"Intonation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interrogative particle. Ex. Mika na klatawa okook sun? do you go to-day? Interrogation is, however, often conveyed by intonation only. ...
— Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon • George Gibbs
... visible form, incarnating themselves in man. One language the master had to serve him in all need—the language of plastic human form; but it was to him a tongue as rich in its variety of accent and of intonation as Beethoven's harmonies. ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... as surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken with this perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity of his blue eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood. She continued. "For—I can speak to you openly on this tiresome subject—only think what a terrible strain this hope deferred must be ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... light, and in two noiseless strides pass into the shadows on the port side of the quarterdeck. They answered in divers tones: in thick mutters, in clear, ringing voices; and some, as if the whole thing had been an outrage on their feelings, used an injured intonation: for discipline is not ceremonious in merchant ships, where the sense of hierarchy is weak, and where all feel themselves equal before the unconcerned immensity of the sea and the exacting appeal of the work. Mr. Baker read on steadily:—"Hansen—Campbell—Smith—Wamibo. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... country gentlewoman brought up among her female slaves like an oriental princess, were in the habit of having themselves lulled to sleep by them. They are almost invariably told in the same words; and as much as possible with the same intonation of voice. One Skazkochnik, or Skazkochnitza, adopts this manner from another. The traditions of Vladimir and his giant heroes are the favourite, but not the exclusive subjects of these tales. They are also printed ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... in a way that would get her turned out of any respectable house, and is chased off the stage by the old gentleman in a manner that no gentleman ever chases his servants. Something is the matter with the men's legs: they all move by two steps and a hitch. They all speak with an intonation as unlike the English of real life as if they talked Greek. The young people make fools of the old people in a way they would never dream of in life,—and the old people are preternaturally stupid in submitting to be made fools of. After seeing one of these classics, let ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and comfort that little creature must be to you, Mrs. Huntingdon!' he observed, with a touch of sadness in his intonation, as he ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... will say for this never still small voice of mine: its intonation is always perfect; it keeps ideal time, and its quality, though rather thin and somewhat nasal and quite peculiar, is not unsympathetic. Sometimes, indeed (as in that Islington omnibus), I can compel it to imitate, a s'y meprendre, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... brown-complexioned, and dark-eyed, with a brisk and resolute cast of countenance, that, Ethel thought, might have suited the Norman of Glenbracken, who died on the ruddy Lion of Scotland, and speaking with the very same slight degree of Scottish intonation as she remembered in her mother, making a most ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... out and silently shook hands. When he spoke, instead of the perfectly enunciated, picturesquely profane rebuke which the silk-shirted boy was waiting to hear, his voice was even smoother and softer, and choicer of intonation than usual. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... Postage Department should be. What that is, at present, I do not exactly know. However. Excursion trains will be run from distant shires to see this Postage Department. American visitors to London will do it before going on to the Tower. And now,' he broke off, with a crisp, businesslike intonation, 'I must ask you to excuse me. Much as I have enjoyed this little chat, I fear it must now cease. The time has come to work. Our trade rivals are getting ahead of us. The whisper goes round, "Rossiter and Psmith are talking, not working," ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... passion?" repeated grandmother with a parrot-like intonation. "Not one of the Lord's ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... his voice gathered in strength and condemnatory intonation as he proceeded, and when he had finished it seemed to many as though he were the judge and those to whom he spoke were criminals. More than one of the jury, who had been unconvinced, but who had given way to the opinions of others, felt as though his words were true. They shuddered as he ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... know your Scriptures," Dora was saying, with a sad intonation which marked Tottie as one of those past redemption, "I'll repeat the reference for you: 'Curiosity was given to man as a scourge.'" Then in anything but a spirit proper to a biblical quotation, she slammed the ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... to grow more obscure. Suddenly Denis Donohoe broke into song. They were going over a level stretch of ground. The donkey walked quietly. The quivering voice rang out over the darkening landscape, gaining in quality and in steadiness, a clear light voice, the notes coming with the instinctive intonation, the perfect order of the born folk singer. It was some old Gaelic song, a refrain that had been preserved like the trunks of the primeval oaks in the bogs, such a refrain as might claim kinship with the ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... thoughts which knitted their brow. Others whispering in their neighbour's ears, confiding to each other exceedingly mysterious and terribly important pieces of news, finger on lip, eyes opened wide in silent recommendation to discretion. A provincial flavour characterized it all, varieties of intonation, the violence of southern speech, drawling accents of the central districts, the sing-song of Brittany, fused into one and the same imbecile self-conceit, frock-coats as they cut them at Landerneau, mountain shoes, home-spun linen, and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Her intonation demanded a negative, but Artois did not hasten to give it. Instead he turned the conversation ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and laughed, and twirled up the ends of his mustaches till they presented a particularly desperate appearance. Yet there was a faint intonation of anxiety in his ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... suppose she would refuse you!" cried Lord Maxwell, and could not for the life of him keep the sarcastic intonation out of his voice. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I have seen somewhere," he quietly finished, but with a meaning smile and intonation. "How you do snap a fellow up, Aunt Margie! Here, give me the money, and I will clear out ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... or the low voice of some new-comer seeking a place to hitch. Not half those who came could find room in the house: they stood uncovered among the trees. From within, wafted through the window, came the faint odour of flowers, and the occasional minor intonation of someone speaking—and finally our own Scotch Preacher! I could not see him, but there lay in the cadences of his voice a peculiar note of peacefulness, of finality. The day before he died Dr. North ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... according to Garrick, covers the actor and his art. The same may be said of the raconteur. Oral tradition, or even his own writings, may preserve his precise words; but his peculiarities of voice or action, his tricks of utterance and intonation,—all the collateral details which serve to lend distinction or piquancy to the performance—perish irrecoverably. The glorified gramophone of the future may perhaps rectify this for a new generation; and give ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... and phrases. He can only recall the meaning of what she said, and the sensation her words evoked in him. He remembers her voice, which seemed stifled and husky with emotion, and the extraordinary music and passion of her intonation. Laughing, crying with tears glistening on her eyelashes, she told him that from the first day of their acquaintance he had struck her by his originality, his intelligence, his kind intelligent eyes, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the rough deal table, was covered with tattooed hieroglyphics, an anchor, a mermaid, and a heart, of course! Anyone conversant with the Welsh language would have divined at once, by the long-drawn intonation of the first words in every remark, that the subject of conversation was one of ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... said, with that peculiar and pleasant intonation that marks the speech of the Hebridean who has been taught English in the schools, "it wass Miss Sheila wrote to me to Suainabost, and she said I might come down from Suainabost and see if I can be of any help to you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... exceedingly good and kind of you to think so much for me, and so little for yourself," answered my companion. She spoke with her face turned away from me, so that I was unable to read its expression, and her voice had an intonation that I would have given much to have been able to translate. Was it merely my imagination—I asked myself—or was there really a recurrent shade of her former hauteur of manner, mingled with just the faintest suggestion of irony and impatience? The fact is that I was at that moment as far from ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... to his courtesies only by carrying his hand to his heart and then to his forehead, in the recognized Mussulman manner. He did not speak one word of French, and yet, when Carmen passed, he said "Beautiful!" with a guttural intonation. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... forest, at a point admirably suited to deeds of violence, we met a couple of Torpindas, who stopped us to inquire the way to the nearest town; at least I conclude that this was their object, from the peculiar gestures which they used, and the intonation which they gave to their voices; for as to their words, of these I could make nothing. Having just been stuffed with a tale of their lawless habits, the sight of these persons threw me, of course, on the alert. I grasped the butt of my gaff-stick,—an ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... rather pettish intonation in Fleur-de-Lys's—laconic words. The young man understood that it was indispensable that he should whisper something in her ear, a commonplace, a gallant compliment, no matter what. Accordingly he bent down, but he could find nothing in his imagination more ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... handsome, spreading, and with a mixed European and indigenous arrangement and furnishing that was very attractive. I met his sons and daughters, and had luncheon with them. Tati, of course, spoke English fluently, yet with the soft intonation of the Tahitian. Some of the dishes and knives and forks had belonged to Robert Louis Stevenson, who, said Tati, had given them to him when he was departing from Tahiti. Tati's sister, a widow, was of the party, and together we went to the Protestant churchyard to her husband's ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the intonation in the parson's voice was necessary unto his calling, and that he did not want ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... indescribable intonation, 'ask Mr. Falkirk that, Dr. Maryland. Poor Mr. Falkirk! he is learning every day of his life what it is to know me "a ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... and touching to hear as Elizabeth. In the duet with Tannhauser she had some splendid moments of representation, and her great scene in the finale she sang and realised in an incomparable manner. Formes's intonation was firm, pure, and correct, and there was no sign of fatigue in the narration, where his sonorous, powerful voice told admirably. Altogether Formes is not only adequate but highly satisfactory, in spite of his small stature, which, especially ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... cigarette-cases, their bridge purses and their slangy talk. One of those loud young women would be the death of me in a week—and you know Toni's voice is delightfully soft, with quite a Southern intonation—caught in ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... general deficient in soul, in that nameless something which never ceases to attract and enchant us, even because it is indefinable. In the lyrical pieces, his Masques, we feel the want of a certain mental music of imagery and intonation, which the most accurate observation of difficult measures cannot give. He is everywhere deficient in those excellencies which, unsought, flow from the poet's pen, and which no artist, who purposely hunts for them, can ever hope to find. We must not quarrel with him, however, for entertaining ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... with grave courtesy, "but letters I received made it preferable that I should come back here, and the doctor kindly gives me an abiding-place. Excuse me," and he passed the major by and went on and bent over the sofa and took Miss Bayard's hand and greeted her with tender intonation in every word, even while he bowed pleasantly ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... his grave. But before she made the natural application or drew the familiar comparison between his failure and her own, Elsie clapped the lid down on her thoughts with a thud. Turning resolutely to Miss Pritchard, she asked her, with strange intonation, if she thought the snow ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... the appalling roar that burst upon our ears immediately after that shot was fired. I can compare it to nothing, for nothing I ever heard was like it. If the reader can conceive a human fiend endued with a voice far louder than that of the lion, yet retaining a little of the intonation both of the man's voice and of what we should suppose a fiend's voice to be, he may form some slight idea of what that roar was. It is impossible to describe it. Perhaps Mak's expression in regard to it is the most emphatic and truthful: it was absolutely ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... the intonation of that 'you' had curled Tom's lip with mischief, and dreading that Leonard should discover and resent his mood, she said, 'We think one of your sea eggs has got among ours; will you come ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sound a provincial can make words as well as any one else. The proposition is, the word is the word spoken and not the word written, unless the word is spoken by a provincial. To be the word, it must be intoned and articulated in accordance with the intonation and articulation of the literati. If this is the logical outcome of the position taken by the "spelling reformers," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... a very unbending viceroy, a must from the reigning baronet had a potent effect on Markham, whether it was for good or evil. He might grumble, but he never disobeyed, and the boy he was used to scold and order had found that Morville intonation of the must, which took away all idea of resistance. He ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had risen, and was shining into the room. By its light he could see the outline of the beds. Around him there ascended a choral harmony composed of snores of every degree, reaching from the mild, mellow intonation of Clive, down to the deep, hoarse, sepulchral drone of Uncle Moses. In spite of his vexation about his wakefulness, a smile passed over Bob's face, as he listened to those ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... was now in the midst of the flames and the cry he let out was truly blood-curdling. Excited as he was, Pawnee Brown did not let the intonation of that cry escape him. Understanding the Indian language well, he knew it was more than a cry of terror or pain, it was a call for help! Other Indians must be somewhere in ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... from the activity of understanding to that of contemplation, and behold that thought either developed before us, limpid, exact, well-shaped, without superfluous words, without lack of words, with appropriate rhythm and intonation; or confused, broken, embarrassed, tentative. Great thinkers are sometimes termed great writers, while other equally great thinkers remain more or less fragmentary writers, if indeed their fragments are scientifically to be compared with ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... objection," he replied quietly enough but with that inflexible intonation which automatically arouses antagonism, since it puts into its "I want's" and its "I don't want's" a tyrannical finality, "to this young gentleman visiting us. I extended him hospitality. I even liked him. But it has come rather too much, for ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... were inflamed with varied passions, while the persons of many bore marks of recent injury. No one replied to his friendly greeting, and their whole conversation was carried on in Erse, although every intonation and gesture was replete with passion. Suddenly he saw the landlady beckoning him out of the room, and, rising, he approached her as if to give directions about ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... with the great epic opened pretty nearly to the place, and very soon found the passage: He read, aloud with grand scholastic intonation and in a deep voice that silenced the table as if a prophet had just uttered Thus saith ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... said Paul, with that desperate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a cast,—"I was thinking that I should like to ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... host of mirrors, all this combined, which the eye conveys to the brain at a single glance, utterly fails in description. As with the eye, so it is with the ear; at every step a new language falls upon it, and every tongue with different intonation, for the high and the low, the prince, peer, vassal, and tradesman, the proud beauty, the decrepit crone, some fresh budding into the world, some standing near the grave, the gentle and the stern, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... time, dear wife, must go heavily with me as I think of you suffering and lonely. So be good to me, and let not too long a time elapse between my glimpses of hope. And, sweetheart, when you do come to me, it shall be for ever!" There was something in the intonation of the last sentence—I felt its sincerity myself—some implied yearning for a promise, that made her beautiful eyes swim. The glorious stars in them were blurred as she answered with a fervour which seemed to me as ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... "No intonation of mine can do justice to the very ecstasy of impatience with which the pertinacious questioner actually ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... those which rose spontaneously and unconsciously with the thought, and were wholly unstudied; thus presenting an obvious contrast to the manner and action of his friend Randolph, whose every attitude, the slightest motion of whose finger, the faintest intonation of whose voice, whose every smile and frown, natural as they seemed, were the deliberate reflection ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... him through with my bayonet," he answered with the foolish intonation peculiar to soldiers; "and if he made off, I ought to shoot him," he added, obviously proud of knowing what he must do ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... your pardon," the stranger said, addressing him in pure and limpid English, which sounded to Philip like the dialect of the very best circles, yet with some nameless difference of intonation or accent which certainly was not foreign, still less provincial, or Scotch, or Irish; it seemed rather like the very purest well of English undefiled Philip had ever heard,—only, if anything, a little more so; "I beg your pardon, but I'm a stranger hereabouts, and I should be so VERY much obliged ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... time files of men arrived, completely naked, their arms outstretched, and all holding one another by the shoulders. From the depths of their breasts they drew forth a hoarse and cavernous intonation; their eyes, which were fastened upon the colossus, shone through the dust, and they swayed their bodies simultaneously, and at equal distances, as though they were all affected by a single movement. They were so frenzied that to restore order the hierodules compelled them, with blows of the stick, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... the singing commenced, to the evident delight of all present. Not even all the disadvantage of nasal intonation could prevent the effect of the naturally fine voices, in airs at once wild and spirited. The words were sometimes the well-known and common hymns sung in the churches about, and sometimes of a wilder, more indefinite character, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the intonation of this response, and then slowly added: "But you must have heard of one of Gustave's friends, a man ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... one of the adults played a yodel on his trombone sounding like this: "Ka-ka-ka, k-wilt, k-wilt, k-wilt", the first three short syllables enunciated rapidly, and the "k-wilts" in a more measured way, with a peculiar guttural intonation, giving the full sound to the k and w. The birds became very shy when they thought themselves shadowed, not understanding what my pursuit might imply, and they gave utterance to harsh cries of warning that were different from any that had preceded. It was presently followed ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... poison for her rival; one of the very finest examples of Browning's unique power of compressing and concentrating intense emotion into a few pregnant words, each of which has its own visible gesture and audible intonation. ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... of his preoccupation a little vaguely. "Why, yes. Yes, of course," he said absently. Then, coming a little further, and with a different intonation, he went on: "We're really getting pressed for time, you see. And the opening won't wait for anybody. It's hard ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... as aforetime, with a deep, solemn intonation:—the maiden's blood seemed to curdle with horror. A pause of bewildering and mysterious terror followed. One brief minute in the lapse of time,—but an age in the records of thought! Constance, fearful of looking on the dark ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... around with that quiet, well-bred air of his which seemed to take everything for granted. Having satisfied himself that all were assembled, he cleared his throat and began to read. His manner and intonation suggested family prayers; and Myra, not doubting that this must be some kind of postscript to the burial service for the private consolation of the family, let her mind wander. The word 'testament' in the first sentence seemed to make ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mr. Parkinson; and envied him and internally noted, and with an unholy fervor cursed, the adroitness of intonation and the discreetly modulated gesture with which the colonel gave to every point of his merry-Andrewing its ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... from which the light did not reflect; and her dull complexion, with gray, almost leaden, tones. The lower part of the face, more triangular than oval, ended irregularly the otherwise irregular outline of her face. Her voice had a rather pretty range of intonation, from sharp to sweet. Elisabeth was a perfect specimen of the second-rate little bourgeoisie who lectures her husband behind the curtains; obtains no credit for her virtues; is ambitious without intelligent object, and solely through the development of her domestic selfishness. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... in a strained, despairing tone, "could I have done any thing to save her? I have been engrossed with my own affairs, my own dreams of advancement. I wanted to have money again, but it was for her sake and my mother's," with a lingering tremulous intonation. "She has been too solitary, she has brooded over every thing. But she would not go out, or see any company; and somehow it was our misfortune to grow up without any warm, vital interest in each other. When I was a boy I used to like it ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... returned Aramis, with the same intonation on the word friend that he had applied to it the first time—"I mean that if there has been any confusion, scandal, and even effort in the substitution of the prisoner for the king, I ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be to poetic beauty.—A literal translation in the plainest prose, will always shew the precise quantity of real poetic matter, contained in any Production, independent of the music of its intonation, and numbers, and the elegance of its style.—The prose translations of Horace' Odes evince that their merit does not consist in the plenitude of poetic matter, or essence, constituted by circumstances of startling interest, by exalted ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... turned and walked quickly down the stairs to the door, turning to me just as he reached it and adding with an almost spiteful intonation, "But then again, what clarity of mind can be expected from someone from the unenlightened past." He then left the room, closing the door with a powerful thud, after which I heard a small metallic click and his ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... indentations of the brow (suggesting an habitual conflict with, and mastery over, passion), which did not seem so much to disdain a sympathy with trivialities as to be incapable of denoting them. Nor had his voice, so far as I could discover in our quiet talk, much change or richness of intonation, but he always spoke with earnestness, and his eyes (glorious conductors of the light within) burned with a steady fire which no one could mistake for mere affability; they were one grand expression of the well-known line: "I am a man, and interested in all that ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... table gave her an excuse for silence. She had only to attend to her cups and saucers, and to listen to Miss Wendover and her nephew, who had plenty to talk about. To hear that deep full voice, with its perfect intonation, was in itself a pleasure—pleasant, also, to discover that Brian Wendover, albeit a famous Balliol man and a Greek scholar after the Porsonian ideal, could still be warmly interested in simple things and lowly folk. She began to feel at ease in his ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... that?" said Leon to Stubbs. "It is not too late for you. Mark the intonation. And now," he continued, "what are ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hurt by the taunting intonation which pointed this remark, replied frankly, "I suppose I must have been guilty of imagining that I had; but, indeed, it was unpremeditated vanity. I really did not reflect upon the subject. I was only anxious to get over the dilemma ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... A woman of genius, Mademoiselle Rachel, had brought back its long forgotten glory to the Theatre Francais. For my part I never saw anything so absolutely perfect on the stage. With hardly any gesture, simply by the play of her countenance, her expressive glance, and the intonation of her voice, she expressed all the passions with an intensity that affected all her audience. She had a genius for dress and drapery. In her peplum she might have been taken for an antique statue, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... intonation. 'But you see, at Rome it is really so much better for the character to do as Rome does. To be out of the way makes one self-conscious. Your mother didn't ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no doubt be death to those on whom her eyes had smiled, for whom her set lips had parted, for those whose soul had drunk in the melody of that voice, lending to her words the poetry of song by its peculiar intonation. Inhaling the perfume of violets that accompanied her, I understood how the memory of this wife had arrested the Count on the threshold of debauchery, and how impossible it would be ever to forget a creature who really was a flower to the touch, a flower to the eye, a flower of fragrance, ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... exclaimed Courtney, with a little intonation of surprise and curiosity, which his good breeding prevented him from formulating more explicitly. As David made no rejoinder, he presently continued: "Then— er—perhaps you might find it in your way to dine with me this evening. Only one ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... animal in a trap. But the coils of rope held her; the scarf suffocated her. The scuffling became a spasmodic sound, with intervals between, and then ceased altogether. A voice spoke—a man's voice—Wethermill's. But Celia would never have recognised it—it had so shrill and fearful an intonation. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... a smile that was half a leer and an intonation that was little less than a sneer—"here is a spot that will scarce have enough attraction for your worship to merit your ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a wide experience of life, a man of the world, who possessed an almost inspired faculty of observation. Schopenhauer, of all men, unmistakably observed life at first hand. There is no academic echo in his utterances; he is not one of a school; his voice has no formal intonation; it is deep, full-chested, and rings out its words with all the poignancy of individual emphasis, without bluster, but with unfailing conviction. He was for his time, and for his country, an adept at literary form; but he used ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... often heard, and yet does it come over my feelings with the freshness of native air!" Then rising, he approached his mild and dignified companion, adding, in tones but little above a whisper, "Lady repeat those words; change not a syllable, nor vary the slightest intonation of the voice, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... right!" said a new voice, with a transatlantic intonation, "though I'd like to point out, here and now, that things are getting a mite difficult. There's not the sympathy there was, and a growing disposition to let the Irish settle their own affairs ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... weeks preceding the day upon which she had promised to tell Prince Andras if she would consent to become his wife or not. It was a yes, almost as curt as another refusal, which fell at last from the lips of the Tzigana. But the Prince was not cool enough to analyze an intonation. ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... fact proudly, though her soft r in "American," and slightly nasal intonation, would have established her ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... d'Etain, we shall find much to remind us of the 15th century. If we take a walk by the beautiful banks of the Rille on a summer's evening, or in the fields where the peasants are at work, we shall find the aspect curiously English, and in the intonation of the voices the resemblance is sometimes startling; we seem hardly amongst foreigners—both in features and in voice there is a strong family likeness. There is a close tie of blood relationship no doubt, of ancient habits and natural tastes; but, in spite ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... in the slouchy speech and intonation of the hills. "I jest came in with dad this mornin', bringin' a wagon load ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... wait for me. I seem to have a date with—a lady." There was an unpleasant intonation ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... first rank, but one whose voice is marred by some slight faults of production. In this case the critic will note exactly the same sort of differences in tonal value as in the case of the violinist. Some of the singer's notes will be perfect musical tones, others will be marred by faults of intonation or of quality. But a great difference will be noted between faulty tones played on the violin, and faulty tones sung by the human voice. In addition to their blemishes as musical tones, the faulty notes of the voice also convey to the critical ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... learned singing on the stage; making the public pay for her tuition. On the contrary, nature has manifestly not been bountiful to her in this respect. Her voice—the mere organ—may have been in her earlier years exceeded in quality by many other vocalists. But what is it now? Perfect in intonation; its lower tones forcible; the middle voice firm and full; the upper interval sweet and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... not avail you: her song will penetrate through all; for therein is every grace that Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope herself, could inspire. In a word, imagine that you hear such notes as should issue from those lips, those teeth that you have seen. Her perfect intonation, her pure Ionic accent, her ready Attic eloquence, need not surprise you; these are her birthright; for is not Smyrna Athens' daughter? And what more natural than that she should love poetry, and make it her chief study? Homer is her fellow ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... sales; in the dealers, gentlemen generally of pronounced idiosyncrasies; in the auctioneers themselves, robust fellows, wielding a sort of rugged wit singular to their calling, masters of deep guile, endowed with intuitions which enabled them at a glance or from the mere intonation of a voice to discriminate between the serious-minded and those frivolous souls who bid without meaning to buy, but as a rule for nothing more than the curious satisfaction of being able to brag ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... responded, with an intonation as fine as if he had learnt it at a music hall; while at the same moment the name of his mother's carriage was bawled through the place. Mrs. Tramore had parted with her old gentleman; she turned again to her daughter. Nothing occurred but what always occurred, which was exactly this absence ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... so," said Mr. Pope, with a peculiar intonation; and after that he proceeded with great suavity to cross-examine her into a state of utter bewilderment. As to what had happened after the accident she contradicted herself six or seven times over, eagerly accepting any suggestion which he held ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... for politics that there seemed little likelihood of his devoting himself to the business of law. He soon became known at Oxford as a charming poet, a keen and brilliant satirist, and a public speaker endowed with a voice of marvellous intonation and an exquisite choice of words. He made the acquaintance of Sheridan and of Burke; by Burke he was introduced to Pitt, and by Sheridan to Fox, and it is believed to have been on the suggestion of Pitt that he resolved to devote himself to a ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... dark eyebrows rose, and her brown eyes grew round and big; in a moment all the faint glow of color had left her pale cheeks, and her intonation expressed alarm ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... (never very successful) to strike off the shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it—as water runs beneath ice—more, I think, a matter of intonation and significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which, coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty well and ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... sniffed and waved his hand comprehensively. "You must leave these sordid surroundings," he said in a beautifully modulated voice in which a bad cold and a Yale intonation struggled for precedence, "and ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... exceedingly well," replied Crane, with a curious intonation. "He was dressed as he was yesterday, in that purple costume copied from the portrait of his ancestor in the sixteenth century. He had his skates ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... half out of the door when he turned, and said with an intonation quite foreign either to Beveridge or Bunker, and yet which came very pleasantly, "I forgot to warn you of one thing when I advised you to try the role of certified lunatic—you are not likely to make so good ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... immortal evening. Wordsworth's fine intonation as he quoted Milton and Virgil, Keats' eager inspired look, Lamb's quaint sparkle of lambent humour, so speeded the stream of conversation, that in my life I never passed a more delightful time. All our fun was within bounds. Not a word passed that an apostle ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... would not try to improve on what I say. They seem to miss the fact that the very art of saying a thing effectively is in its delicacy, and as they can't reproduce the manner and intonation in type they make it emphatic and clumsy in trying to convey ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... minutes, staring up at the brilliant blue arch above him. Then he began to speak rapidly and earnestly; a man just close enough to hear his voice sweeping up to a certain rhetorical climax, pausing there and commencing again with a rhythmic fluency of intonation, might have thought that he was repeating poetry; indeed, it sounded like some of Milton's majestic blank verse, but it was not. Andy was engaged in a methodical, scientific, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... Mester Machin!" murmured the old woman as he left. He never knew precisely what she meant. Fifteen—twenty—years later in his career her intonation of that phrase would recur to him and ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... careful skill of a coiffeur. Half-shut, smouldering eyes had met his for an instant at dinner across the table and had told him she was a woman subtle and complex. Slightest shades of meaning she could convey with a lift of the eyebrow or an intonation of the musical voice. If she was already fencing with the encroaching years there was little evidence of it in her opulent good looks. She had manifestly specialized in graceful idleness and was prepared to meet with superb confidence the competition of debutantes. ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... had a joyous intonation that produced a strange effect amid the prevailing gloom. Desiree motioned to him not to speak, pointing to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet |
