"Syllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the street—occasioned by the appearance of the Honourable Giles Henderson,—of the blameless life. Utter a syllable against him if you can! These words should be inscribed on his buttons if he had any—but he has none. They seem to be, unuttered, on the tongues of the gentlemen who escort the Honourable Giles, United States Senator Greene and the Honourable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... speak of that again, they will be the last words I will ever exchange with you. My offer is still open—you can have the money if you wish it—but never another syllable like this! Understand ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... she walked back across the ridge-pole and climbed in the window. There was nothing for Tom to do but follow; which he did slowly and reluctantly. Something would have to be said now, at any rate. But not a syllable said Gypsy. She went to the looking-glass, and began to brush her hair as unconcernedly as if everything were just as she left it and precisely ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... a word appears, in the official returns of the wounded at the siege of Calvi, to intimate the fact; though not a single syllable of regret is expressed, in the dispatches of either commander in chief; it was at this very siege, that the hero had the misfortune to be entirely deprived of the sight of his right eye. The calamitous accident was occasioned by a shot from one of the enemy's ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... thousands been raised in Scotland, for the last forty years, to fit out and to maintain beyond seas whomsoever the dissenting ministers of London chose to ordain as missionaries to the heathen? God forbid, that I should ever whisper a syllable against missions to the heathen! But I have seen too many missionaries, not to have seen more than I choose to mention, whom men possessed of the least discernment would never have presumed to send forth on such ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... sounds from the back of the court like hisses, and voices choked off on the first syllable by rappings and calls of "Order!" The small man who was Mr. Dingley's associate attorney was calling out, "I object, your Honor," ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... is your uncle"—pointing to me—"who has come all the way to honour you with a visit. Mind you don't disappoint him. His name is Maeterlinck." Krall pronounced the first syllable German-fashion: Mah. "You understand: Maeterlinck. Now show him that you know your letters and that you can spell a name correctly, like a clever boy. Go ahead, we're listening." Muhamed gives a short neigh and, on the small, movable board at his feet, strikes first with his right hoof ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... to be submitted to the king," writes Mr. Bunn, and he looked forward to the result with anxious curiosity. On the 7th of February came an answer from Sir Thomas Mash. "I have the pleasure to return your drawing without a syllable of objection." On the 8th, "Bertrand et Raton," under the name of "The Minister and the Mercer," was first produced on ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... board before him, nor dared lift Shy, heavy lids from pupils black as grapes That dart the imprisoned sunshine from their core. But in her ears keen sense was born to catch, And in her heart strange power to hold, each tone O' the low-keyed, vibrant voice, each syllable O' the eloquent discourse, enriched with tales Of venturous travel, brilliant with fine points Of delicate humor, or illustrated With living portraits of world-famoused men, Jews, Saracens, Crusaders, Islamites, Whose hand he had grasped—the iron warrior, Godfrey of Bouillon, the wise infidel ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... in each ryme with fire, and obeying Ercildoune's precept, "Tong is chefe of mynstrelsye," to the syllable.—Don Giovanni's hitherto fondly chanted "Andiam, andiam," become suddenly impersonal and prophetic: IT shall go, and you also. A cry—before it is a song, then song and accompaniment together—perfectly done; and the march "towards ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Jesus was three years after this introducing the gospel of the kingdom, unwaveringly holding his meetings on the Sabbath days, (which our opponents say were now about to be abolished; others say changed,) and never uttering a syllable to show to the contrary, but this was and always would be the holy day for worship. Mark says when the Sabbath (the Seventh day, for there was no other,) was come, he began to teach in the Synagogue, vi: [22]2. Luke says, "as his custom was, ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... from Accident, and (II) those which were Intentional. Under the former class we find (1) those which were involved in pure Accident, or (2) in what is termed Homoeoteleuton where lines or sentences ended with the same word or the same syllable, or (3) such as arose in writing from Uncial letters, or (4) in the confusion of vowels and diphthongs which is called Itacism, or (5) in Liturgical Influence. The remaining instances may be conveniently classed as Intentional, not because in all cases there was a ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... to say," asked Miss Resker, after a slight pause, "that you have taught Tobermory to say and understand easy sentences of one syllable?" ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Mr. Barrallier and the second mate met a native in the woods whom they brought on board. "He was a little elderly man, strait made, and spoke not one syllable that was intelligible." His legs and arms bore no proportion in length to the rest of his body, and his manner of ascending the ship's ladder was remarkable and proved that he was much accustomed to climbing. His method was ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... her brows gravely. Was the speaker referring to her? Clasping her hands tight, she leaned forward a little, straining to catch every syllable. As a rule when gossip or criticism was talked in her hearing, it was insured against being understood by the use of strange terms, spellings, winks, nods, shrugs, or sudden stops at the most important point. But now, with ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... our Redeemer, as Man, "in the days of His flesh," omniscient? It says a profound and decisive yes to the question, Is our Redeemer, as Man, "in the days of His flesh," to be absolutely trusted as the Truth in every syllable of assertion which He was actually pleased to make? "He whom God hath sent, speaketh the words ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... of my life and softly turn the leaves of happy memories. But there! Enough! 'The darkest hour oft precedes the dawn!' I will not despair. In your hands and my darling Eleanor's I leave my fate. Something tells me that, between you, you will save me! In the mean season not a word, not a syllable to any one. And now let us have some music and banish these ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... praying for His crucifiers, comforting the thief on the cross, providing for His mother, communing with God. More and more his interest was excited and his heart stirred, till at last he was standing opposite the cross,[9] drinking in every syllable and devouring every movement; and, when the final prayer was uttered and the earthquake answered it, his rising conviction brimmed over and he could ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... asked Pao-yue, as he simultaneously cast a glance at the servant-girl, who although not a beauty was anyhow so spick and span, and possessed besides a few charms sufficient to touch the heart. From shame, her face was red and her ears purple, while she lowered her head and uttered not a syllable. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... finger-tip That dints the dimple now, and kinks the lip That scarce may sing in all this glad increase Of merriment! So, pray thee, do not cease To cheer me thus, for underneath the quip Of thy droll sorcery the wrangling fret Of all distress is still. No syllable Of sorrow vexeth me, no tear drops wet My teeming lids, save those that leap to tell Thee thou'st a guest that overweepeth yet Only ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... no fear! if he breathes a syllable, 'twill be to bruise his own knuckles; he will have to fight to defend his own head. We shall teach him not to insult the mysteries of the goddesses.[55] But fasten a rope to the window, tie it around your body and let yourself ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... Jondrette had said: "They are chimney-builders," had armed themselves from the pile of old iron, one with a heavy pair of shears, the second with weighing-tongs, the third with a hammer, and had placed themselves across the entrance without uttering a syllable. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely opened his eyes. The Jondrette woman had ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... you are feeling very meek after your road lesson and your runaway, Esmeralda, and are a perfect Uriah Heep for 'umbleness, and are, henceforth and forever, going to believe every syllable that your master utters, and to obey every command the instant that it is given, and—there, that will do! And you are going to take one private lesson so as to learn a few little things before you display your progress ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... the most signal triumphs in giving the Bible to a people in their own language, and printed in a way so simple as to be very easily acquired by them, is that of the translation and printing of the Book in the syllable characters. These syllabic characters were invented by the Rev James Evans, one of the early Methodist missionaries to the scattered tribes of Indians in what were then known as the Hudson Bay Territories. For some years Mr Evans had been employed as a missionary among ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... hand, from observation and reflection. He had excellent command of the English language, and could express what he wished with sharp, defined outlines, and without the waste of a word. The rhythmical structure of his prose is carefully correct. Scarcely a syllable is ever out of place. His ear for verse, though less true, is seldom wholly at fault, and whether in prose or verse, he had the superlative merit that he could never write nonsense. If one of the motives of poetical form be to clothe thought ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... be this Unknown, that had thus passed by, as in a morning dream, leaving merely flowers and fairy footsteps to tell of her loveliness? There was a mystery in it that bewildered me. It was so vague and disembodied, like those "airy tongues that syllable men's names" in solitude. Every attempt to solve the mystery was vain. I could hear of no being in the neighborhood to whom this trace could be ascribed. I haunted the spot, and became daily more and more enamored. Never, surely, was passion more pure and spiritual, and never lover in more ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... "I believe every syllable of it!" cried the Countess with enthusiasm, "and glory that there is a mind brave enough, and a hand obedient to it, to smoke out ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... to be at, That cut, like tallies, to the stumps, Our ears for keeping true accompts, And burnt our vessels, like a new 755 Seal'd peck, or bushel, for b'ing true; But hand in hand, like faithful brothers, Held for the Cause against all others, Disdaining equally to yield One syllable of what we held, 760 And though we differ'd now and then 'Bout outward things, and outward men, Our inward men, and constant frame Of spirit, still were near the same; And till they first began to ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... this unwonted hour, light was still burning. The door was opened by no less a person than Andrew Fairservice himself, who, upon the first sound of my voice, set up a loud shout of joyful recognition, and, without uttering a syllable, ran up stairs towards a parlour on the second floor, from the windows of which the light proceeded. Justly conceiving that he went to announce my return to the anxious Owen, I followed him upon the foot. Owen was not alone, there was another in the apartment—it ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... ("History") "ascribed to John Knox in his whole discourse showeth a bitter and hateful spite against the Regent, forging dishonest things which were never so much as suspected by any, setting down his own conjectures as certain truths, yea, the least syllable that did escape her in passion, he maketh it an argument of her cruel and inhuman disposition . . . " {279b} In the MS. used by Bishop Keith, {279c} Spottiswoode added, after praising the Regent, "these things I have heard my father often affirm"; he had ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... some tobacco, that he eagerly crammed into his mouth and then, keeping fast hold of his weapon he hurried off, without uttering a single syllable, although I asked him many things ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... local sounds, every succeeding generation may vary the manner of accenting a word. English people today pronounce schedule with a soft ch sound. Program has had its accent shifted from the last to the first syllable. Many words have two regularly heard pronunciations—neither, advertisement, Elizabethan, rations, oblique, route, quinine, etc. Fashions come and go in pronunciation as in all other human interests. Some sounds stamp themselves as carelessnesses or perversions ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... proposing to smite him with words, or physically, since to have this Mameena myth, of which I have detailed the origin in the book called Child of Storm, re-arise out of his hideous little mouth was too much. But before I could get out a syllable he held up his ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... with it. Perhaps the most important evidence is that of Pini, which exactly corroborates Mather's statement, and certainly there is not a single syllable, from first to last, at variance with it." Thus speaks Giovanni Pini, the important witness of the scene of blood and outrage:—"On the day in question, about twelve o'clock, more or less, I was in the Via Martelli, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... uttered my sentiments in that speech, and I will not retract one syllable of it." And, to "rub it in" a little stronger, he exclaimed, as he took his seat, just before adjournment: "Give me Liberty, even if confined to an Island of Greece, or a Canton of Switzerland, rather than an Empire and a Despotism ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... syllable was very like her father's. It was her way of saying, "I see, and I'll bet you don't see, and I'm not surprised particularly, but you'll be surprised when you find it out." It said all that—to ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... that I have lived to this time," he stammered slowly, gropingly, as though each word, each distorted and mispronounced syllable had to be sought with difficulty. "I am glad that I have lived to touch you and to hear your voices. To know it is no mere tradition, but that, verily, there was such a race and such a language! The rest also, must be true—the earth, and the ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... swing and lilt and rhythm of Greek poetry came in that way; there were no stresses, no syllabic accents; the accents we see written were to denote the tones the syllables should be—shall I say sung on? Now French is an example of a language without stresses; you know how each syllable falls evenly, all taking an unvarying amount of time to enounce. I imagine the basic principle of Greek was the same; only that you had to add to the syllables a length of sound where two consonants combining after a vowel retarded the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Signor Leon, to the greatest height of all: let this vague agility, in any case, connect him with that revelation of the ballet, the sentimental-pastoral, of other years, which, in The Four Lovers for example, a pantomimic lesson as in words of one syllable, but all quick and gay and droll, would have affected us as classic, I am sure, had we then had at our disposal that term of appreciation. When we read in English story-books about the pantomimes in London, which somehow ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... pronounced it with the accent on the first syllable.) "Indeed, I never will. I'll never be married, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... his body quakes and his chant runs into a shriek, ringing in my ear with a peculiar sharpness. This lay may be represented thus: "Teacher, teacher, TEACHER, *TEACHER*, *TEACHER!*"—the accent on the first syllable and each word uttered with increased force and shrillness. No writer with whom I am acquainted gives him credit for more musical ability than is displayed in this strain. Yet in this the half is not told. He has a far rarer song, which he reserves for some nymph ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... syllable;—though I was most anxious to ask the question. When you are intent upon any matter, it does not do to go away to other things. I should have never made him believe that he was to leave me in earnest, had I allowed ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... The reduplicated syllable recalls Hopi methods of forming their plural, but is not characteristic of them, and the word Totonteac has a Hopi sound. The supposed derivation of Tonto from Spanish tonto, "fool," is mentioned, elsewhere. The so-called Tonto ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... genius of the language has been described as accumulative: it "tends rather to add syllables or letters, making farther distinctions in objects already before the mind, than to introduce new words." {291} Yet it has also been shewn very distinctly, that these languages are based in words of one syllable, like those of the Chinese and Polynesian families; all the primary ideas are thus expressed: the elaborate system of inflection and agglutination is shewn to be simply a farther development of the language-forming principle, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... from the altar, advanced with uplifted arm, and, standing over Sir John, levelled the dagger at his breast: "Sir John Tanlay," he said, "you are a brave man, and doubtless a man of honor. Swear that you will never breathe a syllable of what you have seen; swear that under no circumstances, whatever they may be, you will recognize us, and we will ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... recommend to pupils as the best; and if in the beginning of their career they may startle at this mode, let them depend upon it that in their future practice it must become perfectly familiar. The nice distinction of simulation and dissimulation depends but on the trick of a syllable; palliation and extenuation are universally allowable in self-defence; prevarication inevitably follows, and falsehood "is but ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... for you, Mr. Soldier," said little Osterman, stepping boldly forward, "if there aren't any very big words in it. I've only got as far as three-syllable words in ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... most wonderful of all." Or this sentence: "And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well-remembered and familiar accents ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the northern deep: Such is the shout, the long applauding note, At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat: Or when from court a birth-day suit bestow'd Sinks the last actor in the tawdry load. Booth enters—hark! the universal peal!— But has he spoken?—Not a syllable— What shook the stage, and made the people stare? Cato's long wig, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... your friends in the other bottom will not escape the eyes of the imps!" continued the trapper, as coolly as though he had not heard a syllable of the intervening discourse. "They scent plunder; and it would be as hard to drive a hound from his game, as to throw ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... (puff); that's Puddingpote Bower (wheeze),' replied Crowdey slowly and pompously, adding an 'e' to the syllable, to make it sound better, the haddocks, hashed mutton, and all the horrors of impromptu hospitality rushing upon ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... low but very penetrating voice, and I don't think anybody in the farthest corner missed a single clear-cut syllable from the first. As I may have indicated, I had never been a warm admirer of his, but with all my prejudice, I think I admired him when he stood up to his task that day. For the effect he intended, his speech was a masterpiece, ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... is made to the Codex Flateyensis as to the burial of King Haco in the city of Bergen, in Norway, where his remains were finally deposited, after lying some months before the shrine of the patron saint in the cathedral of Saint Magnus, at Kirkwall. There is not a syllable of King Haco or his expedition in the Orkneyinga Saga; and as I cannot reconcile this reference of Torfaeus (2nd edition, 1715, book ii. p. 170.) with the Saga, the favour of information is desired from some of your antiquarian correspondents. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 48, Saturday, September 28, 1850 • Various
... precisely in the actual taste of the author himself; not, I mean, in the snatching of huge bites out of him, but in the fragrance of anticipation; in the dreamy solicitations of indescribable afterthoughts; in those "airy tongues that syllable men's names" on the "sands and shores" of the remote margins of our consciousness. How delicious a pleasure there is in carrying about with us wherever we go a new book or a new translation from the pen of our ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... but a particular kind of courage. It means courage of the nerve; vital courage. That first syllable of it, if you look in Max Mueller, you will find really means 'nerve,' and from it come 'vis,' and 'vir,' and 'virgin' (through vireo), and the connected word 'virga'—'a rod;'—the green rod, or springing bough of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... His surname is to be accented on the first syllable—a fact which may be remembered from the story attributed to Liszt who, once asking Smetana how his name was to be pronounced received this ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... meaning in it; but their translation was refined and full of four-syllable words. They held a sederunt, and were filled with tremulous joy, for, in spite of their familiarity with all the other worlds and cycles, they had a very human awe of things sent from Ghost-land. They met ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... words in a similar way. Use simple words of one syllable, making five lists with ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... bear," said the Grey-Feather, cunningly slurring the Canienga word and swallowing the last syllable so that it might ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... my crying and praying. It was piteous that I should be in such a state of mind, and that there should be nobody to help me and lead me out into the light. I do not recollect that to that day one word had been said to me, or one syllable had been uttered in the pulpit, that lead me to think there was any mercy in the heart of God for a sinner like me. For a sinner that had repented it was thought there was pardon; but how to repent was the very thing I did not know. A converted sinner ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... a pride of possession that rang clarion-like in every syllable, and in response Lady Harriet was moved to offer a cold cheek in salutation to the bride. Stella bent instantly and kissed it with a quick graciousness that would have melted any one less austere, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... perplexity; which perhaps may be considered as a very strong argument, in favour of the antiquity of the place. Some persons conjecture, that the appellation is derived from the two Saxon words, hurst, and ham, the first syllable signifying a wood, and the second a village or collection of houses: and this opinion seems to be supported by the known fact, that this part of the county, was formerly one entire tract of forest land: but again quite as good ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... play or in pride; you will find girls like these, when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate passion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to support them through the irksomeness of daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation over the meaning of the great Book, of which no syllable was ever yet to be understood but through a deed; all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of their womanhood made vain, and the glory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless agony concerning questions which the laws of common serviceable life would have either solved for them in an instant, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... took the hand That rested on the strings, and press'd a kiss Upon it unforbidden—and again Besought her, that this silent evidence That I was not indifferent to her heart, Might have the seal of one sweet syllable. I kiss'd the small white fingers as I spoke, And she withdrew them gently, and upraised Her forehead from its resting-place, and look'd Earnestly ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... knife), "then Lemuel Struthers came along. They say his advertiser used the girl's head for the shoe-polish posters; her hair's intensely black, you know—the Egyptian style. Anyhow, he—eventually—married her." There were volumes of innuendo in the way the "eventually" was spaced, and each syllable given its due stress. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... have any power of election at the moment, her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards and forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however, picking up her cap with ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... two pedestrians took a northerly direction, in which they proceeded for nearly a quarter of an hour without exchanging a syllable, the one absorbed in meditations which the other was apparently unwilling to disturb. At the end of that time they paused, as if by preconcerted arrangement, in front of a small venta, or country inn, less remarkable for the accommodation it afforded, than for its pleasant situation and aspect. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... not good for metre. Even when an actress speaks her lines as lines, and does not drop into prose by slipping here and there a syllable, she spoils the tempo by inordinate length of pronunciation. Verse cannot keep upon the wing without a certain measure in the movement of the pinion. Verse ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... ... Receiving no reply, he rapidly continues: 'Nay, answer not; be silent! ... And what couldst Thou say? ... I know but too well Thy answer.... Besides, Thou hast no right to add one syllable to that which was already uttered by Thee before.... Why shouldst Thou now return, to impede us in our work? For Thou hast come but for that only, and Thou knowest it well. But art Thou as well aware of ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... found in 1725 in a forest of Hanover, who was accustomed to walk on all fours, and climb trees like a squirrel, living on wild plants, grass, and moss, and who could not be weaned from these habits, or taught to speak more than a syllable or two; he wore a brass collar with his name on it; at length refused all food, and died ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... but practice will make the habit unconscious. An instrument called a metronome may be had from a music shop (used for keeping time in practising), if a book be read aloud by the stammerer, pronouncing one syllable only to each beat, he will soon gain ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... syllables, and transposing and substituting consonants and vowels, thus producing the most confounding gibberish, as "pars nipulique" for "Pharasmani Polemonique" (XIV. 26); or adding a letter, as "mortem" for "morem" (III. 26), or omitting a syllable, as "effunt" for "effundunt" (VI. 33). From the same fault they every now and then double a letter, as "Amissiam" for "Amisiam", or omit one of the double letters, as "anteferentur" for "anteferrentur" (1. 8); or, when two words occur, one ending, and the other beginning ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... macuilli, "hand-depicting." Then we go on in the dark as far as ten, which is matlactli, "hand-half," as I think it means, (from tlactli, half); and this would mean, not the halving of a hand, but the half of the whole person, which you get by counting his hands only. The syllable ma, which means "hand," makes its appearance in the words five and ten, and no where else; just as it should do. When we come to twenty, we have cempoalli, "one counting;" that is, one whole man, fingers and toes—corresponding to the Vei ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... looked frightened; some muttered prayers, others crossed themselves; the old woman returned to her corner, buried herself again in her cloak, and did not speak another syllable. ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... that would have made a dragoon shake in his shoes. The original form of which mea culpa seized the worthy manager with such an irresistibly ludicrous effect that he left the poor, guilty authoress without being able to address a syllable to her, lest he should explode in peals of laughter instead of decent words ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... story I had been so desirous to know. Though my mind had brooded upon the subject for months, there was not a syllable of it that did not come to my ear with the most perfect sense of novelty. "Mr. Falkland is a murderer!" said I, as I retired from the conference. This dreadful appellative, "a murderer," made my very blood run cold within me. "He killed Mr. Tyrrel, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... also written much Comedy in rhyme, Epistles, etc., etc. As he is rather an elegant writer of notes and biography, let us recommend POPE'S advice to WYCHERLEY to Mr. H.'s consideration, viz., "to convert poetry into prose," which may be easily done by taking away the final syllable of ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... into a number of streams, which again flow together to the south of the town, and at last, after a course of about seven miles, empty themselves into Southampton Water. But several derivations have been suggested for the first syllable of the name. Some writers derive it from Rome, and regard Romsey as a hybrid word taking the place of "Romana insula," the first word having been shortened and the second translated into Old English, or ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... had the assurance to use my name without having my authority, or even asking my permission. He likewise very falsely and impudently asserts, that he has published it as I spoke it at Covent-Garden theatre. It is so much the contrary, that it contains not a syllable of the new matter with which it was then augmented. With respect to the rest, it is taken from the spurious and very imperfect abridgment first mentioned in this piratical list. It is, therefore, evident, that the original Lecture was never before published ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... this, the ladies did not utter a single syllable. But if they were silent, it was not from want of interest. Their eyes were fixed on mine as though they were bound to me by some powerful spell; their lips parted, and, in their intense eagerness to hear what it was that I had to say, they did not pretend to conceal their feelings. Miss O'Halloran ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... I ever hear a syllable from the brave, unselfish man of disappointment at the way in which his worldly prospects were never advanced in the slightest by the nobly adventurous work he had done. By nature he was too bent on doing the ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... the antique chattels of the room Where it was none! Mark, where his careful feet Avoid yon blood-stains, though they shrink not when The grey rat courses o'er them! Nay, 'tis gone. A shape of fancy's painting to the sight. 'Twas but the wind, I said—whose fleeting voice The vaulted corridor did syllable aloud, Mingling my name with tombs. Again, I hear ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... thirty-seven stanzas; the second of seventy-two; the third of forty-eight; each stanza of eight ten-syllable verses, of which the first six rhyme alternately; the last two are a couplet. There is a short argument, in verse, prefixed to each poem. That of the first ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... tedium lies; When we toss up the ball on the point of a stick Palamedus himself might have envied the trick; O Muse of the Loves and the Laughs and the Games, Come down and assist me, for, true to your aims, I have ruled off this paper in syllable squares. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... trepidation, however, soon passed away; and when Tazewell proceeded to establish point after point, and was in the full headway of his argument—a large audience, consisting of the ablest lawyers and statesmen of the Union, watching every syllable that fell from his lips, and following him through the mazes of his mighty plea—Randolph could restrain himself no longer, but said in a tone audible to those about him: "I told you so—I told you so; Old ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... objections and comparing the Clementine quotation first with the text of St. Matthew and then with that of St. Luke, we cannot but be struck with its very close resemblance to the former and with the wide divergence of the latter. The passage is one where almost every word and syllable might easily and naturally be altered—as the third Gospel shows that they have been altered—and yet in the Clementines almost every peculiarity of the ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... right arm slit into ribbons. Big Joe Pentland, the clown, with one well-directed stroke of a crowbar, smashed Old King of the Forest's jaw into a hundred pieces, but not before it had closed in the left breast of Charlie's mother. She lived for nearly an hour afterwards, but never uttered a syllable. I wonder if she was conscious. I wonder if it was permitted to her to realize what her sin—for sin it must have been, in contemplation, if not in deed—had brought upon herself and her child. Had she paid her way into the circus, and entered in front, instead of coquetting with ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... that, although nothing could possibly be more advantageous to her own schemes than this marriage, she might, if indiscreetly pressed, veer round, and, in spite of her interest, refuse to listen to another syllable on the subject. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... you. I won't hear a word. Gentlemen can do things that ladies cannot even speak about. Talk to my aunt Molineux; our fate depends on her. This will teach you not to be so wicked. What business have gentlemen to be so wicked? Ladies are not. No, it is no use; I will not hear a syllable. I am ashamed to be seen speaking to you. You are a bad character. Oh, Charles, is it true you ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... but Miss was an age too quick for me. 'Yes, mamma; we have explained every thing to the full and whole. I have told it all over to him just now, every syllable the same as I told it to you, and he does not contradict a word ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... that came not. The woman's breath came quick in little gasps. She tried to speak, turned on her pillow and uttered a feeble word of anguish. Her eyes again sought the face of the young watcher, and she strove again to syllable incoherent questions. Clemence came nearer and bent over her, asking in ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... for my interference; and I have no inclination to provoke the anger of a party so powerful as yours." I promised the marechale to observe an inviolable secrecy; and, so well have I kept my promise, that you are the first person to whom I ever breathed one syllable of the affair. I must own, that it struck me as strange, that the duc de Choiseul should abandon his cousin, and consent to take his seat beside the duc d'Aiguillon, whom he detested: perhaps he only ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... sonorous form of elision, in which it may come into popular use, but find nothing more eligible than I-go-mee, or Igoma. A more practical word, in the shape of a new compound, may be made in Algoma, a term in which the first syllable of the generic name of this tribe of the Algonquin stock, harmonizes very well with the Indian idea of goma (sea), giving us, Sea of the Algonquins. The term may be objected to, as the result of a grammatical abbreviation, but if not adopted ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... exceeding the measure of the number; as in carpenter the middle sillable being used short in speache, when it shall be read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling that draweth one legge after hir. And heaven being used shorte as one syllable, when it is in verse stretched with a Diastole is like a lame dogge, that holdes up one legge.'{6} His ear was far too fine and sensitive to endure the fearful sounds uttered by the poets of this Procrust{ae}an creed. The language seemed to groan and shriek at the agonies and contortions to which ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... the pallid, splendid thing she was before. In that instant, for the first time this summer, she comprehended that her husband's existence imported anything to her. Behind the maple-tree, the wood began again; without a syllable, she stepped aside, suffered him to pass, and hastened to bury herself in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... said to have been 100 miles up the river, which would carry us up almost to the city of Sautipoor, which may possibly have been Satagan. The two first syllables of the name are almost exactly the same, and the final syllable in Sautipoor is a Persian word signifying town, which may have been gan in some other dialect. The entire distance from Balasore, or the port of Orissa, to Piqueno is stated at 170 miles, of which 154 have been already accounted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... weeks Charles Summer will be returned for his fourth term in the United States Senate by the well-nigh unanimous vote of both branches of the legislature of Massachusetts. Not a syllable of opposition to his reelection is heard from any quarter. There is not a Republican in the legislature who could have been elected unless he had been virtually pledged to his support. No stronger evidence of the popular estimate of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... she heard Pete laugh again,—one evil syllable that filled her with instinctive horror. Her wide eyes turned to him; he was watching her intently. Then she stepped back to give ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... The remainder of the Roman's narrative is lost, and upon that broken bridge the form of the Batavian hero disappears forever. His name fades from history: not a syllable is known of his subsequent career; every thing is buried in the profound oblivion which now steals over the scene where he was the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... one arm up violently, striking the headboard with his knuckles. "I won't hear a syllable against Madame de Vaurigard!" Young Cooley regarded him steadily for a moment. "Have you remembered yet," he said slowly, "how much you lost ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... said Dr. Pendegrast throwing a glance across the quadrangle, "not to breathe a syllable of this; do not even think of it. It has been kept from every one—from even the most intimate friends of the family; Ruth herself is not aware of her ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... said Clarence, in an embarrassed voice, "I have scarcely heard a syllable from Miss St. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... shoulders; her face was thin and sallow and her eyes black and piercing. Knowing that she had no business there, and occupied in controlling his horse, he called to her somewhat angrily to get out of the way, as his animal was afraid of her. Slowly she turned and walked into the thicket, uttering not a syllable and looking reproachfully at him as she went. With much difficulty he forced his horse to the spot, hoping to find out who the strange intruder might be, but the most careful search failed to reveal the ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Lord Fitzwilliam's arrival, I have merely seen his Excellency at levee. With his chief secretary, Lord Milton, I have daily transacted official business, without a syllable passing of a nature in any degree confidential. The removal of Mr. Beresford, of the Attorney and Solicitor-General, had created alarms; but there were assurances from an English quarter that Mr. Hamilton and I were not ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... with hurried, trembling gestures. When she was dressed, she went and looked at herself in a glass, rubbing her eyes, and passing her hands over her countenance, as if to efface something. Then, without pronouncing a syllable, she quickly crossed the dining-room and entered the apartment occupied by ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... for all the ways in which you have sought to stand between me and distress. Until to-day you have, under fire, proven true to your code of knighthood, and to-day I could forget—but could you? Of all the things I have ever said to you, of love, I have no syllable to retract. Even now I repeat it. I love you absolutely. When I suggested your leaving for a time I did a desperately hard thing—and you misunderstood it. Unless you can understand it, dear, it would do no good to come back, it would only ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... annotation, he adjusted his spectacles, and the Premier's speech in the Cortes began to unwind, syllable by syllable, from under the carpenter's white ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... contrition; not one word for the man who lay yonder in the church; not one syllable for the heartbroken wife kneeling at the coffin! He ceased. And his words went out into the void and found no echo ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... while at intervals a voice choking with emotion rose in shrill accents: "There was an old woman all skin and bones, o-o-oh!" When it faltered and collapsed on the o-o-oh, the other voices joined in and dragged out the syllable to lugubrious and harrowing length. Then some one giggled hysterically and another squealed. The soloist took up the verse: "She went to the church to pray, o-o-oh!" The chorus wailed and moaned and croaked and ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... spiders volumes than authors, and looks with great admiration on the antique work of cobwebs. Printed books he contemns, as a novelty of this latter age, but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all,) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hand. His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts skins, and is a kind of charnel-house of bones extraordinary; and his discourse upon them, if you ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an object—a white object—standing bolt upright in the water before him, about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... deny the design, making himself judge rather of the method of procedure than of the achievement. Nor yet after insisting in the manner of Paley, on the wonderful proofs of intention and on the exquisite provisions which were to be found in every syllable—thus leading us up to the highest pitch of expectation—would he present us with such an impotent conclusion as that the designer, though a living person and a true designer, was yet immaterial and intangible, a something, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... with the one exception of French, there are no unwonted sounds in any European language that an Englishman cannot reproduce fairly accurately. We have something like the hard Russian "l" in the last syllable of "impossible," and to the Scottish or Irish throat the Dutch hard initial guttural, and the Spanish soft guttural offer but little difficulty. "Jorje," which looks like "George" spelt phonetically, but is pronounced so very differently, can easily be mastered, and that real teaser "gracht," ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... word further!" almost shrieked Fanny—"Not a word more, Adolphus—not a syllable; at any rate till you have heard me. Oh, you have made me so miserable!" and Fanny burst ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... Peering into the future he wrote: "When that day comes the models of literary excellence will not be the long and windy sentences of accredited bores, but ample brevities, such as the 'N' on Napoleon's tomb, in which, in less than a syllable, an epoch, and the glory of it, is resumed." Saltus forsakes his previous choice from Bellini and installs Tu che a Dio as his favourite Italian opera air. Here is another flash of self-revealment: "Byzance is rumoured to have been the sewer of every sin, yet such was ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the Corso—'Vive la bagatelle!'—the Germans are on the Po, the Barbarians at the gate, and their masters in council at Leybach (or whatever the eructation of the sound may syllable into a human pronunciation), and lo! they dance and sing and make merry, 'for to-morrow they may die.' Who can say that the Arlequins are not right? Like the Lady Baussiere, and my ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... claim upon her friendship, but none upon her love?" His imagination pictured every look she had given him since his return. Not all! Oh, Pierre Philibert! the looks you would have given worlds to catch, you were unconscious of! Every word she had spoken, the soft inflection of every syllable of her silvery voice lingered in his ear. He had caught meanings where perhaps no meaning was, and missed the key to others which he knew were there—never, perhaps, to be revealed to him. But although he questioned ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... game, half the players go outside the door, while those who stay in the room choose a word of one syllable, which should not be too difficult. For instance, suppose the word chosen be "Flat," those who are out of the room are informed that a word has been thought of that rhymes with "Cat," and they then have to act without speaking, all the words they can ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman |
