"Pedal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pedal tubercle: on the thoracic and abdominal rings of caterpillars: on the anterior side of leg-base and, correspondingly, on apodal segments: is VII of the abdomen where it consists of three setae: VI of the thorax where the setae are ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... revolves around a horizontal axle supported by a cast iron frame similar to that of a sewing machine. Motion is communicated to it by a double pedal, which actuates a connecting rod and a system of pulleys. The external surface of the brush contains three channels in which the foot gear to be polished is successively placed. In the first of these the dust and mud are removed, in the second the blacking is spread on, and in the third ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... his loom is sitting, Throws his shuttle to and fro; Foot and treadle, Hand and pedal, Upward, downward, Hither, thither, How the weaver makes them go! As the weaver wills they go. Up and down the web is plying, And across the woof is flying; What a rattling! What a battling! What a shuffling! What a scuffling! As the weaver makes his shuttle, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... and Pedal Organ (except the two stops Bourdon and Bass Flute of the last) are placed in four bays of the north triforium of the nave; the choir organ and the two Pedal stops are in the first bay of the north aisle, and the Console in the second bay behind the stalls. There are ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... hands; but they won't do if you're depending on your head or your feet. If one end of you gets tangled, so does the other. That's why beer and cigarettes don't hurt piano players and picture painters. But you've got to cut 'em out if you want to do mental or pedal work. Now, have a cracker, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... toe was presented to us for adoration, but as we did not seem to "ad," he withdrew his pedal attachment and talked about the "relics" ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... half-crazed by the uproar that its own activities have brought about, will welcome the soft pedal that Sir Hiram Maxim, inventor of the gun silencer, is preparing to put on the hubbub in which every great urban community has condemned ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... in a motor with a man once. I said to him: 'What would happen if you trod on that pedal thing instead of that other pedal thing?' He said, 'I couldn't. One's the foot-brake, and the other's the accelerator.' 'But suppose you did?' I said. 'I wouldn't,' he said. 'Now we'll let her rip.' So he stamped on the accelerator. Only it turned ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... groove the colonists had bulldozed out for it years before, the first year they had arrived on Baron IV. Slowly Pete turned Mario's words over in his mind, allowing himself to worry a little. There had been rumors of trouble back on Earth, persistent rumors he had taken care to soft-pedal, as mayor of the colony. There were other things, too, like the old newspapers and magazines that had been brought in by the lad from Baron II, and the rare radio message they could pick up through ...
— Image of the Gods • Alan Edward Nourse
... be absolutely erect, but leaning slightly forward, so as to allow the weight to be distributed between the handle-bars, the pedal, and the saddle. This slightly inclined attitude also maintains the proper and harmonious relation of the internal organs, so that the bowels do not crowd down on ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... platform. Mark's presence was a surprise to the audience, and when they recognized him the demonstration was tremendous. The audience rose in a body, and men and women shouted at the very top of their voices. Handkerchiefs waved, the organist even opened every forte key and pedal in the great organ, and the noise went on unabated for minutes. It took some time for the crowd to get down to listening, but when they did subside, as Mark stepped to the front, the silence was as impressive as the noise ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... horizontal cylinder. Each boiler, with its covering, is 1 ft. 9 in. in diameter. The boilers stand 1 ft. 9 in. apart, thus affording space between them for the motive machinery, including the pump. The crank axle is behind the boilers. The levers, the injector, the access to the fire-box, a pedal for working the engine brake as well as a screw brake for the carriage, are all in front. The brakes act on all six wheels, are worked by the driver, and the whole weight of the engine, car, and passengers being carried on these wheels, the car ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various
... not more his own than ours and every man's, the word of the inalterable Mind. This gift of his was naturally very much a matter of temperament, and accordingly by far the greater part of his finer product belongs to the period of his prime, ere Time had set his lumpish foot on the pedal that deadens the nerves of animal sensibility.[355] He did not grow as those poets do in whom the artistic sense is predominant. One of the most delightful fancies of the Genevese humorist, Toepffer, is the poet Albert, who, having ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... man learning to drive a car has presented to him a new problem about which he must think keenly. The steering wheel, the foot-brake, the accelerator, the brake and speed levers, the possibility of touching the wrong pedal,—all demand his undivided attention and keep him thinking every moment of the time. But having learned, having solved his problem, he can run his car without conscious thought, and meanwhile can devote ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... to bear too hard on this pedal. It is easier to look at things from the commonplace standpoint. One thing or another prevented any of my companions in the jail from doing what it was desirable to do, and circumstances quite unforeseen opened a way for me to do it. What I have said ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... feet of the men; hence in every well-commanded Battalion frequent feet inspections are held—in many instances daily. This simple preventive, coupled with a copious supply of socks sent out by the people at home, has helped the great majority of 'Tommies' to keep their pedal ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... cloud of steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone. The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... hit out a tune or two with the soft pedal on?' I asks Marilla. 'Uncle Cal has begged you so often. It would please him a good deal to hear you touch up the piano he's bought for you. Don't you think ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Mephistopheles summons gnomes and sylphs to fill his mind with lovely fancies. They do their work so well as to entrance, not only Faust, but all who hear their strains, The instrumental ballet is a fairy waltz, a filmy musical fabric, seemingly woven of moonbeams and dewy cobwebs, over a pedal-point on the muted violoncellos, ending with drum taps and harmonics from the harp—one of the daintiest and most original orchestral effects imaginable. So dainty is the device, indeed, that one would ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... in modern editions is the abuse of the pedal. Mozart never indicated the pedal. As purity of taste is one of his great qualities, it is probable that he made no abuse of the pedal. Beethoven indicated it in a complicated and cumbersome manner. When he wanted ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... for the figure abandoned for another. If the right hand thrusts the flute, it is the duty of the left to see that the alternate and the limiting threads of the warp are properly lifted. First comes a pressure of the foot on a long, lath-like pedal which is attached to the bar holding in turn the loops which pass around ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... sixty-five in Berlioz's 'Dance of the Sylphs,'" said Dr. Dubbe. "The spirits hover over Faust, who has fallen asleep. The 'cellos are sawing away drowsily on their pedal point D (probably in sympathy with Faust), and what sounds like Herr Thomas tuning the orchestra is the lone A of the fifth. The absent third represents the sleep of Faust. This is a trick common to the new school. Wagner uses it in 'Siegfried,' in the close of the Tarnhelm ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... have "angels' tears," and "breath," and "smiles," and "Eden zephyrs," "sighs of seraph lovers," and "lyres of slumbering cherubs," dancing away to "the Pedal Harp!" How strange it is that Thomson, in his stanzas on the AEolian lyre (see the 'Castle of Indolence'), never dreamed of such things, but left all these prettinesses to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... his jacket, waistcoat, trousers, and boots, not forgetting his stockings; and then deliberately planting his chair in the open entry of the door, and gathering up one foot on the seat thereof, was amusing himself by cutting and picking the horny excrescences of his pedal digits, for the benefit of the passengers in the gentlemen's saloon; and, unfortunately, you could not be sure that his hands would be washed before he sat next to you at breakfast in the morning,—for I can testify that I have, over and over again, sat next ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... his embarrassment to get out and crank. He did it quietly, not looking at her. She could see that his hand trembled on the crank. When he did glance at her, as he drove off, it was apologetically, miserably. His foot was shaking on the clutch pedal. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... intensified; and although naturally the decreasing amplitude of the vibration may in itself tend to create a diminuendo, yet it is possible to make up for this in some degree by causing the air-blast to increase in force, through the use of any suitable means, modified by an extra pedal as may be desired. ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... we heard him splitting wood in the cellar beneath, and indulging in some very hard language with his soft pedal down, Mrs. Keyser being the object of his objurgations. After a while he came into the parlor again, took his seat, wiped the moisture from his brow, put his handkerchief in his hat, his hat on the floor, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... him in the same quiet voice, "what I've got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... of work the blowpipe should be mounted on a special table connected up with cylindrical bellows operated by a pedal. That figured (Fig. 12) is made by mounting a teak top 60 cm. square upon the uprights of an enclosed double-action concertina bellows (Enfer's) and provided with a ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... Tom pressed the control pedal at his foot and the small ship shot out into the black void of space. Ahead of them, thousands of yards away, he could ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... are rendered possible by being taken on a drone or pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This drone is, as it were, the flour and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... silence; but, had she been a little sharper, she would have grasped that it was the silence of amazement. After the prim sonatinas that had gone before, Thalberg's florid ornaments had a shameless sound. Her performance, moreover, was a startling one; the forte pedal was held down throughout; the big chords were crashed and banged with all the strength a pair of twelve-year-old arms could put into them; and wrong notes were freely scattered. Still, rhythm and melody were well marked, and there was no mistaking the ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... than usual in the parlor. The young woman from the notion counter had company; and one of her guests was playing "He sut'nly was Good to Me" on the pianola with loud and steady tread of pedal. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... on the soft pedal and played the old love song, and as he played his mother wandered over hills he had never seen, through fields he had never known, and heard a voice in the song he might never hear, even in his dreams. When he finished, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... her way through the sailors to where Tristan is standing at the helm, an interlude made of the sailors' song phrase is played on four horns and two bassoons over a pedal bass, the strings coming in in strongly marked rhythm on the last beat of each bar, marking the hauling of the ropes to clear the anchor. Tristan is in a reverie, scarcely conscious of what is going on around him; the love-motive once in the oboe shows how his thoughts are occupied. He starts at ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... half a dozen—" muttered Marzio, relapsing into sullen discontent and slowly turning the body of the chalice beneath the cord stretched by the pedal on which he pressed his foot. Having brought under his hand a round boss which was to become the head of a cherub under his chisel, he rubbed his fingers over the smooth silver, mechanically, while he contemplated the red wax model before him. Then there was ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... about to shout aloud in actual terror at the disaster that seemed unavoidable, there was a sharp "click" as Frank closed the circuit with his emergency foot pedal and the engine began to ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Jennie. "There ain't any such an animal! You know that in this day and generation shoe makers have ceased to make sensible shoes. I look at 'em in the shop windows," pursued the aching girl, "and I wonder what sort of foot the human pedal extremity will become in a generation or ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... foot on the soft pedal, that none might hear her, Sissy played. It was dark and very quiet; the hush-hush of the throbbing mines filled the night and stilled it. At times her heart stood still for fear that she might be discovered; at ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... innovations in writing for bass brass instruments, requires an octave bass trombone in B flat; an octave lower than the tenor one, in the "Nibelungen." The fundamental tones of the trombone are called "pedal" notes. They are difficult to get and less valuable than harmonics because, in all wind instruments, notes produced by overblowing are richer than the fundamental notes in tone quality. Valve trombones do not, however, find favor, the defects of intonation being more prominent than in shorter ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... She pressed down the pedal and bent over the wheel as if urging the machine to its utmost. Then there was jolt—a roar! a bang! ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... But in every line of her smoke-blue silken frock was the most subtle art, as Chester, who had a keen eye for such matters and a fastidious taste, could readily recognize. From the crown of her dark head to the toe of the blue slipper with which she pressed the pedal of the great piano which she had brought from her old home in the South, she was a picture ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... Hastens adown to subdominant key, Where melody mellow-like Singing so 'cello-like Rises and falls in a wild ecstasy. Scarce is this finished When chords all diminished Break loose in a patter that comes down like rain, A pedal-point wonder Rivaling thunder. Now all is mad agitation again. Like laughter jolly Begins the finale; Again does the 'cello its tones seem to lend Diminuendo ad molto crescendo. Ah! Rubinstein only could ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... happened. "Get out of the way!" a voice shrieked "out of the way, out of the way, OUT OF THE WAY!" Her heart lurched, her stomach twisted convulsively, and there was a brassy taste in her mouth. Instinctively, she stamped down on the brake pedal, swerved sharply into the outer lane. By the time she had topped the rise, she was going a cautious 50 miles an hour and hugging the far edge of the freeway. Then, and only then, she heard the squeal of agonized tires and ...
— The Sound of Silence • Barbara Constant
... derivation of the word appears both ingenious and correct. Roger North shrewdly conjectured that the "rude and gross" Gothic Fiddle "used to stir up the vulgar to dancing, or perhaps to solemnise their idolatrous sacrifices." In the Dark Ages dancing may have been regarded as bi-pedal trembling. I have remarked in another place,[19] "In the early ages of mankind dancing or jigging must have been done to the sound of the voice, next to that of the pipe, and, when the bow was discovered, to that of a stringed instrument which was named ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... the hour he spent on Sweet Sorrow laid over anything that the town had ever seen for sadness. Put 'em through every stage of grief from the snuffles to the snorts. Doc always was a pretty noisy preacher, but he began work on that head with soft-pedal-tremolo-stop preaching and wound up with a peroration like a steamboat explosion. Started with his illustrations dying of consumption and other peaceful diseases, and finished up with railroad wrecks. He'd been at it two hours when he got through burying the victims ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... some of the mazurkas of Chopin. He was, as Rubinstein called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and others have gone farther still in the same direction, but he showed the way, and most of his pieces are as delightful and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Joe. "But when it's that kind of opinion he ought to put on the soft pedal. Any one has a right to have a club foot or a hunched back or cross eyes, but he doesn't usually go round boasting ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... assemble; the western light grows low, and lights spring to life, one after another, in the misty choir. Then murmurs a voice, an Amen rises in full concord, and as it dies away the slumberous thunder of a pedal note rolls on the air; the casements whirr, the organ speaks. That fills, as it were, to the brim, as with some sweet and fragrant potion, the cup of beauty; and the dreaming, inquiring spirit sinks content into the flowing, the ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... learned to pedal and to guide a tricycle in about three lessons. He caught the two ideas almost instantly, and soon brought his muscles under control sufficiently to ride successfully, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... came. The campus dripped with sadness. The Faculty oozed regret at every pore. We loyal friends of Hogboom were looked on as the chief mourners and it was up to us to fill the part. We did our best. We talked with the soft pedal on. We went without cigarettes. We wiped our eyes whenever we got an audience. Time after time we told the sad story and exhibited the telegram. By noon more particulars began to come in. Prexy got an answer to his telegram of condolence. The funeral, ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... cloth after freedom. Used to give a brooch (hank) or two to weave at night. I'se sometimes thread de needle for my Ma, or pick out de seed out de cotton, an' make it into rolls to spin. Sometimes I'd work de foot pedal for my Ma. Den dey'd warp de thread. If she want to dye it, she'd dye it. She'd get indigo—you know dat bush—an' boil it. It was kinder blue. It would make good cloth. Sometimes, de cloth wuz kinder strip, one strip of white, an' one of blue. I remember how dey'd warp de thread ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... She began to pedal. "Oh, dear, yes. It is quite, quite easy. I shall get there all right—if the Matabele don't ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... we have been routed night after night from our warm quarters, in the dead of winter, to kindle fires and fill frosty kettles from water-pails thickly crusted with ice, that we might get the writhing pedal extremities of our little heir into a tub of water as quickly as possible. But lately we have learned that all this work and exposure is needless. We simply wring a towel from salted water—a bowl of it standing in our sleeping room, ready for such an emergency—wrap the limb ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... Winifred flung a swift glance round, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the corn-straw dress that the glare of light fell shimmering on. The sweet voice was still rising, and she longed that the accompanist would force the tone to cover it a little, and put the loud pedal on. He, however, was gazing at his music, and played on quietly until, with ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... laugh and slow down for a little, but she'd soon forget and begin to pedal and sing again. I never saw a girl work harder to go to housekeeping right and well-prepared. Lovely table linen the Harlings had given her, and Lena Lingard had sent her nice things from Lincoln. We hemstitched all the tablecloths ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... teachers, numbered among his pupils, Liszt, Doehler, Thalberg and Jaell. The Clementi school was continued in that familiar writer of Etudes, Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858), and began to show respect for the damper pedal. Its most eminent virtuoso was John Field ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Mr. Polly's character came out in his reply. "Not much," he said. "Pedal got a bit loose in Stamton, O' Man. Couldn't ride it. So I looked up the cousins ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... him with one quick turn of the head and made no answer. But she played the air over again—the girls sing it to this day over their household work at Farlingford to other words—with her foot on the soft pedal. The Marquis hummed it between his teeth at the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... him and pant in his face. Music, too, made him restless, inclined to sigh, and to ask questions. Sometimes, at its first sound, he would cross to the window and remain there looking for Her. At others, he would simply go and lie on the loud pedal, and we never could tell whether it was from sentiment, or because he thought that in this way he heard less. At one special Nocturne of Chopin's he always whimpered. He was, indeed, of rather Polish temperament—very ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... for we have disturbed the young red-wings down in the sedge who are taking their first lessons in flying. The catbird's nest, with four greenish-blue eggs, is in a wild gooseberry bush and the catbird is up among the shad-trees feasting on the ripening June berries. The gentle notes of soft pedal music come floating sweetly down. Did you ever stop long enough to listen to the full song of the catbird? First, the brilliant, ringing strains, often softening into a subdued sympathetic melody, and then, just as the music seems almost divine, ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... walked his head went back on his shoulders, and his hat went back on his head; his long arms dangled, pendulum-like, by his sides, while his lanky legs, dragging along anyhow, were ever lagging behind one another. But when he opened the piano and put hands and feet to keys and pedal, he was not the same individual. He would turn on nerve and muscle-power, and would hurl avalanches of music and torrents of notes at his audience till he, in his turn, was overwhelmed with thunders of applause. And those were the days, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... but was not ready for the opening. It is to fill the recess behind the spacious platform, and is described as containing pneumatic windchests throughout, and having an aeolian attachment. It is of three-manual compass, C.C.C. to C.4, 61 notes; and pedal compass, C.C.C. to F.30. The great organ has double open diapason (stopped bass), open diapason, dulciana, viola di gambi, doppel flute, hohl flute, octave, octave quint, superoctave, and trumpet,—65 pipes each. The swell organ has bourdon, open ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... process of inflammation arrests the production of horn by impairing or destroying the horn-secreting membrane; second, when depression of the coffin bone causes pressure upon and arrests the formation of horn; and, third, when the elevation of the sole compresses the soft tissues against the pedal bone and induces the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... of hammers-bass. Saddle " " tenor and treble. Basil Calf | Doeskin |— Various parts of action. Seal | Sheepskin | Morocco / Sole Rings for pedal wires. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... white diagonals and by the little sentry hut half hidden behind the other car that it marked the frontier. A man with a rifle on his shoulder stood there. They drew up to it fast, but his foot automatically eased up on the floorboard pedal until ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson
... that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's pedal applications. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... dared to try it so until to-night, when Dwight was gone. Her long wrist was curved high, her thin hand pressed and fingered awkwardly, and at her mistakes her head dipped and strove to make all right. Her foot continuously touched the loud pedal—the blurred sound seemed to accomplish more. So she played "How Can I Leave Thee," and they managed to sing it. So she played "Long, Long Ago," and "Little Nell of Narragansett Bay." Beyond open doors, Mrs. Bett listened, sang, it may be, with them; for when the singers ceased, her ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... composer has wished to dwell with emphasis on a particular theme, he almost invariably resorts to some form of fugal treatment, strict or free. The most effective media for rendering fugues are the chorus of mixed voices, the organ (by reason of its pedal key-board always making the subject in the bass stand out majestically) and the stringed orchestra which, with the "bite" of the strings, brings out—with peculiar sharpness—the different entrances of the subject. The student should become familiar with standard examples in each of these classes ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... in surprise at her own feet, and I observed the slight roughening of the side of the sole caused by the friction of the edge of the pedal. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and buildings may be here mentioned. The County Court occupies what was then a tinker's shop and a farm-yard behind; the pedal stone of the ancient Cross, now in the Institute garden, was then at the back entrance to the Bull Yard, near Mr. Innes' shop, having been removed from the Cross a few years before; the market place could only be approached from the High Street, through the inn yards. ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... penny on the Father Smith, clear and sweet-voiced as a mountain brook. Oh," he cried, "it's too bad! The naturals are worn down to the quick, you can see the wood in the gutters of the keys, and the pedal-board's too short and all to pieces. Ah well! the organ's like me—old, neglected, worn-out. I wish I was dead." He had been talking half to himself, but he turned to Westray and said: "Forgive me ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... seemed to notice it, for Winifred flung a swift glance around, and then fixed her eyes upon the dominant figure in the corn-straw dress. The sweet voice was still rising and the interested listener hoped that the accompanist would force the tone to cover it a little, and put on the loud pedal. The pianist, however, was gazing at his music, and played on until, with startling ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... Sounds of strange music attract my attention to a part of the castle which I have not before frequented. There I shall distinctly hear a female voice chaunting the 'Bridesmaids' Chorus,' with Erard's double pedal accompaniment. By the aid of the confessors of the two families, two drinking, rattling, impertinent, most corrupt, and most amusing friars, to wit, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... and the most beautiful melody of bells I ever heard is toning through the air. They are the bells of S. Michael's church, and I am told that the musician plays them by a set of pedal keys, and works himself into a mighty heat and flurry in the operation. But we cannot think of the wild manner and mad motions of the player in connection with those beautiful sounds, so clear and melodious; that half plaintive music so sweetly measured. They ring thus every morning, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... achievements was the conversion of a barrel organ, purchased from a neighbouring church, into a manual, obtaining the wind therefor by a pedal arrangement which worked a large wheel attached to a crank working the bellows. On all great festivals and especially on Christmas Day he was wont to rouse the neighbourhood as early as three and four o'clock, remarking of the ungrateful, complaining neighbours that they had no heart for ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... a clump of bushes, he drew out a bicycle and prepared to mount. He was in the act of driving the gear around with his foot for the purpose of getting the opposite pedal in position, when he heard the thud of a heavy body that landed lightly and evidently on its feet. He did not wait for more, but ran, with hands on the handles of his bicycle, until he was able to vault astride the saddle, catch the pedals, and start a spurt. Behind he could ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... to if you'll carry the soft pedal. I'm always afraid when I'm carrying pianos up-stairs of breaking the soft pedal or dropping a ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... the road out there seemed so hard and firm, the snow being packed down solid, I just jumped on my wheel, and took a little run up in that direction. It wasn't so easy, once I struck in on that side road, but I managed to pedal along somehow." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... utterance of her old friend Mrs. Yellett. The matriarch had sustained a breakdown, and arrived, in consequence, when the dance was half over, but she was philosophical, as always, in the face of misfortune, and loudly attested her pleasure in the renowned pedal feats ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... many acidities of evaporating perfume; the sugary sweetness of the blondes, the salt flavours of the brunettes, and this allegro movement of odours was interrupted suddenly by the garlicky andante, deep as the pedal notes of an organ, that the perspiring armpits of ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... to the side of the deep gully, across the road that was slippery with snow, slid Mr. Brown's automobile. Bunny and Sue's father's hands held tightly to the steering wheel, and he pressed his foot down hard on the brake pedal. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... the Barons" was a term applied to an implement used by the ancient shoemakers. The pedal members of the old English barons were of a peculiar aristocratic conformation, and lasts were made expressly for them. This is a curious fact not ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... organ?" "Oh! you!"—When we came to the organ-loft, I began a prelude, when he laughed. A fugue followed. "I can now quite understand why you like to play the organ," said he, "when you can play in this manner." At first the pedal was a little awkward for me, as it was without the breaks, beginning with C, then D E in one row, whereas with us D and E are above, just where E flat and F sharp are here; but I quickly ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... lazy style of angling. Happening to look up at the bank, he saw two pair of bare feet of heroic size, from which two fishing lines hung, the corks bobbing on the surface a few yards from the shore. The broad bottoms of their pedal extremities turned to the river, the line passing between the great and second toes to the water, and there they lay enjoying delicious sleep, waiting for a fish to swallow the bait, when the pull on the line would be felt between their toes and awaken them to attend to ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... thoughtfully brought her music, and began to play a 'Song Without Words,' by Mendelssohn. She was considered a fine pianist in Little Primpton. She attacked the notes with marked resolution, keeping the loud pedal down throughout; her eyes were fixed on the music with an intense, determined air, in which you saw an eagerness to perform a social duty, and her lips moved as conscientiously she counted time. Mary played the whole piece ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... view, and moved steadily forward in the middle of the road. He was too gentle and considerate to quote Voltaire and Rousseau at inopportune times, and she sustained and encouraged his mental independence. All of which is here voiced with one foot on the soft pedal, and with no thought of putting forth an argument to the effect that young gentlemen with liberal views should marry ladies who belong to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... about what he should say. There had been the cabalistic question of sex ever in front of him, a thing that troubled and deterred him. But Sylvia, with her hand on his shoulder, absorbed in her singing, and directing him only as she would have pressed the pedal of the piano if she had been playing to herself, was no more agitating than if she had been a man; she was just singing, just using him to help her singing. And even while Michael registered to ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... thus when the fact, that if I laid much longer I would actually freeze to death, would come over me with such overpowering force as to break the icy spell, and starting to my feet, I would endeavour to go through the combined manual and pedal exercise to restore the circulation. The first fling of my benumbed arm generally struck me in the face, instead of smiting my chest, its true destination. But in these cases one's muscles have their ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "Good night. Keep hold of Bobby Burns's collar, till I'm well on my way. He may try to follow me. Good-by, old chap," he added, bending down and taking the collie's silken head affectionately between his hands. "You're a good dog, and a good pal. But put the soft pedal on the temperamental stuff, when you're near Simon Cameron. That's the best recipe for avoiding a scratched nose. By the way, Miss Standish, don't encourage him to roam around in the palmetto scrub, on your outings with him. The ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the open window; the slender figure, one arm curving between you and the strings, the other gleaming behind them; the delicate little sandal stealing from the white froth of silk and lace to caress the pedal; the nimble hands fluttering across the long strands, "Like white blossoms borne on slanting lines of rain;" and the great gold harp rising to catch a javelin of sunshine that pierced the vines at the window where the honeysuckles ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... nothing shall clash or be inappropriate. Into this scheme she introduces the song of birds and the sighing of the breeze, with perhaps in the dull distance the roar of the sea growling away and refusing to be driven from its obstinate pedal bass. Into our life she brings affection rose-colour, and for openness and truth the blue of the sky. She paints hatred dark, and passion fiery. Energy she portrays as red, and purity white. Could ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... Among his pupils were Weber and Meyerbeer. The "musical instrument of his invention" was called an orchestrion. "It was," says Sir G. Grove, "a very compact organ, in which four keyboards of five octaves each, and a pedal board of thirty-six keys, with swell complete, were packed into a cube of nine feet."—(See Miss Marx's "Account of Abbe Vogler," in the Browning Society's Papers, Part ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... reader sees, no doubt, before we can tell it,—that what we wanted was two crescendos meeting somewhere near the middle; a crescendo passing into a diminuendo from whichever end you moved to the other—a swell. We saw that our loud-pedal effect should come upon "Middle Hall." So there, on its lucky bit of Greek porch, we bestowed the purple wistaria for spring, and for late summer that fragrant snowdrift, the clematis paniculata, so adapted as to festoon and chaplet, but never to smother, the ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... am doomed to counterchord Her notes no more In those old things I used to know, In a fashion, when we practised so, "Good-night!—Good-bye!" to your pleated show Of silk, now hoar, Each nodding hammer, and pedal and key, For dead, dead, dead, you are ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... 'em. Scoot ahead full speed." Then, over his shoulder to the girl, "Crouch down there, Molly." Goodwin was still a man of action and he knew Sandy Bourke of old. Out came the pedal, the gears engaged and the car shot ahead, beneath a swinging arc light. Sandy's hat-rim did not sufficiently shade his face or Molly's action had not been swift enough. There came a yell and a string of curses from the crippled ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... year old codfish! old spider that spins no more! old death with open eyes! old devil's cradle! vile lantern of an old town-crier too! Old wretch whose look kills! old moustache of an old theriacler! old wretch to make dead men weep! old organ-pedal! old sheath with a hundred knives! old church porch, worn out by the knees! old poor-box in which everyone has dropped. I'll give all my future to be quit of thee!" As he finished these gentle thoughts the pretty bride, who was thinking of her young husband's great sorrow at not knowing the particulars ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... working the pedal and I was sailing around very fast," said Raggedy Andy, "and all of ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... down the pedal of the washing basin in which he had been sousing his healthy red neck. "Impossible!" he cried, at the news that Laura had flung over Fertinghof and had made up to Mileev. "And is he as stupid and pleased as ever? Well, and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... he needs all the ready cash he can lay his hands on. But don't mention this to any one, Minnie. If it got out it might precipitate matters, and then the whole business would tumble down like a house of cards. As it is, I may be able to pull him out. But I've put the soft pedal on ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... to follow his course after he left the field he would soon have known that Frank was rather heading for town than intending to pedal in the direction of his own house, which was situated on ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... of sleep," said the tutor. "But certainly his later results were worth the amount of rest he sacrificed. One of the first agencies he employed to work upon was a piano. Have you ever tried singing a note into this instrument when the sustaining pedal is depressed? Do it some time and notice what happens. You will find that the string tuned to the pitch of your voice will start vibrating while all the others remain quiet. You can even go farther and try the experiment of uttering several different pitches, if you want to, and the corresponding ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... when she chose, could exert the subduing effect on her husband of a soft pedal on a piano; and during luncheon she kept, the soft pedal on. And the Celebrity, being in some degree a kindred spirit, was also held in check. But his wife had no sooner left the room when Mr. Cooke began on the subject uppermost in his mind. I had suspected that his trip to Asquith that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... She had a loom. Hit wuz a high thing and th thread would go ovah th top and come down jes so in what we call shickle. She'd have a bench so high. The loom was high as dis door and my ma would set on the bench and her foots wuz on somethin like a bicycle and when she put her foots on de pedal dat shickle would come open and make a blum blum an that would make a yard of cloth, an she'd mash the pedal agin and another yard of cloth. Jes so we'd make eight and ten yards of cloth in one day. An ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... into the explosion chamber, the magnet flashes its sparks to ignite it, the cooling water bathes the hot walls of the cylinders—a thing of nerves, and ganglions, and tireless muscles is panting eagerly at your service. You move this lever, you press your foot lightly on this pedal; the engine transfers its power to the wheels; you move. The carriage with you and your friends is borne at railway speed across continents. You can hurl yourself at sixty miles an hour along the great highroads, you can crawl like a worm ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... under whisper of a very soft pedal, some one, probably a waiting pupil, was playing the indomitable pianoforte composition, "Melody in F." Staring at her daughter, an old conceit of Lilly's girlhood came flowing back. It seemed to her that a proscenium arch of music was forming over Zoe and that her voice, ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... compelled the admission that he might also have done very much worse. And being, as has been hinted, something of a philosopher, he had sought, whenever possible, to harmonize his life with hers; and when that was impossible, at least to keep what pressure he might upon the soft pedal. So instead of reminding his wife that Irene had not been alone when she went west he remarked, very mildly, that ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... in the air with his hand above his head. I turned to look up the hill also. I saw the corporal at the gate repeat the gesture; then a big bicycle corps, four abreast, guns on their backs, slid round the corner and came gliding down the hill. There was not a sound, not the rattle of a chain or a pedal. ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... patriot : patrioto. pattern : modelo, desegno. pause : halteti, pauxzi. pave : pavimi. paw : piedego. pawn : garantie doni; (chess) soldato. pay : pagi; salajro. pea : pizo. peace : paco. peach : persiko. peacock : pavo. peak : pinto. pear : piro. pearl : perlo. pedal : pedalo. pedestal : piedestalo. peel : sxelo, sensxeligi. pen : plumo, skribilo. pencil : krajono, ("slate"—) grifelo; ("hair"—) peniko. pendulum : pendolo. penetrate : penetri peninsula : duoninsulo. pension : pensio. people : homoj, (a—) popolo. pepper : pipro. percentage ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... coldly observant spinster to do with that quaintly ironic ruffler, that romantic cynic, that rowdy Don Quixote, that impossible Enriquez? Presently she ceased playing. Her slim, narrow slipper, revealing her thin ankle, remained upon the pedal; her delicate fingers were resting idly on the keys; her head was slightly thrown back, and her narrow eyebrows prettily knit toward the ceiling in an ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... a while," and, soft pedal down, he played a few bars of Marzials' "My True Love Hath My Heart," humming the words in an ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... our pedal pride resulted in our subscribing to a daily paper. Every morning before stretching out to our regular day's tramp we had been wont to trot through dewy lanes, over stiles, and across subtly-colored ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the open window, as the smoke of their pipes and cigars floated up lazily to the ceiling above. The gentle hum of the traffic made a pleasant accompaniment to their conversation, as the holding down of a soft pedal fills in and supports dreamy organ music. But for the six young men in the bow window the room was untenanted, save for a waiter who had just brought some fresh drinks, and who was now clearing away empty ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man had a face ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... uniformly magnificent, except the linen, which might have been finer. We were not a very numerous company—from eighteen to twenty-two, as I remember, morning and evening; but the ladies played upon the pedal harp, the gentlemen sung gaily, if not sweetly after supper: I never received more kindness for my own part in any fortnight of my life, nor ever heard that kindness more pleasingly or less coarsely expressed. These are merchants, I am told, with whom I have been living; ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... inferiority of organ music. We have come to the conclusion that perhaps organ music is inferior because it has been largely composed by organists, by men who sit at organ machines many hours a day, and who have let their organ machines with all their stops and pedals, and with all their stop-and-pedal-mindedness, select out of their minds the tones that organs can do best—the music ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... sure were they of its impossibility. Galvani, however, had noticed that the maximum effect was produced when a metallic arc, of tin and copper, was brought into contact with the lumbar nerves and pedal extremities of a frog. Then the animal would be violently convulsed. The observer believed this came from a nervous fluid, and so he lost the advantage of his observations. It was reserved for Volta to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... trip is one on which I like to put the soft pedal when harking back in memory. And happy for us then that we did not know what it was going to end in. The sky behind us had turned inky black and it became evident that the storm which was coming would be no ordinary one. A wind sprang up that increased in ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... calmly, "but not the way you did it. Kissing should be done upon the soft pedal mon ami, adagio, con amore. Your technique is rusty. Is it a wonder ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... women and children. Each operator sits before a small steel stake, having a cavity, into which one half of the intended head will fit; immediately above is a steel die, having a corresponding cavity for the other half of the head: this latter die can be raised by a pedal moved by the foot. The weight of the hammer is from seven to ten pounds, and it falls through a very small space, perhaps from one to two inches. The cavities in the centre of these dies are connected with the edge of a small groove, to admit of the ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... the reply, "by means of a pedal attachment a fulcrumed lever concerts a vertical reciprocating motion into a circular movement. The principal part of the machine is a huge disk that revolves in a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... at will, there is arranged a flexible fan whose handle is fixed near a pulley. A small piece of lead forms the counterpoise of the fan, which is thus completely balanced. Over the pulley runs a cord, each end of which is attached to a pedal. It will be seen that the alternate motion of these pedals must cause a rotation of the pulley in one direction or the other, and that consequently the fan will rise or fall more or less rapidly, and give a quantity of air that varies according ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... Street, Soho. It has within the last few years been much improved and enlarged. It contains forty-eight stops, viz.:—twelve in the great organ, twelve in the swell, ten in the choir, eight in the pedal organ, and six couplers. These improvements were made by H. P. Gates, Esq., of the Vineyard, and are commemorated by a brass plate on the south side of the organ, inscribed as follows: "To the praise and glory of God and memory of John and Frances Gates, this organ was re-built ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... not convince me. No! I can't answer it. I—I don't want to answer it. I simply surrender. He shall have his way with you—and with me. Only," he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr Powell as if a pedal had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said I could never let you go, I shall let ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... liquor, this heresy made an impression upon his tender cortex, and he never forgot about John, in Browning's poem, scorning ale. But many years afterward, reading Browning, he found that the words really were: "John's corns ail," meaning apparently that John was troubled by pedal callouses.) Peter, we repeat, and to avoid any further misunderstanding and press diligently toward our theme, having mentioned his garden, who should come up to us but Pete Corcoran, also of the composing room force, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... after her. She will play various kinds of music upon the piano with a uniform vigour that would serve well for the beating of carpets, and will express much scorn for the feeble beings who use the soft pedal, or indulge in the luxury ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... a jet boat were simplicity itself. A half-moon wheel for guiding, up, down and either side, and two pedals on the floor, one for going and one for stopping. Roger stepped on the "Go" pedal and the small ship flashed out into ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... fear of outrunning my companion; the wise little beast, for her part, seemed to rise to the occasion, and to understand that we were pursued; for she stepped out bravely. On the other hand, in spite of the low seat and the short crank of a woman's machine, I could pedal up the slope with more force than Hilda, for I am a practised hill-climber; so that in both ways we gained, besides having momentarily disconcerted and checked the enemy. Their ponies were tired, and they rode them ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... does it? Never fear," added Pa, in a good-humored voice, "that sort of thing won't happen to any of you Woolley-legs; a good Irish stew is better than a kick of the pedal, eh?" ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... be heard, and there would be faraway looks and sighs, and the notings down of the titles of books that conducted the pilgrim on the Way. Perhaps as they softly assembled for departure, a little music would be suggested to round off the evening, and she saw herself putting down the soft pedal as people rustled into their places, for the first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata." Then at the end there would be silence, and she would get up with a sigh, and someone would say "Lucia mia"! and somebody else ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... chaps," said Jack, hopping on his bike, "here's Acton coming." The two would then pedal the well-known road to the Lodestone, and the elevating company ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... up into a frenzy which made all her earlier efforts sound like lullabies with the soft pedal on, and she was shaking herself into convulsions and crying real tears. "Behold," she sobbed, "las lagrimas de la huerfanita!" (The ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... floated John's flute-like notes. The master played the same bars for the second time. He was still able to sustain, if it were necessary, a quavering, imperfect phrase. But John delivered the second repetition without a mistake, singing easily from the chest. The master put his foot upon the soft pedal. Nobody was watching him. Had any one done so, he would have seen the perspiration break upon the musician's forehead. The piano purred its accompaniment. Then, in the middle of the phrase, the master lifted his hands and held them poised above the instrument. John had to sing three ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... curious effect of a man stumping about on his heels! To overcome this difficulty the heels of the feet were made to project almost as much behind as the toes did in front somewhat after the pattern of Ebony's pedal arrangements, as Rosco remarked when they were being fitted on for another trial. At last, by dint of perseverance, the wooden legs were perfected, and Rosco re-acquired the art of walking to such perfection, that he was ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... acting decidedly uncivil. They ventured a platitude about the beautiful Indian summer weather and labored out a ponderous joke or two about such a bad-tempered man having such a good-looking wife—for which I despised them all. But I could see that even if my intrusion had put the soft pedal on their talk it had also left everything uncomfortably tentative and non-committal. For some reason or other this was a man's fight, one which had to be settled in a man's way. So I decided to retire with outward dignity even if with inward embarrassment. But ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... that bothered you the other day," she told him as he stood ready to mount, his foot on the pedal; "Bob hasn't ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... pressing his foot on the self-starting pedal. Thirty minutes later you roll away from the curb and the picnic has begun. The intervening time has, of course, been profitably spent by you in walking to the nearest garage for two ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... there were candy-pullings, and 'companies' where you sat around and were bored until somebody proposed playing 'The Prince of Paris Lost his Hat' or some game like that. When the old folks went to bed, our hostess would find a pack of cards—authors, most likely—or play a waltz on the soft pedal for two couples to ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... them to one side and burned the bridge. They afterward drew tight down on the sounding board, so that now when I talk the rickety buzz is like that of a horse-fiddle played with the tremolo and the soft pedal. An aeolian harp made of rubber bands on a bicycle, aroused by the wind as the machine moves swiftly, gives the ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... are attached to the posterior angles of the pedal bone. They are flattened from side to side, and the portion that projects above the coronary cushion may be felt by pressing on the skin that covers it. The plantar cushion is a wedge-shaped piece of tissue formed by interlacing ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... where some unlucky burgher had found his way into a group of students and was being made the butt of a good-humoured jest. And beneath the high, laughing tones, the perpetual hum of a thousand talking voices neither rose nor fell, but droned unceasingly like the long pedal in a fugue, whose full deep note stands still amidst the strife of moving sounds, as the sun stood while the battle was fought out in Ajalon. The very life of the multitude seemed to produce a sound of its own, in the breathing of a thousand pairs of strong young lungs, in the beating of a thousand ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... which it completes as grand bass, the other members being the oboe, cor anglais, and bassoon. The contrafagotto corresponds to the double bass in strings, to the contrabass tuba in the brass wind, and to the pedal clarinet in the single ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... patients to any idea that they may be "psychotic" or "psychoneurotic" (words that, in their opinion, refer to "imaginary symptoms," or to symptoms that they could abolish if they would but "buck up" and exert their "wills") undoubtedly exert a reflex influence upon practitioners who put the "soft pedal" on the psychobiological reactions and "pull out the stop" that amplifies the significance of any ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... small wire eyes attached to their undersides near the front. A corresponding slot is cut through the inner and outer cases, allowing the eyes to be connected to a short pedal keyboard which has ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... a throbbing pedal note, ran his need of this girl. He would do anything, suffer anything, make any sacrifice, momentary or lifelong, if he could but see her again, hold her hand for one instant, look into her eyes mysterious with the secret of death. He had but three or four words ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... a silence he asked again: "What was there before the world was born?" That was an easy one; so I said in a tone of finality: "There wasn't anything." Then I went on with my meditations, thinking I had used the soft pedal effectively. Silence reigned supreme for some minutes, and then was rudely shattered. His thumb flew from his mouth, and he laughed so lustily that he could be heard throughout the house. When his laughter had spent itself somewhat, I asked meekly: "What ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... ramifications of your society are like a net-work of wires, all over the earth, penetrating everywhere, and at every point touching the most deadly explosives of human passions and hates; and that it needs but the pressure of your finger upon the pedal to blow up the world. The folly of centuries has culminated in the most terrible organization that ever grew out of the wretchedness of mankind. But oh, my friend—you have a broad mind and a benevolent soul—tell ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... Jane's head. "Put those under your ears dear," she ordered, "my pillows aren't unpacked yet and you may find Neddie's last year tacks in that burlap. There now, you look almost human. But the wistful whimper lingers. Jane, what has happened? You are simply smothered in the soft pedal. Tell your Judy all ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... the thing which had sought to hold him back, the happiness of having fought against obstacles, of having beaten them, and of knowing that he now was on the down trail. The grade lessened for a few hundred feet, and the machine slowed. Houston pressed on the clutch pedal, allowing the car to coast slowly until the hill became steeper again. Then he sought once more to shift into ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... night, and they formed the theme of his conversation by day. His sister, who was the oldest of the children, had been the happy possessor of three pairs of shoes, and she often discussed knowingly the good qualities of pedal coverings and of their advantages in travelling through brambles or over stones. Often as he contemplated his scratched, chapped and bruised feet, the child had asked himself if it were possible that he should ever be able to afford such a luxury ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... imperceptible degrees I lifted it to the top of the groove, and the least bit above it, say half an inch in all; but it made an appreciable difference to the sounds within, as when you remove your foot from a piano's soft pedal. I could do no more, for there was no further fulcrum for the spike, and I dared not gamble away what I had ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... chaos, this peaceful fancy was disrupted,—her heart ravished from its rest, its calm torn from it. Down went the pedal which forced the whole first organ out at once, and as if shouted by hosts of men and by myriad angels echoed, pealed the great Hosanna. The mighty rapture of the princess won her instantly from regret; no peace could be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... won't; we'll settle it now. You began it, and I want it finished now," I added, cracking the whip once more in the neighborhood of his pedal extremities. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... a singular pleasure heightened by an intermingled strangeness and even terror—qualities which bring out the quality of pleasure in the same way that a bourdon in a pedal-point passage brings out the quality of what a German would, I think, call the over-work. I was at Canterbury, where the great central tower is wreathed with scaffolding, and has a dim, blurred outline ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... girl had promised nothing positive for the future. She kept him on the brittle edge of nervous expectation. The opposition of the dancer had been successfully met by threats of dismissal; Hugh continued to lose flesh and gain in vocal and pedal agility. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... suppose that iambic verse may drop its initial short syllable, and still be iambic, still be measured as before, is not only to take a single long syllable for a foot, not only to recognize a pedal caesura at the beginning of each line, but utterly to destroy the only principles on which iambics and trochaics can be discriminated. Yet Hiley, of Leeds, and Wells, of Andover, while they are careful to treat separately of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... reply. He never gives a direct answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, "you won't tell." He smiled and then immediately played the passage. It was a long arpeggio, and the effect he made was, as I had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the pedal down throughout, and played the beginning of the passage in a grand sort of manner, and then all the rest of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that the continuity of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... worked the Shakesperian pedal so hard that some of his hearers expressed a desire to know more about the distinguished poet. Finally, when he became too deep for them, a man with a strong clear voice shouted a single word—the name of a little animal whose departure ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman |
