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More "Modulation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inflection of voice, that it was nearer speaking than singing. Yet again, when I remember the tears I shed at the Psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of my recovered faith; and how at this time I am moved, not with the singing, but with the things sung, when they are sung with a clear voice and modulation most suitable, I acknowledge the great use of this institution. Thus I fluctuate between peril of pleasure and approved wholesomeness; inclined the rather (though not as pronouncing an irrevocable opinion) to approve of the usage of singing in the church; ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players. They come to hear a certain number of lines recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The lines relate to some action, and an action must be in some place; but the different actions that complete a story may be in places very remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent first Athens, and then Sicily, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... camphor aroma of a long packing away are yet discernible. Often they are still wearing sun helmets or double terai hats, pending a descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired. It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little value; as though these men, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... therefore renounces all these attributes of its material which do not help forward that motive. It has had, indeed, from the beginning an unfixed claim to colour; but this element of colour in it has always been more or less conventional, with no melting or modulation of tones, never admitting more than a very limited realism. It was maintained chiefly as a religious tradition. In proportion as the art of sculpture ceased to be merely decorative, and subordinate to architecture, it threw ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... music. Into the deep nasal chanting of the priests there had suddenly burst a chorus of children, singing absolutely independent of all time and tune; grunting of priests answered by squealing of boys, slow Gregorian modulation interrupted by jaunty barrel-organ pipings, an insane, insanely merry jumble of bellowing and barking, mewing and cackling and braying, such as would have enlivened a witches' meeting, or rather some mediaeval Feast of Fools. And, to make the grotesqueness of such ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... be there? What furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face?—and is there any harmony of tints that has such stirrings of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice? Here is one good, at least, thought Deronda, that comes to Mordecai from his having fixed his imagination on me. He has recovered a perfect sister, whose affection is ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me—by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice—and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... quaver figure rises aspiringly, and the sustained parts swell out proudly. The piquant cadenza forestalls in the progression of diminished chords favourite effects of some of our more modern composers. The modulation from C sharp minor to D major and back again (after the cadenza) is ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... sun. And whose eye would be satisfied with seeing and whose ear with hearing? Who would rather have the truth than the power to seek it? There is a way of reading Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer with a triumphant lilt in the voice. After all, it is the modulation that carries the message of the text. When you write the history of love, I find it fair reading. When you tell me love is primal and engrossing, I hold it the more a sin to crouch away from ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... quality; if she raised it the effect was not agreeable, owing possibly to its lack of strength, but in low tones, such as she employed at present, it fell on the ear with a peculiar sweetness, a natural melody in its modulation. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... finer than John Kemble's, and recited a passage from Douglas in the manner of each, to justify the preference he gave to the former. The mentioning this will please the living; it cannot hurt the dead. He argued on the same occasion and in the same breath, that Addison's style was without modulation, and that it was physically impossible for any one to write well, who was habitually silent in company. He sat like a king at his own table, and gave law to his guests—and to the world! No man knew better how to manage his immediate circle, to foil or bring them out. A professed orator, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... accompanied the fire-bolt, and had hurried up to learn the cause. I forthwith seized the horses by the heads, and used all the means I possessed to soothe and pacify them, employing every gentle modulation of which my voice was capable. Belle, in the meantime, had raised up the man, who was much stunned by his fall; but presently recovering his recollection to a certain degree, he came limping to me holding his hand to his right thigh. "The first thing that must ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... thrilled and breathless under this impaired and yet sovereign voice. All yielded in rapt astonishment to the spell. There was no prestige, no theatrical illusion. Iphigenia was a professor in a black frock coat; the orchestra was a piano, giving forth here and there an unexpected modulation. This was his whole force; yet the hall was mute, hearts beat, tears flowed from many eyes, and when the recital ended, enthusiastic shouts arose, as if Iphigenia in person had just ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... those of string music, short and transient, which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other languages are like the notes of wind instruments, sweet and swelling, and lengthened out into variety of modulation. ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... remember each fond aspiration In secret milled with thy cherished name, Till from thy lips, in wildering modulation, Those words of ecstasy ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... eyes, folded his hands across his breast, and for a full minute remained in silent meditation. When at last he looked up again, there had come over the usually stern and haughty face a wonderful glow of kindliness, and his voice took a softer modulation. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... first principles of narration is never to be met with in the elder writers. Achilles stands as tall as Troy, Merlin is as old and as wise as the world. Rhythm and poetical expression are essential attributes of dramatic genius, but the original sign of race and mission is an instinctive modulation of man with the deeds he attempts or achieves. The man and the deed must be cognate and equal, and the melodic balance and blending are what first separate Homer and Hugo from the fabricators of singular adventures. In Scott leather ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... possessed with feeling is his pathetic Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. But he was a great literary artist. Within the cramped and starched regularity of the heroic couplet, which the fashion of the time and his own habit of mind imposed upon him, he secured the largest variety of modulation and emphasis of which that verse was capable. He used antithesis, periphrasis, and climax with great skill. His example dominated English poetry for nearly a century, and even now, when a poet like Dr. Holmes, for example, would write satire or humorous verse of a dignified kind, he turns ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... was certainly a mother's sorrow! but what struck me most was the modulation of the voice, as if set to some local music. I never heard before the peasants lament their dead, but I am quite sure they all do it in more or less the same way, as if according to ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... and begs to be remembered in the old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to Harvieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day—but this is "a tale of other years." In my conscience I believe ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... some parts where a good shower of rain has fallen, the stridulous piercing notes of the cicadae are perfectly deafening; a drab-colored cricket joins the chorus with a sharp sound, which has as little modulation as the drone of a Scottish bagpipe. I could not conceive how so small a thing could raise such a sound; it seemed to make the ground over it thrill. When cicadae, crickets, and frogs unite, their music may be heard at the distance of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the carotid artery or the moistness of the skin from perspiration will not come with an imitated emotion. Of course, that is true of the actor on the stage, too. But the content of the words and the modulation of the voice can help so much that the shortcomings of the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... capable of every degree of excellence in lyric poetry, and perfectly qualified for that high province of the muse. Possessed of a native ear for all the varieties of harmony and modulation, susceptible of the finest feelings of tenderness and humanity, but, above all, carried away by that high enthusiasm which gives to imagination its strongest colouring, he was at once capable of soothing ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... note in the answer; if anything, there was in it more than the usual toneless decision. Mac's voice was machine-made—as innocent of modulation as a buzz-saw, and with the same uncompromising finality as the shooting of a bolt. "I'm ready to stand ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the simplest strains to be heard,—as simple as the curve in form, delighting from the pure element of harmony and beauty it contains, and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of it,—thus contrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious songsters as the bobolink, in whom we are chiefly pleased with tintinnabulation, the verbal and labial excellence, and the evident conceit ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... can spend his spirit— nothing else that we can see. It is by these he gets his spiritual growth; it is by these we see his character revealed, his purpose and his gifts. Some play with a certain natural passion, an unstudied directness, without grace, without modulation, with no study of the masters or consciousness of the pervading spirit of the plot; others gives all their thought to their costume and think only of the audience; a few act as those who have mastered the secrets of ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson
... powers are under the predominance of irritability; but sensibility, which is dormant in the insect, begins to awaken in the fish, and, though still subordinate, is quite awake in the bird, of which no better proof can be given than its power of sound, with the rudiments of modulation, in the large class of singing birds, and in some others a tendency to acquire and to imitate articulate speech. The next step of ascent brings us to the mammalia; and in these, including beasts and men, ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in these Preludes that Ignaz Moscheles first comprehended Chopin and his methods of execution. The German pianist had found his music harsh and dilettantish in modulation, but Chopin's originality of performance—"he glides lightly over the keys in a fairy-like way with his delicate fingers"—quite reconciled the elder man to this ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... dress. Now I think of it, I believe you are in great danger of making a little god out of your caps and your drab color, and 'thee' and 'thou.' Besides, the tendency is quite questionable. The moment certain shades of color, or a certain combination of letters, or modulation of sounds, or arrangement of seams and angles, are made the sine qua non of religion and principle, that moment religion and principle are hurled from their vantage-ground and become slaves instead of rulers. I cannot get it out of my mind that these ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... a trate, sir," returned Malcolm; and the master, with perfect rhythm, and a modulation amounting almost to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Will's, for its greatest charm is, that it has the various freedom of talk. In verse, he has a pomp which, excellent in itself, became pompousness in his imitators. But he had nothing of Milton's ear for various rhythm and interwoven harmony. He knew how to give new modulation, sweetness, and force to the pentameter; but in what used to be called pindarics, I am heretic enough ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... indeterminate tones that stir nothing. Mme. Lasalle it was, with a bevy of ladies, older and younger, among whom it was impossible at first to distinguish one from the other. So similar was in every case the display of French flowers, gloves and embroidery; so accordant the make of every dress and the modulation of every tone. Mme. Lasalle herself was, however, prominent, having a pair of black eyes which once fairly seen were for ever after easily recognizable. Fine eyes, too; bright and merry, which made themselves quite ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... I want," he exclaimed without further greeting. "It's a march, and I don't know whether I like this modulation into D ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... the strain signifying the renunciation of love; when this dies away, the motif of the ring, to be heard so many times after, its fateful character plainly conveyed by the notes, which also literally describe its circular form. By what magic of modulation the uninitiated cannot discern, the ring-motif, as the water by degrees is translated into mist, slides by subtle changes into a motif which seems, when it is reached, conspicuously different from it, the motif of ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... artificially and externally, but internally through the elements of the story which produce the pause. Tone-color, which is to ordinary speech what melody is to music—those varied effects of intonation, inflection, and modulation—is to be sought, not as a result from an isolated study of technique, but from attention to those elements in association with the complete realization of the life of the story. Genuine feeling is worth more than mere isolated exercises to secure modulation, and complete realization ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... their bodies in baines they went into a parlour, where all kinde of meats were ready prepared. Psyches commanded one to play with his harpe, it was done. Then immediately others sung, others tuned their instruments, but no person was seene, by whose sweet harmony and modulation the sisters of Psyches ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... vein to some extent in the second part, the Christe eleison, in which the appeal is made directly to the human element of the Godhead. In the third part, the themes of the first are again taken up, but by modulation they are made to take on a new significance, and bring peace in the end. Although the movement is cast for double chorus as regards the vocal part, the voices are given a subordinate place, the portrayal being carried on by the orchestra in true symphonic style. ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... engage, that very day, to put him out, at such a place, without his being aware of it, so that he should not be able to proceed. He accepted the wager; and Beethoven, when he came to a passage that suited his purpose, led the singer, by an adroit modulation, out of the prevailing mode into one having no affinity with it, still, however, adhering to the tonic of the former key; so that the singer, unable to find his way in this strange region was brought to ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... other nations. It is Cambrensis who remarks that "the attention of these people to musical instruments is worthy of praise, in which their skill is, beyond comparison, superior to any other people; for in these the modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instruments of Britain, but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet sweet and pleasing. It is extraordinary, in such rapidity of the fingers, how the musical proportions are preserved, and the art everywhere inherent ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... respects, with his black-brown wavy hair, finely-cut features, ready and winsome smile, alert luminous eyes, quick, spontaneous, expressive gestures—an inclination of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, a modulation of the lips, an assertive or deprecatory wave of the hand, conveying so much—and a voice at that time of a singular penetrating sweetness, he was, even without that light of the future upon his forehead ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... time on the Continent, numerous drawings by him exist of scenes in his native country. On the Dart (Plate II) is a good example of his delicate method of painting. His special skill lay "in the management of even pen-line and in a subtle modulation of colour upon ...
— Masters of Water-Colour Painting • H. M. Cundall
... the European Investment Bank is lending large and increasing amounts for the benefit of the poorer regions; NOTING the desire for greater flexibility in the arrangements for allocation from the Structural Funds; NOTING the desire for modulation of the levels of Community participation in programmes and projects in certain countries; NOTING the proposal to take greater account of the relative prosperity of Member States in the system of own resources, REAFFIRM that the promotion of economic ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union
... "Wagner's harmonies are clear and pure; they are never arbitrary, nor coarse nor brutal, but throughout conscientious and clean according to the strict rules of pure diction (des reinen Satzes). Consequently the sequences and combinations of the chords and the course of the modulation are easily followed by those who know harmony. Similarly, his polyphonic style is easily intelligible to the trained contrapuntist"—and more to the same effect, Jadassohn is here only expressing what every competent musician knows. Before the first performance at Bayreuth in 1876 ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... the curvatures by the mere fracture. In the crests and lower hills, which are of softer rock, and largely influenced by external violence, the inner structure is straight, and the necessary curvatures are produced by perspective, by external modulation, and by the balancing of adverse influences of cleavage. But, as the accuracy of an artist's eye is usually shown by his perceiving the inner anatomy which regulates growth and form, and as in the aiguilles, while we watch them, we are continually ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... is related of Dubourg and Handel. The latter visited Dublin and presided at a performance of the "Messiah." A few evenings later, Dubourg, who was leader of the band at the Theatre, had to improvise a "close," and wandered about in a fit of abstract modulation for so long that he forgot the original key. At last, however, after a protracted shake, he landed safely on the key-note, when Handel called out in a voice loud enough to be heard in the remotest parts of the theatre, "Welcome home, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... Betsy's standby light quivered hysterically from bright to dim and back again. The rate of quivering was fast. It was very nearly a sine-wave modulation of the light—and when a Mahon-modified machine goes into sine-wave flicker, it is the same as Cheyne-Stokes breathing in ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... everything else which enthralled the listener, there were four qualities, two specially conspicuous in the substance of his eloquence—inventiveness and elevation; two not less remarkable in his manner—force in the delivery, expressive modulation ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... a tangent, A smear of rose, black, silver. Short twists and upstartings, Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles: Sunshine playing between red and black flowers On a blue and gold lawn. Shadows and polished surfaces, Facets of mauve and purple, A constant modulation of values. Shaft-shaped, With green bead eyes; Thick-nosed, Heliotrope-coloured; Swift spots of chrysolite and coral; In the midst ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... ball of metultron, surrounded by an insulating shell of inertron, and this in turn by a spherical shell of katultron, from which the current radiates in every direction, tuning being accomplished by frequency of intermissions, with audio-frequency modulation. The receiving battery has a core pole of katultron and an outer shell of metultron. The receiving battery, of course, picks up all frequencies, the undesired ones being tuned out ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... the arrival of the Song-Sparrow, when the spring-flowers have begun to be conspicuous in the meadow, we are greeted by the more fervent and lengthened notes of the Vesper-bird, (Fringilla graminea,) poured out with a peculiarly pensive modulation. This species closely resembles the former, but may be distinguished from it, when on the wing, by two white lateral feathers in the tail. The chirp of the Song-Sparrow is also louder, and pitched on a lower key, than that of the present species. By careless observers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... D, has five short movements. No. 1 has an opening of thirty-seven bars in common time, fugato. There is a modulation in the ninth bar to the dominant, and, later on, a return to the opening theme and key; in the intervening space, however, in spite of modulation, the principal ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... to have been extraordinary. "His ear," says the agreeable reminiscent already quoted, "(as a musical feeling is called) was so delicately acute, and his inflexorical powers so nice and rapid, that he could run in any direction or modulation, the diatomic or chromatic scale, and even split the quarter-notes of the enharmonic; neither of which, however, did he understand scientifically, though so consummately elegant his execution: and his musical memory was so tenacious that he could whistle through the melodies ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... stones, (the brilliancy of every one of which illuminated the room,) and laid it before my throne, made his obeisance and stood [in respectful silence]. The khwaja also kissed the ground, and offered up his prayers [for my prosperity]; he spoke with such sweet modulation, as if he were the nightingale of a thousand melodies. I greatly admired his elegant and decorous speech; but, assuming a face of anger, I exclaimed, "O, you Satan in human form! what net is this that thou hast spread, and in ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... gives the music for the poetical parts,—music that is little more than a modulation. There is a different notation for the first two lines, but for the other lines this notation is repeated in couplets, except that the last line of each song or laisse—being a half-line—has a cadence of its own. The lines are all seven syllables in length, save the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... stern, the tender, the grand, simple exposition, fierce satire, and passionate appeal have each their appropriate words and their appropriate cadence. This Cary did not perceive, and has told the stories of Francesca and of Ugolino with the same Miltonian modulation. Longfellow, by keeping his original constantly before him, has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... finished statesman. The first utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of devotion to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the speaker. In place of a "wild and woolly" ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... some hesitation concerning the novelty, as well as propriety, of his manner. They had been long accustomed to an elevation of the voice, with a sudden mechanical depression of its tones, calculated to excite admiration, and to intrap applause. To the just modulation of the words, and concurring expression of the features from the genuine works of nature, they had been strangers, at least for some time. But after he had gone through a variety of scenes, in which ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... homely illustration; but it is a sentiment nevertheless. The melodies are of twin birth literally with the verses, for Foster thought in tune as he traced in rhyme, and traced in rhyme as he thought in tune. Of easy modulation, severely simple in their structure, his airs have yet the graceful proportions, animated with the fervor, unostentatious but all-subduing, of certain of the old hymns (not the chorals) derived from our fathers of a hundred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of suitable fields of force it can be used as a carrier wave. Most of this stuff of the fields of force—how to carry the modulation up and down through all the frequency changes necessary—was figured out by the Martians ages ago. Used as a pure carrier wave, with a sender and a receiver at each end, it isn't so bad—that's why our communicator ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... I presume, I have by this Example given proof sufficient (viz. ocular demonstration) to evince, that there is such a modulation, or bending of the rayes of light, as I have call'd inflection, differing both from reflection, and refraction (since they are both made in the superficies, this only in the middle); and likewise, that this is able or sufficient ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... ordinary dialogue. There is much less of ornate structure and emphatic swell, than occurs in the speeches of Almanzor and Maximin; and Dryden, though late, seems to have at length discovered, that the language of true passion is inconsistent with that regular modulation, to maintain which, the actor must mouth each couplet in a sort of recitative. The ease of the verse in "Aureng-Zebe," although managed with infinite address, did not escape censure. In the "just remonstrance of affronted That," transmitted to the Spectator, the offended conjunction ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... happiness. Cecil was a poet, not a writer of rhymes or jingles, but as we have said a true poet in his soul. Anna felt this in all her intercourse with him and heard it in the tones of his voice when he spoke, a voice that had a ring in it, a resonance, and that exquisite power of modulation which says more than the words themselves. And so time went swiftly and sweetly by with their walks and rides, and occupations, until they were twenty years old. Anna happy in the possession of ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... more so. You know one can't see the modulation of violinists' fingers, but one can see the vibration of the ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... failed us last night at the Cercle, and yet we waited for you long." A hoarse, hollow voice—very measured and slow, as if carefully disciplined to repress groans—yet every now and then there will come a modulation, that shows how rich and cheery it might have been when trolling a chanson a boire—how clear and sonorous when, over the stamping of hoofs and the rattle of scabbards, it rang out the one word "Charge!"—how winning and musical when whispering into a small, pink ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... which he meant the modulation of the tones of the voice in speaking—"is the running commentary of the emotions upon the propositions of the intellect." How true this is will appear when we reflect that the little upward and downward shadings of the voice tell more truly what we mean ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... For she rose and walked toward me. And a great calm came over my own soul. My Cremona spoke of peace—soft, sweet, and deep; the profound peace that dwelleth in the soul which has its hope in fruition. The tone widened into sweet modulation—sweet beyond all expression. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... parcel—but my letter goes by the post as you see. Is there contrast enough between the two rival female personages of 'Pomfret.' I fancy not. Helena should have been more 'demonstrative' than she appeared in Italy, to secure the 'new modulation' with Walter. But you will not think it a strong book, I am sure, with all the good and pure intention of it. The best character ... most life-like ... as conventional life goes ... seems to me 'Mr. Rose' ... beyond all comparison—and the best point, the noiseless, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Chant) was the earliest form of Christian church music. As its name indicates, it was a plain, artless chant without rhythm, accent, modulation or accompaniment, and was first sung in unison. Oriental or Grecian in origin, it had four keys called Authentic Modes, to which were added later four more called Plagal Modes. These modes, called Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian, etc., ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... ago most organs were so tuned that the player had to limit himself to certain key signatures if his music was to sound at all pleasant. Using excessive modulation or wandering into forbidden keys resulted in his striking some discordant interval, known as the "wolf." The writer remembers being present at a rehearsal of Handel's "Messiah" in St. George's Hall, Liverpool, Eng., in 1866, when the organ was tuned ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... His colour, however, if losing the inclination to the rather dull grey-greenness which had prevailed before 1785, remained somewhat cold and wanting in quality, and the more forcible tints introduced in the draperies were frequently lacking in modulation and were not quite in harmony with the prevailing tone. Something of this deficiency in fusion is also noticeable in his flesh tints, the carnations of the complexions being somewhat detached owing to defective gradation where the pinks join the whites. As experience came, ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... the real significance of voice development. We must recognize at once the fact that the voice is a natural reporter of the conditions, emotions, thoughts, and purposes (character and states or conditions) of the individual. The ring of true culture in the voice is that perfect modulation of tone and movement which, without self-consciousness, communicates exactly the meaning and purpose which impel the ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... color language tempts to a borrowing from the richer terminology of music. Musical terms, such as "pitch, key, note, tone, chord, modulation, nocturne, and symphony," are frequently used in the description of color, serving by association to convey ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... temptation to lower the singer's vanity was too great to be resisted. Accordingly, on the following Sunday, whilst Heller was singing a solo to Ludwig's accompaniment, the latter adroitly introduced a modulation of his own. Heller unsuspectingly followed his lead, and fell into the trap devised for him, with the result that, after attempting to keep up with the organist, he lost himself entirely and, to the astonishment of the congregation, came to a dead stop; and it was only when Beethoven ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... are various, as prolonged use of the vocal organs in reading or speaking; using them too long on one pitch or key, without regard to their modulation; improper treatment of acute diseases of the throat; neglected nasal catarrh; the inordinate use of mercury; syphilis; repeated colds which directly cause sore throat, injuries, etc. It is also frequently due to tubercular deposits, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... mountains the base emerges from the haze and the line of snowy peaks disappears behind the nearer outer ranges. Then we come to these ranges themselves, which rise with considerable abruptness out of the level plains with very little intermediate modulation of form, and we find them densely clothed in forest—true, rich, luxuriant, tropical forest with all the delights of glistening foliage, graceful ferns and palms, glorious orchids, ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... ideas, both of them important in our modern use of the term: The general meaning is that of "a pleasing modulation of sounds." In this sense the term is used constantly by poets, novelists and even in conversation—as when we speak of the "music of the forest," the "music of the brook" or the "music of nature." There is also a reminiscence of the etymological derivation ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... chant in the early days of my regaining the faith, and when I notice that even now I am stirred—not so much by the chant as by the things that are chanted—when, that is, they are chanted with clear intonation and suitable modulation, then once more I recognize the great value of this appointed fashion ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... and tokens of contempt, for which it is not easy to find a name, which vanish to nothing in an attempt to describe them, and yet may, by continual repetition, make day pass after day in sorrow and in terrour. Phrases of cursory compliment and established salutation may, by a different modulation of the voice, or cast of the countenance, convey contrary meanings, and be changed from indications of respect to expressions of scorn. The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself, very little consults his own tranquillity. My unhappy vigilance is every moment discovering ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... involved. He looked over the rows of faces as a criminal eyes the judges and the jury on whom his life depends. A murmur would have set him quivering; any slight incident upon the stage, Coralie's exits and entrances, the slightest modulation of the tones of her voice, would ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... after all, the national Polish element in his compositions was not the main cause why they were not rated at once at their true value. It was their novelty of form, harmonic depth and freedom of modulation, that made them for a long time caviare to the general. This was again proved when he went to Paris. Chopin was a Pole only on his mother's side, his father having been a Frenchman, who had emigrated to Poland. It might have been supposed, therefore, that there ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... that would have lent itself to eloquence. Now its even modulation carried a sort ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... sing or try to sing, though he had a deep, manly voice, read as very few are able to read, and his modulation was rich and varied, and very agreeable, both to the understanding and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... himself all the time to me. Strange how exactly I remember every word he says! I could set down any conversation of his, word for word, from beginning to end; if there were any means of doing so, I could reproduce every modulation of ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... down to converse. And Taj al-Muluk said to Aziz, "O my brother, recite me some verses: perchance it may broaden my breast and dispel my dolours and quench the fire flaming in my heart." So Aziz chanted with sweet modulation ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... if mad. Timidly she tried to excuse herself for disobeying his directions for her safety. Every modulation of her enchanting voice cut deep into his very breast, so that he could hardly understand the words for the sheer pain of it. He turned his back on her; but a sudden drop, an extraordinary faltering of her ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... before your face and eyes. It gives me almost a ghostly feeling to hear him, and it seems as if the air were peopled with spirits. Oh, he is a perfect wizard! It is as interesting to see him as it is to hear him, for his face changes with every modulation of the piece, and he looks exactly as he is playing. He has one element that is most captivating, and that is a sort of delicate and fitful mirth that keeps peering out at you here and there. It ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... have been more agreeable than the modulation of these words, the passage of the tone from a first note of surprise to its grave and womanly close. Again, the same suggestions of veiled and vibrating feeling. Sir Wilfrid's nascent dislike ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... palate as if on an instrument, and connect particular performances with particular words conveyed to him in the finger-language. They unanimously agreed that it was quite impossible. The German set to work, and the young man now speaks very plainly and distinctly: without the least modulation, of course, but with comparatively little hesitation; expressing the words aloud as they are struck, so to speak, upon his hands; and showing the most intense and wonderful delight in doing it. This is commonly ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of events, as the Modoc stood in her place in the reading-class and slowly enunciated each separate syllable of the lesson in a tone as remarkable for a loud distinctness as it was for a total lack of meaning and modulation, from that side of her dress which had been sagging most heavily, something fell with a crash to the floor. It was a boiled lobster of anomalous proportions. The pocket had given way at last under its overpowering burden, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... the timbre of a perfect voice in a single long note or shake used to bring the house down in the days of our grandparents, just as the subtle orchestral blendings of Wagner entrance hearers incapable of distinguishing the notes of a chord and sometimes even incapable of following a modulation. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... with a timid show of resistance, our brave red faces slobbered over with tears, as we stood marked for execution! Never was there a finer specimen of deprecation in eloquence than we then exhibited—the supplicating look right up into the master's face—the touching modulation of the whine—the additional tightness and caution with which we grasped the waistbands with one hand, when it was necessary to use the other in wiping our eyes and noses with the polished sleeve-cuff—the sincerity and vehemence ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... modulation into uniformity for its outline, and variety for its parts, because it thus realizes the last idea of beauty itself, which includes the charm of diversity within the flowing ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... not enough the voice' be sound and clear', 'T is modulation' that must charm the ear. When desperate heroes grieve with tedious moan, And whine their sorrows in a seesaw tone, The same soft sounds of unimpassioned woes, Can only make the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... erect upon it, with one hand clutching the limb of a tree, to keep her in position. As soon as she had attained the upright attitude, another peal of laughter came ringing from her lips, as wild as that with which she had announced her approach; but there was also in its tones a certain modulation that betokened scorn! Neither of us uttered a syllable; but, observing a profound silence, stood waiting to hear what she had to say. Another scornful laugh, and ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... into a luxurious, mild, tender, and joyous Modulation; as in the following Lines in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... looking steadfastly and gravely forward, and repeating the words tabak-tabak, keibo-keibo, ke-bang-e-nu-to-eek, kebang-enutoeek, amatama-amatama, in the order in which they are here placed, but each at least four times, and always by a peculiar modulation of the voice, speaking them in pairs as they are coupled above. The sound is made to proceed from the throat in a way much resembling ventriloquism, to which art it is indeed an approach. After the last amatama Iligliuk always pointed with her ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... one of the most original geniuses in the musical world of the present or past. His songs are a mine of melody, surpassed in wealth only by Schubert, and that only because there are more of Schubert's. In originality of harmony and modulation he has only six equals. Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt. In rhythmic invention and combination he is inexhaustible, and as orchestrator he ranks among the ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... Otto buried his face in his hands. It was the "Heynal," the watchman's horn-song from the towers of Panna Marya. Once given, a magician caught it, played with it, pursued it, juggled with it, through a series of variations till, finally, a grave and beautiful modulation led back to the noble ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... while his own matchless lyrics, altogether original, find the breath of life on the lips of a people who have gotten them all by heart. What a triumph of the divine faculty thus to translate the inarticulate language of nature into every answering modulation of human speech! And with such felicity, that the verse is now as national as the music! Throughout all these exquisite songs, we see the power of an element which we, raised by rank and education into ignorance, might not have surmised in the mind of the people. The love-songs of Burns are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... intone the ceremony in a style of modulation impressively exalted, his voice issuing most canonically from the roof of his mouth, through the medium of a very musical nose newly tuned for the occasion. But he had not proceeded far enough to exhibit all ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... somewhere; and never was there a more broadly good- humored countenance, or a smile more expressive of meritoriousness, nor an utterance more coaxing in its modulations than his "E-f-fendi, backsheesh." as he repeats the appeal; the smile and the modulation ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... such windfalls. It is probable that he never heard of such a thing, and that if he did, he would unhesitatingly cry out, "Humbug," at the first intimation of it. Besides, his voice was not capable of that modulation which a young lover, or a city parson can give it. Accustomed to cry aloud and spare not, he usually spoke as if there were some marrow in his bones, and some vigor in his wind-bags. When he came to see the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... story breathed in every modulation, and Stratton sighed and drew silently away among the rocks farther from the sea, unnoticed by the pair, who turned and began to retrace their steps toward the lights he had ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... were blended in them. They were articulated with a distinctness that was unexampled in my experience. But this was not all. The voice was not only mellifluent and clear, but the emphasis was so just, and the modulation so impassioned, that it seemed as if a heart of stone could not fail of being moved by it. It imparted to me an emotion altogether involuntary and uncontrollable. When he uttered the words, "for charity's sweet sake," I dropped the cloth that I held in ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... innocent blue eyes gladly upturned to the long, jewel-like head of Nagaya, which twined round the summit of the ebony staff, seemed to peer down at her in a sort of drowsy reflectiveness. Then, all suddenly, Lysia spoke, . . how enchanting was the exquisite modulation of that ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... flowers, leaves, and vegetables carved in stone with "accuracy and precision so delicate that it almost made visitors distrust their senses when they considered the difficulty of subjecting so hard a substance to such intricate and exquisite modulation." This superb convent was dedicated to St. Mary, and the monks were of the Cistercian Order, of whom the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages, and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones fell musically from his lips—for he had a good voice— remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however; not comprehending, of course I could neither ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... agreeable men, one of whom, with his gray hair and bearing of an official, made a low obeisance before the wife of Darvid, and seemed to lay at her feet smiles full of homage. Hence she grew affable, pleasant, vivacious, elegant in gestures, and in the modulation of her beautiful voice, she answered politeness with politeness, requests with promises, and gave opinions in return for questions touching ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly compos'd, and those which he had often preach'd in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and well plac'd, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleas'd with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... conquer the difficulties of so limited an instrument; because, in the extent of these octaves, there were a number of spaces which could not be filled up by the talent of the player; besides, the most simple modulation became impossible. Mr. Eulenstein has remedied that inconvenience, by joining sixteen Jew's harps, which he tunes by placing smaller or greater quantities of sealing-wax at the extremity of the tongue. Each harp then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... am to see you again!" said Mrs. Wightman. And she was glad. Every play of feature, every modulation of ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... himself awake, sang all night, but in a voice so soft and so subdued that one might have thought he feared to arouse the men of the watch. We did not weary of listening to him, for his singing was of the strangest kind. He observed a rhythm and modulation totally different from those we are accustomed to, and seemed to allow his voice to go at random, like the smoke of the vessel carried away and swayed by the breeze. It was a reverie rather than a song, a kind ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... as in art, it is the sky which makes the landscape. Given the identical fields, woods, and retreating hills, and every change of sky, every modulation of light, will produce a new landscape; in light and atmosphere are concealed those mysteries of colour, of distance, and of tone which clothe the changeless features of the visible world with infinite variety ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... clear, well-tuned, and impressive, forcibly arrested the attention of young Nevile; for at that day, even more than this (sufficiently apparent as it now is), there was a marked distinction in the intonation, the accent, the modulation of voice, between the better bred and better educated and the inferior classes. But this difference, so ill according with her dress and position, only served to heighten more the bold insolence of the musical Bacchantes, who, indeed, in the eyes of the sober, formed the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the good bishop, who, in spite of Frank's modulation of voice, had overheard what had passed. "Is that the way you manage electioneering matters in our cathedral city? Ha—ha—ha!" The idea of one of his choristers being in the henpecked line was very ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... is quite apparent that R. L. S. and Modestine are the models responsible for this state of things. And, since the style in itself is pleasant enough, I don't know that any one need complain. What put me upon this reflection was Vagabonds in Perigord (CONSTABLE), which, for the modulation of its prose, might almost have been an unacknowledged work of the Master, but is actually written by Mr. H. H. BASHFORD. It concerns the wanderings on foot of certain pleasure pilgrims along the course of the river Dordogne; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... or two acute minds, the excellent practice of reading aloud finds its best results. Here, too, the art of expression becomes important, how to adapt the sound to the sense, by a just emphasis, intonation, and modulation of the voice. In short, the value of a book thus read and discussed, in an appreciative circle, may be more ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... should wish to be an original one, even if not above mediocrity. What pleasure should I take in any speech I might make, however original as to thought, provided the gestures I employed and the very modulation of my voice were not my own? Take lessons, indeed! why, the fellow who taught me, the professor, might be standing in the gallery whilst I spoke; and, at the best parts of my speech, might say to himself, "That gesture is mine—that modulation is mine." I could not ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... phonograph. Here is the phonogram it made, and here in England we can listen to its wailing, for the phonograph reproduces every kind of sound, high or low, whistling, coughing, sneezing, or groaning. It gives the accent, the expression, and the modulation, so that one has to be careful how one speaks, and probably its use will help us to improve ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... falls in pieces. The company then seat themselves in a circle on the grass, and feast on eggs fried with herbs, while gay tunes are played on the lionedda.[58] A cup of wine is passed round from one to another, and each, laying his hand on his neighbour, repeats, with a certain modulation of voice, supported by the music of the pipes, “Compare e comare di San Giovanni!”. The toast is repeated, in a joyous chorus, for some time, till, at length, the company rise, still singing, and, forming a circle, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Chicago, all the nation, all the world. Not a "factor" on the London 'Change who did not turn an ear down the wind to catch the echo of this turmoil, not an agent de change in the peristyle of the Paris Bourse, who did not strain to note the every modulation of its ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... than ours of the North. In other respects their tragic declamation must, I conceive, have been altogether unlike recitative, being both much more measured, and also far removed from its studied and artificial modulation. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... so greatly that he thought it was his own. But in general it is not so much the sentiments and images that are new as the modulation of the verses in which they float. The cold obstruction of two centuries' thaws, and the stream of speech, once more let loose, seeks out its old windings, or overflows musically in unpractised channels. The service which Spenser did to our literature ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... obvious that our analysis has confined itself to the barest elements of the musical experience. Our music to-day, with its many-voiced harmonies, with its procession of chords instead of single tones, with its modulation into related keys, has an infinite wealth and complexity defying description. A large part of the astonishing effect of music is derived from the fact that in a brief space we seem to hear and absorb so much: the careers of multitudinous lives compressed into ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... dial where there was re-radiation of his message, as if from a tuned receiver. But he could not get a fix on it, and nobody might be listening. He exhausted the normal communication pattern. Then he broadcast on old-fashioned amplitude modulation which a modern communicator would not pick up at all, and which therefore might be used by men ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... she observed its modulation. It had begun on a note of cheery surprise and ended on one of sharp concern. Turning, ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... something in the insinuating tone of this speech, increased as it was by the modulation of his Scottish voice, that irritated his hearer unspeakably, all the more because it was the very thing she ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... following night a light-streaming choir of angels kept their heavenly watch, and waked around the body; and illumining the place and all therein with their radiance, delighting with their odor, charming with the modulation of their soft-flowing psalmody, poured they all around their spiritual sweetness. Then came the sleep of the Lord on all who had thither collected, and while the angelic rites were performed, held them in their slumber even until the morning. And when ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice, giving instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes, the want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis, of foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... violins, which was intended to represent a Fata Morgana. I had secured three pairs of trumpets in different keys, in order to produce this exquisite, gradually dawning and seductive theme with the utmost niceties of shade and variety of modulation. This was intended to represent the land of desire towards which the hero's eyes are turned, and whose shores seem continually to rise before him only to sink elusively beneath the waves, until at last they soar ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... a strange conversation took place in the Riverside Drive apartment. She sat on Wheeler's left knee, toying with his platinum chain, a strained, a rather terrible pallor out in her face, but the sobs well under her voice, and its modulation about normal. She had been talking for over two hours, silencing his every interruption until he had ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Gloria, which was performed at the University Jubilee Festival of Jena last August, was made most effective by your excellent instrumentation. You will observe a slight alteration at the conclusion (six bars instead of five, and a slightly less risky modulation), which I beg you to follow at any performance there may chance to be ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... orator, whom Nat had not seen before, and still another round of applause went up when he arose to speak. It was a great treat for Nat to listen to the man whose fame made his name familiar to every school-boy. He drank in every word of his speech, closely observed every gesture and modulation of voice, and would have sat entranced till morning, "taking no note of time," if the gifted orator had continued to ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... interesting manner and with a peculiarly pleasant tone of voice. Every one who has considered the subject at all must have observed what a powerful influence there lies in the mere manner and tone of a speaker. The captain's voice was so rich, so mellow, and capable of such varied modulation, that the men listened with pleasure to the words which rolled from his lips, as one would listen to a sweet song. He became so deeply interested, too, in the subject about which he happened to be speaking, that his auditors could not help becoming interested also. ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... he did not hear the door open. He again repeated the lines with the affectionate modulation of a musician. He knew that they were right. They were hot with life—a life that was no more a part of this peaceful landscape than a palm-tree would be. He felt that he ought to read the poem in a desert, out by the Polar Sea, down on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... laid the foundation of his power as a preacher, making him strike unerringly those master chords that are common and universal in every audience. Gifts of oratory he had, both natural and acquired,—a full, melodious voice, so sympathetic in modulation and so attuned to [131] reverence that I have heard more than one person say that his first few words in the pulpit did more towards lifting them to a truly religious frame of mind than the whole service ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself: and he walked up to Renine with jerky movements that revealed ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... employed; and while the hinds are thus driving their patient slaves along the furrows, they continually cheer them with conversation, denoting approbation and pleasure. This encouragement is conveyed to them in a sort of chaunt, of very agreeable modulation, which, floating through the air from different distances, produces a striking effect both on the ear and imagination. The notes are few and simple, and when delivered by a clear, melodious voice, have something expressive of that tenderness and affection ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... author of this little book is both blind and deaf! For many years he has been absolutely blind. He has utterly lost the sense of hearing also; and whilst he speaks with singular clearness, and with some modulation of voice, he can receive no communication from his fellow-creatures except through an alphabet which he carries upon his hand! Every word must be spelled letter ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... congregation. An extension of this tradition is frequent in a long coda in the major. But this is quite different in kind from a plan where all of the last movement is in insistent major. We know that it is quite possible to begin a work at some distance from the main key, leading to it by tortuous path of modulation; though there is no reason why we may not question the composer's own inscription, the controlling point is really the whole tonal scheme. Here the key of the second movement is built on a design in minor,—would have less reason in the major. For it rests ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... division in the center, hair abundant but almost white, and a dark, swarthy complexion that did not belong to England; his thick eyebrows also were darker than his hair, and under them was an eye like a royal jewel; his voice had the Oriental richness and modulation—this old man was Isaac Levi; an Oriental Jew who had passed half his life under the sun's eye, and now, though the town of Farnborough had long been too accustomed to him to wonder at him, he dazzled ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me—by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice—and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... you want?" said she to me, in a voice without modulation as we might suppose that of a ghost. "I should wish to see the interior of your convent."—"That is impossible."—"But I am very wet, and want to dry myself."—She immediately touched a spring which opened ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... through some parts where a good shower of rain has fallen, the stridulous piercing notes of the cicadae are perfectly deafening; a drab-colored cricket joins the chorus with a sharp sound, which has as little modulation as the drone of a Scottish bagpipe. I could not conceive how so small a thing could raise such a sound; it seemed to make the ground over it thrill. When cicadae, crickets, and frogs unite, their music may be heard at the distance of a quarter of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... that small primitive differences of a certain order, must, in the long run, bring about a wide divergence of the human stock from the others. It is a reasonable supposition that, in the earliest human organisms, an improved brain, a voice more capable of modulation and articulation, limbs which lent themselves better to gesture, a more perfect hand, capable among other things of imitating form in plastic or other material, were combined with the curiosity, the mimetic tendency, the strong family affection of the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... see. It is by these he gets his spiritual growth; it is by these we see his character revealed, his purpose, and his gifts. Some play with a certain natural passion, an unstudied directness, without grace, without modulation, with no study of the masters or consciousness of the pervading spirit of the plot; others give all their thought to their costume and think only of the audience; a few act as those who have mastered the secrets of a serious art, with deliberate subordination of themselves to the great ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... Plain Chant) was the earliest form of Christian church music. As its name indicates, it was a plain, artless chant without rhythm, accent, modulation or accompaniment, and was first sung in unison. Oriental or Grecian in origin, it had four keys called Authentic Modes, to which were added later four more called Plagal Modes. These modes, called Phrygian, Dorian, Lydian, etc., are merely different presentations ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens
... or breathe heavily, but the strong pulsation of the carotid artery or the moistness of the skin from perspiration will not come with an imitated emotion. Of course, that is true of the actor on the stage, too. But the content of the words and the modulation of the voice can help so much that the shortcomings of the visual ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... that of the speakers of the world, may arise in the difference between art and nature. The person who prepares his lecture for the lecture-room, or his sermon for the pulpit, studies the formation of his sentences, which are to be accompanied by a modulation of the voice. This modulation is artificial, for it is usually taught. The Quakers, on, the other hand, neither prepare their discourses, nor vary their voices purposely, according to the rules of art. The tone which comes out, and which appears disagreeable to those who ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... walked toward me. And a great calm came over my own soul. My Cremona spoke of peace—soft, sweet, and deep; the profound peace that dwelleth in the soul which has its hope in fruition. The tone widened into sweet modulation—sweet ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... to discover a kind of scale of linear expression—the two extremes at either end: the horizontal and the vertical, with every degree and modulation between them; the undulating curve giving way to the springing energetic spiral, the meandering, flowing line sinking to the horizontal: or the sharp opposition and thrust of rectangular, the nervous resistance of broken curves, the flame-like, triumphant, ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... not Mirah to be there? What furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face?—and is there any harmony of tints that has such stirrings of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice? Here is one good, at least, thought Deronda, that comes to Mordecai from his having fixed his imagination on me. He has recovered a perfect sister, whose affection is waiting ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... are dependent upon degrees of positive and negative vibrations, as is every form of life in the great Cosmic Unity of the Universe. Both are tones with endless modulation, but the integral fact, in either case, is one. Disease, then, is a Unit—a degenerate function of the blood—and, such being the case, the failure of any curative principle or system aspiring to remedy that degenerate functioning, in any degree, is a failure of that principle or system ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... breathless under this impaired and yet sovereign voice. All yielded in rapt astonishment to the spell. There was no prestige, no theatrical illusion. Iphigenia was a professor in a black frock coat; the orchestra was a piano, giving forth here and there an unexpected modulation. This was his whole force; yet the hall was mute, hearts beat, tears flowed from many eyes, and when the recital ended, enthusiastic shouts arose, as if Iphigenia in person had ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Irish music in the middle ages a superiority over that of all other nations. It is Cambrensis who remarks that "the attention of these people to musical instruments is worthy of praise, in which their skill is, beyond comparison, superior to any other people; for in these the modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instruments of Britain, but the sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet sweet and pleasing. It is extraordinary, in such rapidity of the fingers, how the musical proportions are preserved, and the art everywhere inherent among ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child,—the madman's laugh,—the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,—are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends Or hobgoblins so fearfully ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... adventures, and the varied experiences he had gone through in order to arrive at some straight and clear comprehension of "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" of the Gospel of Love and Mutual Labour. His practised voice, perfect in all modulation, inflexion, and expression, carried each simple, well- chosen word home to the hearts of his hearers,—not one so ignorant as not to understand him—not one so blind as not to see the beauty of work and creative effort as he depicted them,—not one so insensate as not to feel the calm, the grandeur, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... musical sounds for S and F, together with the frequent increase and multiplication of vowel sounds, give the dialect a by no means inharmonious expression, certainly it would not be difficult to select many words which may for their modulation compete with others of French extraction, and, perhaps be superior to many others which we have borrowed from other languages, much less analogous to the polished dialect of our own. I have added, ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... have any value; for this alternation of images had effected a change of front in my desire, and—as abrupt as those that occur sometimes in music,—a complete change of tone in my sensibility. Thus it came about that a mere atmospheric variation would be sufficient to provoke in me that modulation, without there being any need for me to await the return of a season. For often we find a day, in one, that has strayed from another season, and makes us live in that other, summons at once into our presence and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... first utterance of the voice was not pleasant to the ear, the tone being harsh and the key too high. As the speech progressed, however, the speaker seemed to get into control of himself; the voice gained a natural and impressive modulation, the gestures were dignified and appropriate, and the hearers came under the influence of the earnest look from the deeply-set eyes and of the absolute integrity of purpose and of devotion to principle which were behind the thought and the words of the speaker. In place of a "wild and woolly" ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... well liked by his congregation, and we have heard of no fighting over either his virtues or defects. He has quite a clerical look, and, if he hadn't, his voice would give the cue to his profession. There is an earnest unctuous modulation about it, which, as a rule, is acquired after men have flung overboard the common idioms of secular life. The salary of Mr. O'Dell is about 160 pounds a year, and although he would like more, he can make himself and Mrs. O'Dell, and the ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... mad. Timidly she tried to excuse herself for disobeying his directions for her safety. Every modulation of her enchanting voice cut deep into his very breast, so that he could hardly understand the words for the sheer pain of it. He turned his back on her; but a sudden drop, an extraordinary faltering of her tone, made him spin round. On her white neck her pale head dropped as in a ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to the highest notes ever reached by mortal singers. Her trills are as sweet and bird-like as those with which the 'Swedish Nightingale' once entranced the world. In Verdi's famous 'Traviata' there was not a note or modulation wrong: her rendition was faultless, her voice the most sweet and musical we ever ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... circle of readers. In an association of this kind, embracing one or two acute minds, the excellent practice of reading aloud finds its best results. Here, too, the art of expression becomes important, how to adapt the sound to the sense, by a just emphasis, intonation, and modulation of the voice. In short, the value of a book thus read and discussed, in an appreciative circle, may be more than doubled ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... quick look of inquiry. They had subtle modes of communication. Charlotte could command him by the flicker of an eyelash or a modulation of tone, so that Jerry seemed, in the resultant act, to be following only his own careless or ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... I have seen four, five, and (once) six of them sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar hooting invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation, and was, I believe, in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to the suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... looking at her, and her father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... hope of its ignorant prosperity. Behind every scale in music, the gayest and cheeriest, the grandest, the most triumphant, lies its dark relative minor; the notes are the same, but the change of a semitone changes all to gloom;—all our gayest hours are tunes that have a modulation into these dreary keys ever possible; at any moment the key-note ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... heart of their sister. She, meanwhile, bids the lyre to sound for their delight, and the playing is heard: she bids the pipes to move, the quire to sing, and the music and the singing come invisibly, soothing the mind of the listener with sweetest modulation. Yet not even thereby was their malice put to sleep: once more they seek to know what manner of husband she has, and whence that seed. And Psyche, simple over-much, forgetful of her first story, answers, "My husband comes from a far country, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself: and he walked up to Rnine with jerky movements that revealed ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... upon the universality, the necessity, and the majesty of death. Bryant's blank verse when at its best, as in Thanatopsis and the Forest Hymn, is extremely noble. In gravity and dignity it is surpassed by no English blank verse of this century, though in rich and various modulation it falls below Tennyson's Ulysses and Morte d'Arthur. It was characteristic of Bryant's limitations that he came thus early into possession of his faculty. His range was always a narrow one, and about his poetry, as a whole, there ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... advantage by their dress. Now I think of it, I believe you are in great danger of making a little god out of your caps and your drab color, and 'thee' and 'thou.' Besides, the tendency is quite questionable. The moment certain shades of color, or a certain combination of letters, or modulation of sounds, or arrangement of seams and angles, are made the sine qua non of religion and principle, that moment religion and principle are hurled from their vantage-ground and become slaves instead of rulers. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... representations of flowers, leaves, and vegetables carved in stone with "accuracy and precision so delicate that it almost made visitors distrust their senses when they considered the difficulty of subjecting so hard a substance to such intricate and exquisite modulation." This superb convent was dedicated to St. Mary, and the monks were of the Cistercian Order, of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... nasal chanting of the priests there had suddenly burst a chorus of children, singing absolutely independent of all time and tune; grunting of priests answered by squealing of boys, slow Gregorian modulation interrupted by jaunty barrel-organ pipings, an insane, insanely merry jumble of bellowing and barking, mewing and cackling and braying, such as would have enlivened a witches' meeting, or rather some mediaeval Feast of Fools. And, to make the grotesqueness of such music still ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... he was by all odds the most popular fellow of his time. His very popularity increased the danger." As if he had been pleading his own cause, Thayer's voice was full of earnest eagerness. Even in the midst of her anxiety and pain, Miss Gannion felt the power of its flexible modulation; and her half-formulated condemnation of Lorimer ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... be beautiful and satisfying in itself, but expressive of the motive which is at the root of the picture. Play of light over the surfaces and round the contours of the human form; the breaking-up and modulation of masses of colour by that play of light; strength, and beauty of general tone—these are now Titian's main preoccupations. To this point his perfected technical art has legitimately developed itself from the Giorgionesque ideal of colour and tone-harmony, ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you. I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to Harvieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day—but this is "a tale of other years." In my conscience I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... as a continuous sound akin to the bellowings or other cries of the various wild mammals. It is characteristic of all these primitive forms of utterance that they are, to a great extent, involuntary, and that when the outcry is begun it continues in a mechanical manner, with no trace of modulation arising from the conditions of the moment. In other words, these actions resemble, in a way, sneezing or hiccoughing in human kind; actions which are stimulated by certain states of the body, but which are not at all under the control of the will. Howling or bellowing doubtless represents, in ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... large, and peculiarly constructed, with an unusually high pulpit, to suit the high galleries;" and moreover, "the said Rev. George Henderson is considered to be destitute of a musical ear, which prevents the correct modulation of ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... and converted into harmony. A certain general style, a certain general manner of expression, are common to all, as is also the case in, let us say, The Tempest. But what distinction, what variation of tone, what delicacy and expressiveness of modulation! As a simple matter of fact, few writers have ever had a greater ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... one of the simplest strains to be heard,—as simple as the curve in form, and mellower than the tenderest tones of the flute,—delighting from the pure element of harmony and beauty it contains, and not from any novel or fantastic modulation of it,—thus contrasting strongly with such rollicking, hilarious songsters as the Bobolink, in whom we are chiefly pleased with the tintinnabulation, the verbal and labial excellence, and the evident conceit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... see you, Mr. Vancouver," said his host, whose extremely Celtic appearance was not belied by unctuous modulation of his voice, and the pleasant roll ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... three, the powers are under the predominance of irritability; but sensibility, which is dormant in the insect, begins to awaken in the fish, and, though still subordinate, is quite awake in the bird, of which no better proof can be given than its power of sound, with the rudiments of modulation, in the large class of singing birds, and in some others a tendency to acquire and to imitate articulate speech. The next step of ascent brings us to the mammalia; and in these, including beasts and men, the complete and universal presence of a nervous ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... power. She could even listen to what was being said. She had never dared as yet to look at Mr Donne, though her heart burnt to see him once again. He sounded changed. The voice had lost its fresh and youthful eagerness of tone, though in peculiarity of modulation it was the same. It could never be mistaken for the voice of another person. There was a good deal said at that breakfast, for none seemed inclined to hurry, although it was Sunday morning. Ruth was compelled to sit there, and it was good for her that ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... men, like the travelling gents, were creatures of coarser mould; but her experienced eye told her the solitary occupant of the opposite section was a gentleman. The clear cut of his pale features, the white, slender hand and shapely foot, the style and finish of his quiet travelling-dress, the soft modulation and refined tone of his voice on the one occasion when she heard him reply to some importunity of the train-boy with his endless round of equally questionable figs and fiction, the book he was reading,—a ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... tuned. The necessity of playing the strings with the fingers renders it difficult to obtain equality in the sounds. It gives only the natural sounds of the diatonic gamut, and in order to obtain changes of modulation, the pedals must be employed. Harmonics and shakes are very difficult to execute on the harp, and—last, but not least—it is not provided with dampers. The external form of the clavi harp resembles that of the harp, and all the cords, or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... hair and bearing of an official, made a low obeisance before the wife of Darvid, and seemed to lay at her feet smiles full of homage. Hence she grew affable, pleasant, vivacious, elegant in gestures, and in the modulation of her beautiful voice, she answered politeness with politeness, requests with promises, and gave opinions in return for questions touching the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... not pleased Hope Wayne. The sudden modulation into sentiment offended her. Before she replied—indeed she had no intention of replying—the round eyes of Mrs. Van Kraut informed her partner that she was ready for another turn, and forth they ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... back a pace, with an expression of awe. He soon recovered himself, and shouted angrily to the men to go on. But again the dirge-like noise rose, louder and louder. It swelled, and then as gradually died away; but this time with a quavering modulation. ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... the Mass for men's voices to Vienna. The Gloria, which was performed at the University Jubilee Festival of Jena last August, was made most effective by your excellent instrumentation. You will observe a slight alteration at the conclusion (six bars instead of five, and a slightly less risky modulation), which I beg you to follow at any performance there may chance to be ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... repeating the words tabak-tabak, keibo-keibo, ke-bang-e-nu-to-eek, kebang-enutoeek, amatama-amatama, in the order in which they are here placed, but each at least four times, and always by a peculiar modulation of the voice, speaking them in pairs as they are coupled above. The sound is made to proceed from the throat in a way much resembling ventriloquism, to which art it is indeed an approach. After the last amatama Iligliuk ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... delighted that my scheme of wounding her vanity had succeeded, and I began by reading aloud an anacreontic, adding to its beauties by the modulation of my voice, and keenly enjoying her pleasure at finding her work so fair. When I improved a line by some trifling change she noticed it, for she followed me with her eyes; but far from being humiliated, she was pleased with my corrections. The picture was still ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... like those of string music, short and transient, which rise and perish upon a single touch; those of other languages are like the notes of wind instruments, sweet and swelling, and lengthened out into variety of modulation. ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... CITY. Here, however, a foaming fool, with extended hands, sprang forward to him and stood in his way. It was the same fool whom the people called "the ape of Zarathustra:" for he had learned from him something of the expression and modulation of language, and perhaps liked also to borrow from the store of his wisdom. And the fool ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players. They come to hear a certain number of lines recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The lines relate to some action, and an action must be in some place; but the different actions that complete a story may be in places very remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... sensibility and emotion, giving, effect to the Italian language, so pompous and so sonorous, produced upon Oswald an impression entirely novel. The English prosody is uniform and veiled, its natural beauties are all of a sombre cast; its colouring has been formed by clouds, and its modulation by the roaring of the sea; but when Italian words, brilliant as an Italian festival, resonant like those instruments of victory, which have been compared to scarlet among colours; when these words, bearing ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... of this volume should read these lines of mine before he proceeds farther. The author of this little book is both blind and deaf! For many years he has been absolutely blind. He has utterly lost the sense of hearing also; and whilst he speaks with singular clearness, and with some modulation of voice, he can receive no communication from his fellow-creatures except through an alphabet which he carries upon his hand! Every word must be ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... when a fearful struggle was going on within me, and (no matter whether right or wrong) I thought myself very near death, an organ in the street played a Scotch air which I had heard a thousand times before; but then, for the first time, I understood it. Each note had a meaning, each modulation had a sense, which has never been lost to me since. Suffering and emotion are necessary (I believe it firmly) to expand our faculties in every line, and, with our powers of comprehension, increase our powers of admiration. I shall never feel the real beauty of military music, or the full sense ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... adjoining chamber. She was singing the pathetic ballad of old Rob with the most heart-melting falls and pauses. Jemima had half-opened the door, when she distinguished her voice, and Maria stood close to it, scarcely daring to respire, lest a modulation should escape her, so exquisitely sweet, so passionately wild. She began with sympathy to pourtray to herself another victim, when the lovely warbler flew, as it were, from the spray, and a torrent of unconnected exclamations and questions ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... loaded with precious stones, (the brilliancy of every one of which illuminated the room,) and laid it before my throne, made his obeisance and stood [in respectful silence]. The khwaja also kissed the ground, and offered up his prayers [for my prosperity]; he spoke with such sweet modulation, as if he were the nightingale of a thousand melodies. I greatly admired his elegant and decorous speech; but, assuming a face of anger, I exclaimed, "O, you Satan in human form! what net is this that thou hast spread, and ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... free as their lives; no intermediate modulation, no chords, no transition, it goes from one key to another. From ethereal heights they precipitate you into the howling depths of hell; from the plaint, barely heard, they pass brusquely to the warrior's ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... wrinkles and camphor aroma of a long packing away are yet discernible. Often they are still wearing sun helmets or double terai hats, pending a descent on a Piccadilly hatter two days hence. They move slowly and languidly; the ordinary piercing and dominant English enunciation has fallen to modulation; their eyes, while observant and alert, look tired. It is as though the far countries have sucked something from the pith of them in exchange for great experiences that nevertheless seem of little ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... technical term in music for "the running a simple strain into a great variety of shorter notes to the same modulation" (Nares). The "plain song" was the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... favorite passages, he ascended to the topmost heaven of delight. Never, in all the women he had heard speak, had he heard a voice like hers. The least sound of it was a stimulus to his love, and he thrilled and throbbed with every word she uttered. It was the quality of it, the repose, and the musical modulation—the soft, rich, indefinable product of culture and a gentle soul. As he listened to her, there rang in the ears of his memory the harsh cries of barbarian women and of hags, and, in lesser degrees of harshness, the strident voices of working women and of the girls of his own class. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... offered its blood to the Flag. The old Roman spirit breathed through the verses of these music-hall songs, written perhaps by hungry poets au sixieme etage, but alight with a little flame of genius. The women who sang them were artists. Every gesture was a studied thing. Every modulation of the voice was the result of training and technique. But they too were stirred with a real emotion, and as they sang something would change the audience, some thrill would stir them, some power, of old ideals, of traditions strong as natural instinct, of enthusiasm for their ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... offend you anyway. You know me better than that." He let his voice fall into a caressing modulation and put a propitiatory hand on her skirt, but under the uncompromising hardness of her gaze the hand fell away to his side. "I'm your friend— leastways I ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... message was sent from the throat of the frightened Pawnee. Deerfoot could not be certain that the cry conveyed the meaning he desired, but he noticed that the modulation of the voice was different and he was almost ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... soul (supposing that she had one). He turned his head to every possible angle, and cocked his ears to every conceivable elevation, and rubbed his nose against Fan's, and barked softly, in every imaginable degree of modulation, and varied these proceedings by bounding away at full speed over the rocks of the beach, and in among the bushes and out again, but always circling round and round Fan, and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... standby light quivered hysterically from bright to dim and back again. The rate of quivering was fast. It was very nearly a sine-wave modulation of the light—and when a Mahon-modified machine goes into sine-wave flicker, it is the same as ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... of his professional cleverness, that he would engage, that very day, to put him out, at such a place, without his being aware of it, so that he should not be able to proceed. He accepted the wager; and Beethoven, when he came to a passage that suited his purpose, led the singer, by an adroit modulation, out of the prevailing mode into one having no affinity with it, still, however, adhering to the tonic of the former key; so that the singer, unable to find his way in this strange region was brought to ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... two ideas, both of them important in our modern use of the term: The general meaning is that of "a pleasing modulation of sounds." In this sense the term is used constantly by poets, novelists and even in conversation—as when we speak of the "music of the forest," the "music of the brook" or the "music of nature." There is also a reminiscence of the etymological ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... priggishness, and perhaps over-stepped the border; but nevertheless it made me feel jealous for our village children, for in the conversation of village children one never hears that suggestion of a considerate mental attitude towards one another. The speech is without flexibility or modulation of tone; harsh, exclamatory, and screaming, or guttural and drawling. Rarely, if ever, does one derive from it an impression that the children are growing to regard one another's feelings, or one another's thoughts. A further point must be mentioned. I hinted that there might be an additional cause, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... writers. Achilles stands as tall as Troy, Merlin is as old and as wise as the world. Rhythm and poetical expression are essential attributes of dramatic genius, but the original sign of race and mission is an instinctive modulation of man with the deeds he attempts or achieves. The man and the deed must be cognate and equal, and the melodic balance and blending are what first separate Homer and Hugo from the fabricators of singular adventures. In Scott leather ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... a preacher, making him strike unerringly those master chords that are common and universal in every audience. Gifts of oratory he had, both natural and acquired,—a full, melodious voice, so sympathetic in modulation and so attuned to [131] reverence that I have heard more than one person say that his first few words in the pulpit did more towards lifting them to a truly religious frame of mind than the whole service ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... spot on the dial where there was re-radiation of his message, as if from a tuned receiver. But he could not get a fix on it, and nobody might be listening. He exhausted the normal communication pattern. Then he broadcast on old-fashioned amplitude modulation which a modern communicator would not pick up at all, and which therefore might be used by men ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... it is the sky which makes the landscape. Given the identical fields, woods, and retreating hills, and every change of sky, every modulation of light, will produce a new landscape; in light and atmosphere are concealed those mysteries of colour, of distance, and of tone which clothe the changeless features of the visible world with infinite variety and charm. This fruitful marriage of the upper and the lower firmaments ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... what I have been saying about Oxford Street and the House of Commons in this book, strike out all after Oxford Street and read Broadway, and all after the House of Commons and read Congress, and it would be essentially true with the necessary English or American modulation. In the same way it would be possible to go through and strike out all after the President and read ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... less prosperous Member States; NOTING that the European Investment Bank is lending large and increasing amounts for the benefit of the poorer regions; NOTING the desire for greater flexibility in the arrangements for allocation from the Structural Funds; NOTING the desire for modulation of the levels of Community participation in programmes and projects in certain countries; NOTING the proposal to take greater account of the relative prosperity of Member States in the system of own resources, REAFFIRM that the promotion of economic and social cohesion is vital to the ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union
... her affections. Speak that word—bolt and bar fly open: she takes you by the hand and welcomes you to her most sacred and secluded retreat. That word is sympathy: let her feel it in your tender embrace, see it in the glance of your eye, hear it in the modulation of your voice. It is for this she yearns and sighs, and refuses to be ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... limb of a tree, to keep her in position. As soon as she had attained the upright attitude, another peal of laughter came ringing from her lips, as wild as that with which she had announced her approach; but there was also in its tones a certain modulation that betokened scorn! Neither of us uttered a syllable; but, observing a profound silence, stood waiting to hear what she had to say. Another scornful laugh, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... can be raised and lowered at the bird's will, or be made to quiver and roll, and by this means the air column forced up from the lungs is manipulated in a wonderful way, producing in some cases an almost unlimited variety of modulation. ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... brings some others. The wounded man calls: 'Kamerad! Do not kill me!' We reassure him as to our intentions, and as he has a shattered hip we carry him to our lines, and on the way in spite of his suffering, he keeps on repeating with every kind of modulation, 'Good comrade.' He was a young man, scarcely eighteen years old, of the ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... the Lady Jane's attention, A modulation toward the theatre, Also, in the case of revolution, ...
— Hugh Selwyn Mauberley • Ezra Pound
... the use of suitable fields of force it can be used as a carrier wave. Most of this stuff of the fields of force—how to carry the modulation up and down through all the frequency changes necessary—was figured out by the Martians ages ago. Used as a pure carrier wave, with a sender and a receiver at each end, it isn't so bad—that's why our communicator and radio systems ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... others were grave. The rest of the band, as well as those who performed upon the bamboos, sung a slow and soft air, which so tempered the harsher notes of the above instruments, that no bye-stander, however accustomed to hear the most perfect and varied modulation of sweet sounds, could avoid confessing the vast power, and pleasing effect, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... island is but little. I saw the harvest of a small field. The women reaped the Corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest song, in which all their voices were united. They accompany in the Highlands every action, which can be done in equal time, with an appropriated strain, which has, they say, not much meaning; but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The ancient proceleusmatick ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... % 140. [Difference at different times.] Change. — N. change, alteration, mutation, permutation, variation, modification, modulation, inflexion, mood, qualification, innovation, metastasis, deviation, turn, evolution, revolution; diversion; break. transformation, transfiguration; metamorphosis; transmutation; deoxidization[Chem]; transubstantiation; mutagenesis[Genet], transanimation[obs3], transmigration, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... kind of whistle, chiefly used at theatres, to interrupt the actors, and damn a new piece. It derives its name from one of its sounds, which greatly resembles the modulation of an intriguing ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... this bit!" said Lancelot, desperately. And dashing at a piano that stood handy, he played a couple of bars. "That's quite a new modulation." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Poetry shapes this modulation into uniformity for its outline, and variety for its parts, because it thus realizes the last idea of beauty itself, which includes the charm of diversity within the flowing round ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... they alight on Charles Avison's "Grand March."[135] It is a simple continuous air, such as hearts could beat to in the olden time, though flat and somewhat thin, and unrelieved by those caprices of modulation which are essential to modern ears; and as it repeats itself in Mr. Browning's brain, the persistent melody gains force from its very persistence: till it fills with the sound, as it were glows with the aerial clashings, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... written at Ravenna; it is so said within itself; and the description of Dante's sepulchre there may be quoted for its truth, and the sweet modulation of the moral reflection interwoven ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... turf; as such he had often seen the brilliant 'sportman,' Victor de Mauleon; sometimes talked to him. Yes, that was the voice,—the slight Norman intonation (Victor de Mauleon's father had it strongly, and Victor had passed some of his early childhood in Normandy), the subdued modulation of speech which had made so polite the offence to men, or so winning the courtship to women,—that was Victor de Mauleon. But why there in that disguise? What was his real business and object? My confrere had no time allowed to him to prosecute such inquiries. Whether Victor or the rich ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that our analysis has confined itself to the barest elements of the musical experience. Our music to-day, with its many-voiced harmonies, with its procession of chords instead of single tones, with its modulation into related keys, has an infinite wealth and complexity defying description. A large part of the astonishing effect of music is derived from the fact that in a brief space we seem to hear and absorb so much: the careers ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... his I ever saw, "Gente Conocida," impressed me, I remember, at a time when I understood about one word in ten and had to content myself with following the general modulation of things, as carrying on to the stage, the moment the curtain rose, the very people, intonations, phrases, that were stirring in the seats about me. After the first act a broad-bosomed lady in black silk leaned back in ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... he's perfect." He began to quote softly and fluently, to her uttermost surprise. His English was at times a thing to shudder at, but his Greek was irreproachable, perfect in its modulation and its flow. Freed from all flaws of accent, the musical quality of his voice declared ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... to the new hymns was probably that species of sobbing, without distinct notes, which is still the music of the Greek Church, of the Maronites, and in general of the Christians of the East. It is less a musical modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and of emitting by the nose a sort of moaning in which all the inflections follow each other with rapidity. That odd melopoeia was executed standing, with the eyes fixed, the eyebrows crumpled, the brow ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... possesses a powerful, masculine voice, and who is a very popular speaker, but she is an exception. Anyhow I believe the worst speaker, male or female, could improve by practising private declamation, and awakening to the importance of articulation, modulation, and—the pause. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... satisfied with seeing and whose ear with hearing? Who would rather have the truth than the power to seek it? There is a way of reading Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer with a triumphant lilt in the voice. After all, it is the modulation that carries the message of the text. When you write the history of love, I find it fair reading. When you tell me love is primal and engrossing, I hold it the more a sin to crouch away ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... lovely and beloved, thou my love; Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes, Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise, Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above All modulation of the deep-bowered dove, Is like a hand laid softly on the soul; Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control Those worn tired brows it hath the ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... Mr. Torrens." A modulation of Gwen's tone was not done intentionally. It came with her wish to change ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the King, it may be added, no nomination could have given greater satisfaction. The official odes of Warton evince all the elegant traits which characterize his other writings. Their refined taste and exquisite modulation are admirable; while the matter is far less sycophantic than was to be expected from so devout a monarchist. The tender of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... particular performances with particular words conveyed to him in the finger-language. They unanimously agreed that it was quite impossible. The German set to work, and the young man now speaks very plainly and distinctly: without the least modulation, of course, but with comparatively little hesitation; expressing the words aloud as they are struck, so to speak, upon his hands; and showing the most intense and wonderful delight in doing it. This is commonly acquired, as you know, by the deaf and dumb who learn by sight; but it ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... uncertain note in the answer; if anything, there was in it more than the usual toneless decision. Mac's voice was machine-made—as innocent of modulation as a buzz-saw, and with the same uncompromising finality as the shooting of a bolt. "I'm ready to ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... richly curling hair blown back from it, is extremely fine and entirely suited to the treatment; as is also the similar contrast between the richly inlaid bow, shield, and arrows, and the broad and flowing modulation of the energetic ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... near mid-day, or before the decline of the sun, the notes of two small birds will be sure to attract our attention. These notes are very similar, and as slender and piercing as the chirp of a grasshopper, being distinguished from the latter only by a different and more pleasing modulation. The birds to which I refer are the Red Start (Muscicapa ruticilla) and the Speckled Creeper (Sylvia varia). The first is the more rarely seen of the two, being a bird of the deep forest, and shunning observation by hiding himself in the most obscure parts of the wood. In general appearance, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... outpouring when sitting at the piano in a lonely, dreary hour, perhaps in the twilight. The quaver figure rises aspiringly, and the sustained parts swell out proudly. The piquant cadenza forestalls in the progression of diminished chords favourite effects of some of our more modern composers. The modulation from C sharp minor to D major and back again (after the cadenza) is very ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... meson]; third, the conjunct, termed [Greek: synemmenon]; fourth, the disjunct, named [Greek: diezeugmenon]; the fifth, which is the highest, is termed in Greek [Greek: hyperbolaion]. The concords, termed in Greek [Greek: symphoniai], of which human modulation will naturally admit, are six in number: the fourth, the fifth, the octave, the octave and fourth, the octave and fifth, and the ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... for an answer, he sprung to the other side of the street, and was lost in darkness. Immediately on his disappearance, we heard him give a low whistle of peculiar modulation, which ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... remember, said she, putting her delicate arm upon his, remember your character and my honour. My master instantly dropped upon his knees, with eyes swimming with love, cheeks glowing with desire, and in the gentlest modulation of voice he said: My dear Caroline, in a few months our hands will be indissolubly united at the altar; our hearts I feel are already so; the favours you now grant as evidence of your affection are favours indeed; yet, when the ceremony is ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... and the voices, gave her the new sense of being at home. Nevertheless, Daisy mused a little over some things that were not altogether pleasant. The faces that she scanned had none of them the placid nobleness of the face of her black nurse; no voice within her hearing had such sweet modulation; and Daisy felt a consciousness that Juanita's little cottage lay within the bounds of a kingdom which Mrs. Randolph's drawing-room had no knowledge of. Gradually Daisy's head became full of that thought; ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Finck, "Grieg is one of the most original geniuses in the musical world of the present or past. His songs are a mine of melody, surpassed in wealth only by Schubert's, and that only because there are more of Schubert's. In originality of harmony and modulation he has only six equals: Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner, and Liszt. In rythmic invention and combination he is inexhaustible, and as orchestrator he ranks among the most fascinating. To speak of ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... attention was attracted by soft strains of music emanating from the room I had just left, and I stood still and listened. Arletta had evidently set the orchestral mechanism in motion again, and was accompanying it by tenderly singing her own requiem. With tremulous modulation, her vocal chords produced sounds such as I had never heard before, and of which I am powerless to give the faintest description. Like a statue, I stood and listened to the almost supernatural melody, and inwardly prayed that it might continue forever. ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Thirdly, his vivid, picturesque delineation of objects, and the peculiar skill with which he holds all of them fused, to borrow a metaphor from science, in a medium of strong emotion. Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, and exquisite modulation of harmonious words and cadences to the swell and fall of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, implied in these compositions, and imparting a mellow soberness of tone, more impressive, to our minds, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... metultron, surrounded by an insulating shell of inertron, and this in turn by a spherical shell of katultron, from which the current radiates in every direction, tuning being accomplished by frequency of intermissions, with audio-frequency modulation. The receiving battery has a core pole of katultron and an outer shell of metultron. The receiving battery, of course, picks up all frequencies, the undesired ones being tuned out ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... Duc de Navarreins would be very useful to me, with an all-powerful person in Russia,' she went on, persuasion in every modulation of her voice, 'whose intervention I need in order to have justice done me in a matter that concerns both my fortune and my position in the world, that is to say, the recognition of my marriage by the Emperor. Is not the Duc de Navarreins ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... gentle rest from my sleeping eye, nor doth the loud-chattering sea-mew suffer me to rest in the night, forcing its wearisome tale into my dainty ears; nor when I would lie down doth it suffer me to be refreshed, clamouring with doleful modulation of its ill-boding voice. Safer and sweeter do I deem the enjoyment of the woods. How are the fruits of rest plucked less by day or night than by tarrying tossed on ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... manner in which, in general, the verses of the French tragedy are repeated, and the delight which the French people take in the uniform and balanced modulation of voice with which they are accompanied. In an ordinary actor, this peculiar tone is often, to many foreigners, extremely fatiguing, but it is defended in France, as securing a pleasure in some degree independent of the merits of the actor, and defending ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... eloquent orator or preacher, or to a man calling angrily to another, or to one expressing astonishment, without being struck with the truth of Mr. Spencer's remarks. It is curious how early in life the modulation of the voice becomes expressive. With one of my children, under the age of two years, I clearly perceived that his humph of assent was rendered by a slight modulation strongly emphatic; and that by a peculiar whine his negative expressed obstinate determination. Mr. ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... upturned to the long, jewel-like head of Nagaya, which twined round the summit of the ebony staff, seemed to peer down at her in a sort of drowsy reflectiveness. Then, all suddenly, Lysia spoke, . . how enchanting was the exquisite modulation of that slow, languid, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... sweetness were blended in them. They were articulated with a distinctness that was unexampled in my experience. But this was not all. The voice was not only mellifluent and clear, but the emphasis was so just, and the modulation so impassioned, that it seemed as if an heart of stone could not fail of being moved by it. It imparted to me an emotion altogether involuntary and incontroulable. When he uttered the words "for charity's sweet sake," I dropped the cloth that ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... greatly that he thought it was his own. But in general it is not so much the sentiments and images that are new as the modulation of the verses in which they float. The cold obstruction of two centuries' thaws, and the stream of speech, once more let loose, seeks out its old windings, or overflows musically in unpractised channels. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... And the timbre of a perfect voice in a single long note or shake used to bring the house down in the days of our grandparents, just as the subtle orchestral blendings of Wagner entrance hearers incapable of distinguishing the notes of a chord and sometimes even incapable of following a modulation. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... Boaden's life of my uncle the following notice of Le Texier: "On one of these incidental topics we must pause for a moment, with delighted recollection. We mean the readings of the celebrated Le Texier, who, seated at a desk, and dressed in plain clothes, read French plays with such modulation of voice, and such exquisite point of dialogue, as to form a pleasure different from that of the theatre, but almost as great as we experience in listening to a first-rate actor. We have only to add to a very good account given by Mr. Boaden of this extraordinary ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... his right hand, pointing to the chairman and moving slightly to lend emphasis to his narrative, was the only thing that modified the rigid immobility of his figure. Without a single change in the pitch or modulation of his voice, never hurrying, but speaking with the slow and dreary monotony with which he had begun, he nevertheless—partly by reason of these evidences of his incredible self-control—made a formidable ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... all the other vocal sounds. They are necessarily produced at certain fixed localities or Seats of Sound, in the mouth, and by a certain fixed modulation or mechanical use of the Organs of Speech. At least they are produced in and are confined to certain circumscribed regions of the mouth, and so differ in the method of their production as to be appropriately distributed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... instead of for loudness, he opened a path in which later masters, including Wagner, eagerly followed him. Schubert was also the first composer who revealed the exquisite beauty and the great emotional power of the freest modulation from key to key. His poetic impromptus for piano became the model for Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words," and the multitudinous forms of modern short pieces, while his melodious, dainty, graceful valses were the forerunners ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... tell some secret that must not yet be uttered; and indeed, as he spoke of the change from the little street in Shepherd's Bush to that ancient house in the woods of the far west, a change seemed already to possess himself, and his voice put on the modulation of an antique chant. Mary looked at him steadily and touched his arm, and he drew a long breath before ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... which, as in the best coins, the sculptured mass projects so as to be capable of complete modulation into form, but is not anywhere undercut. The formation of a coin by the blow of a die necessitates, of course, the severest obedience ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... curious gentle, almost tender, modulation of tone in this last sentence, which covered a good deal of possible ground. Mr. Linden drew up one of her mufflers which had fallen off a little, giving her as he did so a silent though laughing answer, as comprehensive as ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... language tempts to a borrowing from the richer terminology of music. Musical terms, such as "pitch, key, note, tone, chord, modulation, nocturne, and symphony," are frequently used in the description of color, serving by association to convey certain ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest-song, in which all their voices were united.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Whinchat, the Pied-Wagtail, and the Spring- Wagtail; yet its imitations are chiefly confined to the notes of alarm (the fretting-notes as they are called here) of those birds, and so exactly does it imitate them in tone and modulation, that if it were to confine itself to one (no matter which), and not interlard the wailings of the little Redpole and the shrieks of the Martin with the curses of the House-Sparrow, the twink, twink of the Chaffinch, and its own care-for-naught ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... French. Her voice struck me—it was so musical, and adapted itself so delicately to varying shades of thought and emotion. I have often reflected how little we get out of the voice in talking. How delightful is the natural modulation which follows the sense, and how much the sense gains if it is so expressed rather than in half-inarticulate grunts, say, between the inspirations and expirations of a ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... she knew not why; her veil hid her features, and masked an expression, which, if seen by the Egyptian, would have at once damped and enraged him; in fact, he never was more displeasing to her—the harmonious modulation of the most suasive voice that ever disguised unhallowed thought fell discordantly on her ear. Her whole soul was still filled with the image of Glaucus; and the accent of tenderness from another only revolted and dismayed; yet she did not conceive ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... little progress in composition, and was more ambitious to become a brilliant performer. Hence by the periodicals of that day, he is not allowed to possess the ability of composition; harshness of modulation, melodies more singular than pleasing, and a constant struggle to be original, are among the principal faults of which he was accused. As to the latter charge it may be remarked, that it is the besetting sin ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... the time to me. Strange how exactly I remember every word he says! I could set down any conversation of his, word for word, from beginning to end; if there were any means of doing so, I could reproduce every modulation of his voice. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... incongruity between practice and precept so commonly exemplified. Comely in all respects, with his black-brown wavy hair, finely-cut features, ready and winsome smile, alert luminous eyes, quick, spontaneous, expressive gestures—an inclination of the head, a lift of the eyebrows, a modulation of the lips, an assertive or deprecatory wave of the hand, conveying so much—and a voice at that time of a singular penetrating sweetness, he was, even without that light of the future upon his forehead which she was so swift to discern, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... pronounced individuality or high artistic uplift, it none the less commands the respect due to the exhibition of a vigorous mentality combined with a notable mastery of orchestral resource and mellifluous modulation. At the conclusion of the performance Mr. Walbrook was constrained to make the transit from the artistes' room to the platform no fewer than three times before the applausive zeal of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... shews all the initial letters, or their powers in the language; the second, the number of terminations, or the remaining part of the monosyllable beside the initial; and the third, expresses the number of monosyllabic sounds that may be given to each by inflexion, or modulation of voice, and ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... was of singular quality; if she raised it the effect was not agreeable, owing possibly to its lack of strength, but in low tones, such as she employed at present, it fell on the ear with a peculiar sweetness, a natural melody in its modulation. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... stand, may hear a sermon, but it will be that of mere sound to him. I have known of people hearing somewhat after the same manner. They can tell nothing, and seem to remember nothing of what they have heard. Some hear to criticise the preacher's style of expression, including his language, modulation of his voice, and gestures. Others hear as the Pharisees and Herodians tried to hear Christ, "that they might catch him in his talk;" and like the scribes and Pharisees, "laying in wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth" with which to accuse him. But these ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... trace to excite obscene thoughts. Never was a child rubbed with oil below the belt; the rest of their bodies thus retained its fresh bloom and down, like a velvety peach. They were not to be seen approaching a lover and themselves rousing his passion by soft modulation of the voice and lustful gaze. At table, they would not have dared, before those older than themselves, to have taken a radish, an aniseed or a leaf of parsley, and much less eat fish or thrushes or cross ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
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