally, incense was brought, of charcoal with juniper-sprigs; it was swung about, and concluded the morning service to our great relief, for the noises were quite intolerable. Fervid as the devotions appeared, to judge by their intonation, I fear the Lama felt more curious about us than was proper under the circumstances; and when I tried to sketch him, his excitement knew no bounds; he fairly turned round on the settee, and, continuing his prayers and bell-accompaniment, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... magic dark river from off the pavement into the horse-way, to give her room as she approached. And the men who knew her well enough to salute her, by calling her name "Miss Frost!" giving it the proper intonation of salute, were fussy men indeed. "She's a lady if ever there was one," they said. And they meant it. Hearing her name, poor Miss Frost would flash a smile and a nod from behind her spectacles, but whose black ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... this was spoken loudly, in a pleasant rich voice, with an intonation that decidedly fitted ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... side of the wedding seemed to have nothing to do with it, when I thought of all that lay beneath; my one interest to-day was to see John Mayrant, to get from him, if not by some word, then by some look or intonation, a knowledge of what he meant to do. Therefore, disappointment and some anxiety met me when I stepped from the Hermana's gangway upon her deck, and Charley asked me if he was coming. But the launch, sent back to wait, finally brought John, apologizing ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... this vast AEolian intonation, when my eye filled with the golden fullness of life, the pomps and glory of the heavens outside, and, turning, when it settled upon the frost which overspread my sister's face, instantly a trance fell upon me. A vault seemed to open ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... a regiment?' said Ammiani, with an intonation that professed his readiness to serve as a recruit. His humour striking with hers, they smiled together in the bright fashion of young people who can lose themselves in a ray ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... little vexed at the interruption, and did not feel inclined to stay there with them. Kenneth was at present almost a stranger to me. He had a mischievous, quizzical intonation in his voice when he spoke to me, and Violet, his youngest sister, a bright, merry schoolgirl of fourteen, had confided in me the previous night that 'Kenneth was never so happy as when he was teasing people, and that he took stock of every one, and mimicked ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... effectual pathos can be communicated by sonorous depth and melodious cadence of the human voice to sentiments the most trivial; [2] nor, on the other hand, how the grandest are emasculated by a style of reading which fails in distributing the lights and shadows of a musical intonation. However, this defect chiefly concerned the immediate impression; the most afflicting to a friend of Coleridge's was the entire absence of his own peculiar and majestic intellect; no heart, no soul, was in anything he said; no strength of feeling in recalling universal truths, no power ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... to tell Prince Andras if she would consent to become his wife or not. It was a yes, almost as curt as another refusal, which fell at last from the lips of the Tzigana. But the Prince was not cool enough to analyze an intonation. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... through the door into a sort of office, with clerks and Dr. Weaver, the prison physician, at $1500 a year,—a tall, wooden faced young medical school graduate, who cultivated a skeptical expression and a jeering intonation of speech. He and an assistant put us through a physical examination, and took a series of measurements, all of which were entered by the clerks in ledgers. Our photographs were then taken, and afterward (it was the next day, but may as well be told ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... days he was a picture to look at, for beauty of feature, perfection of form and grace of carriage and movement. He had a charm about him of a sort quite unusual to my Western ignorance and inexperience—a charm of manner, intonation, apparently native and unstudied elocution, and all that—the groundwork of it native, the ease of it, the polish of it, the winning naturalness of it, acquired in Europe where he had been Charge d'Affaires some ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... unmalicious humor. If you know any one who is gay, beguiling and amusing, you will, if you are wise, do everything you can to make him prefer your house and your table to any other; for where he is, the successful party is also. What he says is of no matter, it is the twist he gives to it, the intonation, the personality he puts into his quip or retort or observation that delights his hearers, and in his case the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... too, with bleak rehearsals, hours of listless waiting for his little scenes; with his powerlessness to get into his simple words the particular intonation required by an overdriven producer. Familiar, too, with long and hungry Sunday railway journeys when pious refreshment rooms are shut; with little mean towns like Bludston, where he and three or four of the company shared the same mean theatrical lodgings; ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... therefore, be interesting to unlearned Lovers of Verse, how alive soever they may be to poetic beauty.—A literal translation in the plainest prose, will always shew the precise quantity of real poetic matter, contained in any Production, independent of the music of its intonation, and numbers, and the elegance of its style.—The prose translations of Horace' Odes evince that their merit does not consist in the plenitude of poetic matter, or essence, constituted by circumstances of startling interest, by exalted sentiment, impassioned complaint, or appeal, distinct ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... the asylum was like unto the region of Brahman. Here were bees sweetly humming and there were winged warblers of various species pouring forth their melodies. At particular places that tiger among men heard the chanting of Rik hymns by first-rate Brahmanas according to the just rules of intonation. Other places again were graced with Brahmanas acquainted with ordinances of sacrifice, of the Angas and of the hymns of the Yajurveda. Other places again were filled with the harmonious strains ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... reasons," resumed Madame Lanoy, with slow, solemn intonation, "for all these reasons we have thought it necessary to chain Fortune and to ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... reigned, on which the sound of their carriage wheels ungratefully broke. The rustling of each individual bough had an intonation of its own; and the deep notes of the woodman, endeavouring to forget the thrilling legends of his land, mingled fitfully with the hollow gusts, which came moaning ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... it, made him extremely obnoxious to them, and prompted Dooly to say: "Nature had formed his mouth expressly to say, 'Yazoo.'" Its play, when speaking, was tremulous, with a nervous twitching, which gave an agitated intonation ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... this with so strong a German accent, and pronounced the barbarous words with so foreign an intonation, that no trace or impression whatever was left by ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... the J-sound as though it were Zh; he gave all his syllables an equally-accented intonation. "Say, somebody gave ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... natural application or drew the familiar comparison between his failure and her own, Elsie clapped the lid down on her thoughts with a thud. Turning resolutely to Miss Pritchard, she asked her, with strange intonation, if she thought the snow would ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... words: the first, lys, as found in the name Lismore, and others of a like class in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland; the second ard, a long point running into the sea. In Cornwall, to my ear, the name had quite the Celtic intonation L[y]s-[a]rd; not at all like L[(i]z[a]rd, as we ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... hard enough. I've seen him; that's why I couldn't tell you any more. And it's all over and done, and God help us! We must make the best of it. You see, sir, he is married," said the girl, with a sharp intonation in her voice like ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... gray eyes, he was vaguely conscious that she didn't like him. Nevertheless, her manner was formally polite, even, as he fancied, to the point of irony, as she began, in a voice that occasionally dropped into the lazy Southern intonation, and a speech that easily slipped at times ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Aramis, with the same intonation on the word friend that he had applied to it the first time—"I mean that if there has been any confusion, scandal, and even effort in the substitution of the prisoner for the king, I defy you to ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The intonation which the man gave to his words was such that Bob felt that he must give some explanation of his indecision, ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... to the strains of the voluptuous-waltz made vocal? The words mattered not; in Esquimaux they would have been as intelligible from the intonation with which she imbued every note, and the restricted but perfectly comprehensible gestures with which she emphasized the phrases of double meaning—one for the literary censors who had "passed" this corruption, the other for even the more obtuse ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... "A-tam-or." But as she spoke this slowly her smile died away. She looked anxious and troubled, and once more that expression of wondering sadness came over her face. She repeated my name over and over in this way with a mournful intonation that thrilled through me, and excited forebodings of evil. "Atamor, Atamor!" And always after that ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... the Captain, with a strong Highland intonation; "then there is no more to be said, but just to settle time and place; for pistols I suppose must ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... the principles and practice of just Intonation, with a view to the abolition of temperament.... By General Perronet Thompson.[320] Sixth Edition. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... died in the 'reeking keg'?" There was a sharp intonation in the question. The matter seemed to be of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... sales-woman with the pasty face, when I directed the parcel to be sent home. Was it fancy which read a note of reproach in her intonation? ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... no less than knowledge are a physician's passepartout among the ladies who bring their ailments to our provincial spas. The face which the lad lifted towards my bedroom window was a remarkably handsome one, though pallid, and the voice in which he answered my challenge had a foreign intonation, but musical and in no way resembling the brogue for which I had ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... smile curled Bishop Cutler's thin lips. "Well, Frank," he replied, "that's just what I want to see you about. We"—with the intonation that is used among prominent Mormons when the "we" are voicing the conclusions of the hierarchy—"wouldn't like to do anything to hurt the sugar interests of the country. I've looked into this differential, and I don't see that ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... geese and the like, had all been purchased and handed over to be reared in the various localities in the garden; and over at Chia Se's, had also been learnt twenty miscellaneous plays, while a company of young nuns and Taoist priestesses had likewise the whole number of them, mastered the intonation of Buddhist classics ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that the intonation of that 'you' had curled Tom's lip with mischief, and dreading that Leonard should discover and resent his mood, she said, 'We think one of your sea eggs has got among ours; will you come to the ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slow exit to discuss the play and with entire sophistication, expressing astonishment that Allen was lukewarm in his praise of it. He could not agree with her that the leading woman was beautiful, but she laughed when he remarked, with his droll intonation, that the star reminded him of a dressed-up ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... stiff and formal, and his voice had assumed a slight nasal intonation. Potts had evidently looked on him ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... or were my ears deceiving me? The intonation was remarkably like that of the stranger, who so short a time previously had bade us stand and deliver, that I sprang to my feet with an exclamation of astonishment. My eyes at once convinced me that my ears had played me false. There was no mistaking ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... large; a broad, high, full forehead, and a small mouth. I should call him of medium height, about five feet eight and a half to nine inches, and inclined to be a trifle stout. There was no peculiarity about his voice; but it was pleasant and had a good intonation. His smile was exceedingly genial, lighting up his whole face and rendering it very attractive; while, if he were about to say anything humorous, it would beam forth from his eyes even before the words ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... she waiting for?" The question came with a certain weariness of intonation, as though the speaker were somewhat bored; but Hugh Palliser was ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... thought so," said Mr. Pope, with a peculiar intonation; and after that he proceeded with great suavity to cross-examine her into a state of utter bewilderment. As to what had happened after the accident she contradicted herself six or seven times over, eagerly accepting any suggestion which he held out to her; and Mr. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... it to-day. It had an operative strength of its own that was independent of the intentions of the officiating priest. The efficacy of prayer depended not on the inner disposition of the believer, but on the correctness of the words, gestures and intonation. Religion was not clearly differentiated from magic. If a divinity was invoked according to the correct forms, especially if one knew how to pronounce its real name, it was compelled to act in conformity to the will of its priest. The sacred words were an incantation that compelled the superior ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont |
