"Vocal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his book on "How to Teach Reading," sets forth the four elements of vocal expression—Time, Pitch, Quality and Force. We quote a few of the sentences from his treatment of each of these ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... to herself, Liane Delorme would do an injury to his eardrums as well as to her own vocal chords, Lanyard stepped across the dead bulk of the Apache and planted himself squarely in front of the woman. Seizing her forearms with his two hands, he used force to drag them down to the level of her waist, and purposely made ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... was any one thing in which Katy excelled, it was music, both vocal and instrumental, a taste for which had been developed very early, and fostered by Morris Grant, who had seen that his cousin had every advantage which Silverton could afford. Great pains, too, had been given to her style of playing while at Canandaigua, so that as a performer upon ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... to be found lying under infinite dung, no end of calumnies and stupidities accumulated upon him. For the class we speak of, class of "flunkies doing saturnalia below stairs," is numerous, is innumerable; and can well remunerate a "vocal flunky" that will serve their ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... middle age, who have heard Lablache, and Tamberlik, and Jenny Lind, and Viardot Garcia, and Alboni, and Giuglini in their prime, and Grisi, Mario, Sontag and Persiani with voices but a little the worse for wear, can sadly contrast the vocal glories of the past with those of the present. Who are the great singers of to-day? Two or three prime donne and as many baritones. There is not a single basso living to suggest Lablache, not a tenor to revive the triumphs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... phenomena and facial symptomatic aspect of such people to an exact science founded upon a schedule approximating the Bertillon system of records. And," he added, smiling, "out of the twenty-seven known vocal variations your voice betrays twenty-five unmistakable symptoms; and out of the sixteen reflex muscular symptoms your face has furnished six, your hands three, your limbs and feet six. Then there are ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... placed in separate bands, in a meadow on each side of the causeway, raised with turf; and whilst their Majesties and the company were passing through the great salon, they danced. On their passage by water, the barges were followed by other boats, having on board vocal and instrumental musicians, habited like Nereids, singing and playing the whole time. After landing, the shepherdesses I have mentioned before received the company in separate troops, with songs ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of his narrower fate". Compare the direction in which he looks in his day dreams now, with the direction in which he looked in those of his boyhood. What is meant by "vocal springs"? ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... at the rim of the Bad Lands and there were no birds to sing; but crows, wheeling about a sandstone summit, flung doleful voices downward into the morning hush—the spirit of the place grown vocal. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... he never addressed us except to coo as softly as the mourning dove. It was interesting to listen as his voice changed from a bellow to a croon, and back again a moment later to a bellow. With training he might have made an opera singer—he had such a vocal range and such perfect control over it. This Lieutenant Mittendorfer introduced himself to our attention by coming smartly up and saying there had been a delay about requisitioning an automobile for our use; but he thought the car would be along very shortly—and would the American gentlemen ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... of Hebraic sages divine, Made vocal by him with new beauties did shine; His choice conversation with children and men, Was often enriched with a ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... quite young, she would feign infantine ignorance, in order to hunt trite truth in couples with them, and detect, by joint experiment, that rainbows cannot, or else will not, be walked into, nor Jack-o'-lantern be gathered like a cowslip; and that, dissect we the vocal dog—whose hair is so like a lamb's—never so skilfully, no fragment of palpable bark, no sediment of tangible squeak, remains inside him to bless the inquisitive little operator, &c., &c. When they advanced from these elementary ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... New England singing-master; i. e., a teacher of vocal music in the rural districts. Stopping over night at the house of a simple minded old lady, whose grandson and pet, Enoch, was a pupil of Mr. Newman, he was asked by the lady how Enoch was getting on. He gave a rather poor account of the boy, and asked his grandmother if she thought ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... the good man's beautiful example, Who in the vilest saw Some sacred crypt or altar of a temple Still vocal with God's law; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... misunderstanding of orders on the part of Hill and Ewell resulting in a confused and retarded march. Night fell, hot and breathless. Twenty-three thousand grey soldiers, moving toward Orange Court House, made the dark road vocal with statements as to the reeking heat, the dust, the condition of their shoes and the impertinence of the cavalry. The latter was more irritating than were the flapping soles, the dust in the throat, and the sweat pouring into the eyes. The infantry swore, swerving ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... talent" at the opera house. The Moonstone Orchestra, under the direction of Professor Wunsch, was to play, and the most talented members of each Sunday School were to take part in the programme. Thea was put down by the committee "for instrumental." This made her indignant, for the vocal numbers were always more popular. Thea went to the president of the committee and demanded hotly if her rival, Lily Fisher, were going to sing. The president was a big, florid, powdered woman, a fierce W.C.T.U. worker, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... whisper came through the trees, travellers looked for some waterfall. At midday, when the thaw was at its full, all the mountain torrents became vocal with the glee of disimprisoned life running a race of gladness to the sea. The sun sets early in the mountains with a gradual hushing of the voice of glad waters and a red glow as of wine on the encircling peaks. Camp for the night was always ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... says Washington, in his private journal, "which attended and joined on this occasion, some with vocal and others with instrumental music, on board, the decorations of the ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud acclamations of the people, which rent the sky as I passed along the wharves, filled my mind ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... not make any money by this enterprise; but I assure you that if I knew I should not make a farthing profit, I would ratify the engagement, so anxious am I that the United States should be visited by a lady whose vocal powers have never been approached by any other human being, and whose character is charity, simplicity, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... uproar, all vocal, broken out upon a peaceful afternoon. Gipsy possessed a vocabulary for cat-swearing certainly second to none out of Italy, and probably equal to the best there, while Duke remembered and uttered things he had not thought ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... dozen fights, the superfluous flesh of talking is long work'd off him, and he gives me little but the hard meat and sinew. I find it refreshing, these hardy, bright, intuitive, American young men, (experienc'd soldiers with all their youth.) The vocal play and significance moves one more than books. Then there hangs something majestic about a man who has borne his part in battles, especially if he is very quiet regarding it when you desire him to unbosom. I am continually lost at ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... could not talk because they were unable to hear the sounds of the voice. His father had worked out a plan for teaching the deaf, that the young man improved. It was based on observation of the position of the lips and other vocal organs, while uttering each sound. One by one the pupil learned the sounds by sight. Then he learned combinations of sounds and at last came to where he could "read the lips" and tell what a person was saying by ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... five more that none can do good to make him so—1. For that internally they are as an open sepulchre, as full of dead men's bones. Their minds and consciences are defiled; how then can sweet and good proceed from thence? (v 13). 2. Their throat is filled with this stink; all their vocal duties therefore smell thereof. 3. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; how then can there be found one word that should please God? 4. Their tongue, which should present their praise to God, has been used to work deceit; how then, until ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... made one of the company, and it was very seldom that he did not add something of his own invention, agreeably to surprise by some unexpected stroke of magnificence and gallantry. Sometimes he had complete concerts of vocal and instrumental music, which he privately brought from Paris, and which struck up on a sudden in the midst of these parties; sometimes he gave banquets, which likewise came from France, and which, even in the midst of London, surpassed ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... started up and saw the Hermit standing before me. The moon had moved to the west, peering through the leaves to espy this wonder of divine art wrought in a fragile human frame. The air was heavy with perfume; the silence of the night was vocal with the chirping of crickets; the reflections of the trees hung motionless in the lake; and with his staff in his hand he stood, tall and straight and still, like a forest tree. It seemed to me that I had, on opening my eyes, died to all realities of life and undergone a dream ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... talk to a carrot as try an' get sense out of this runt of a feller," said Bill, disgusted. "Come an' see if we can't find someone that it won't bust a man's vocal cords ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... time he was a month old, the necessity of giving him a name became apparent. He had generally been known as "the Kid," "Stumpy's boy," "the Coyote" [Footnote: Coyote: also called prairie wolf.] (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck's endearing diminutive of "the little cus." But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... perhaps, the most beautiful ballad in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the sentiment and style of our Scottish airs there is a pastoral simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and dialect of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is particularly, nay, peculiarly apposite. For this reason, and upon my honour, for this reason alone, I am of opinion (but, as I told you before, my ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... driving at?" I asked in a passion. I put my hat on my head (he never offered a seat to anybody), and as he seemed for the moment struck dumb by my irreverence, I turned my back on him and marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the other expenses consequent upon the delays arising ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... the same observation on some rock of the Thebaid; and that the music of the rocks there led to the jugglery of the priests in the statue of Memnon? Perhaps, when, "the rosy-fingered Aurora rendered her son, the glorious Memnon, vocal,"* (* These are the words of an inscription, which attests that sounds were heard on the 13th of the month Pachon, in the tenth year of the reign of Antoninus. See Monuments de l'Egypte Ancienne.) the voice was that of a man hidden beneath ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... to run a jack from the bottom of the pack without getting shot, civil engineering, decorative art, kalsomining, bicycling, base ball, hydraulics, botany, poker, international law, high-low-jack, drawing and painting, faro, vocal music, driving, breaking team, fifteen ball pool, how to remove grease spots from last year's pantaloons, horsemanship, coupling freight cars, riding on a rail, riding on a pass, feeding threshing machines, how to wean a calf from the parent stem, teaching school, bull-whacking, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... of mimicry be considered as a mark of superiority, the crow has claims to high rank in this department also. The closest imitators of the human voice are birds of this family: for instance, the Mino bird. Our crow also is a vocal mimic, and that not in the matter-of-course way of the mocking-bird, but, as it were, more individual and spontaneous. He is not merely an imitator of the human voice, like the parrots, (and a better one as regards tone,) nor of other birds, like the thrushes, but combines ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... at first sight how a vowel should be employed, not to represent a vocal sound, but to modify an articulation. Yet examples are to be found in modern languages. Thus, in the English words, George, sergeant, the e has no other effect than to give g its soft sound; and in guest, guide, the u only serves to give ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... feathers fastened to a stick, advanced to the fire and made a few impressive gestures. She was garbed in the wide, gathered calico skirt, the velvet basque trimmed with silver buttons, and the high brown moccasins so dear to feminine Navajos. The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man she wanted and with one hand took a firm grasp of his shirt just above the belt. Then she galloped ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... especially with women. Ladies were his favorite pursuit, if not his prey. But Elder Smith's wife proved unapproachable by language of tongue or eye. Talking to her was like talking to a lay figure with vocal and locomotive organs. ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... His righteous Projects ne'er to misapply, Hear and see all, and act incessantly: He who can this, can all; he needs but dare, And Heaven in nothing will refuse his Prayer. Let Lewis but command, these Bounds shall move, And trees grow vocal as Dodona's Grove. Ye Nymphs and Demi-Gods, whose Presence fills Their sacred Trunks, come forth; so Lewis wills; To please him be our task; I lead the way, Quit now your ancient Forms but for a Day, ...
— The Bores • Moliere
... in his intellect, marking alike the excellence and the limits of them both. His laugh, which on light occasions was ready and frequent, had in it no great depth of gayety, or sense for the ludicrous in men or things; you might call it rather a good smile become vocal than a deep real laugh: with his whole man I never saw him laugh. A clear sense of the humorous he had, as of most other things; but in himself little or no true humor;—nor did he attempt that side of things. To call ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... theatres; an opera-house of gigantic proportions, which is annually graced by the highest vocal talent of Europe; Wood's minstrels, and Christy's minstrels, where blacks perform in unexceptionable style to unwearied audiences; and comic operas. There are al fresco entertainments, masquerades, concerts, restaurants, and oyster saloons. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... music-paper was to be found in every corner of 'Wahnfried,' on which while wandering about the house during sleepless nights, musing and planning, he made brief jottings, often merely a new idea in instrumentation. The rest was in his head; the vocal parts were added to the score without hesitation, and never needed correction. For the orchestra he employed three staves, one of which was reserved for special notes, as, for instance, when a particular instrument was to enter. From these sketches the vocal parts could be ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... with a warm, clinging affection, as she loved those of her own race; and that solace and amusement which most children find in the society of children and the sports of childhood this girl derived from the solitude and serenity of nature. To her woods and fields were indeed vocal, and every flitting bird and gurgling brook, every passing cloud and whispering breeze, brought messages of God's eternal love and wisdom, and drew her tender, yearning heart more closely to Jehovah, the Lord God Omnipotent. To-day, in the boundless reverence and religious enthusiasm of her character, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... wide the Temple door, And let the solemn, swelling, organ greet, With Voluntaries meet, The willing advent of the rich and poor! And while to God the loud Hosannas soar, With rich vibrations from the vocal throng— From quiet shades that to the woods belong, And brooks with music of their own, Voices may come to swell the choral song With notes of praise ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... trees like warm, loving fingers. Then the buds break for very joy, and timid green things push up through the leaf-mold; and from the swamps the little frogs begin to pipe, at first in solo, but soon in exultant chorus, till the whole moist night is vocal, and then every one knows that the sugar time is over, and troughs and spiles are gathered up, and with sap-barrels and kettles, are stored in the back shed for ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... embraced three complete octaves, extending from the contralto D to the D upper soprano, and, though sufficiently powerful to have filled the San Carlos, executed, with the minutest precision, every difficulty of vocal composition-ascending and descending scales, cadences, or fiorituri. In the final of the Somnambula, she brought about a most remarkable effect ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... quarters; It will not be advised, It will not be without advice. It commences its journey Above the marble rock, It is sonorous, it is dumb, It is mild, It is strong, it is bold, When it glances over the land, It is silent, it is vocal, It is clamorous, It is the most noisy On the face of the earth. It is good, it is bad, It is extremely injurious. It is concealed, Because sight cannot perceive it. It is noxious, it is beneficial; It is yonder, it is here; It will discompose, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... a complete stranger, I should not have insisted. One of the best singers I ever knew was so morbidly shy that on the platform she was an absolute failure. Her vocal chords became so contracted that she sang quite out of tune, and yet among friends ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... important and ancient post which was afterwards occupied by Schicht, and before him by no less a person than Sebastian Bach. By education he belonged to the old Italian school of music, and had studied in Bologna under Pater Martini. He had made a name for himself in this art by his vocal compositions, in which his fine manner of treating the parts was much praised. He himself told me one day that a Leipzig publisher had offered him a very substantial fee if he would write for his firm another book of vocal exercises similar ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... disposing outposts according to rule, they plucked out the arrows (from their bodies) and bathed in diverse kinds of water. And Brahmanas performed propitiatory rites for them, and bards sang their praises. And those renowned men sported for a while in accompaniment with music both vocal and instrumental. And for a while the whole scene resembled heaven itself. And those bulls among men for a while spoke not of battle. And when both armies abounding with tired men and elephants and steeds slept there, they became, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the best, had little repose, and he flung himself against the earth walls of the corral until they quivered with the impact. The horses in the neighbouring corrals whinnied; the cows in the fields bellowed. It was a vocal night, and ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... soloist—say, a coloratura soprano. Your first remark should be that you don't really care for the human voice—the reason being, of course, that symphonic Music, ABSOLUTE music, has spoiled you for things like vocal gymnastics. This leads your bewildered friend to ask you what sort of ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... inner nature audible to those around him. He had been to the inhabitants of Grimstad a stranger within their gates, not speaking their language; or, rather, wholly "spectral," speaking no language at all, but indulging in cat-calls and grimaces. He was now discovered like Caliban, and tamed, and made vocal, by the strenuous arts of friendship. One of those who thus interpreted him was a young musician, Due, who held a post in the custom-house; the other was Ole Schulerud (1827-59), who deserves a cordial acknowledgment from every admirer of Ibsen. ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... eye through withering oaks descried, Where Sadness, gazing on time's ravage, hung, And Silence to Destruction's trophy clung - Save that as morning songsters swell'd their lays, Awaken'd Echo humm'd repeated praise: The lark on quavering pinion woo'd the day, Less towering linnets fill'd the vocal spray, And song-invited pilgrims rose to pray. Here at a pine-press'd hill's embroider'd base I stood, and hail'd the Genius of the place. Then was it doom'd by fate, my idle heart, Soften'd by Nature, gave access to Art; ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... set apart for that purpose. They sat down at the table opposite to each other, the magician's back towards the beaufet. The princess presented him with the best at the table, and said to him, "If you please, I will entertain you with a concert of vocal and instrumental music; but as we are only two, I think conversation may be more agreeable." This the magician took as ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... modulations received on the diaphragm are written by a needle point upon the surface of a cylinder or disk in a series of fine waving or zigzag lines of infinitely varying depth or breadth. Dr. Marage and others have been able to distinguish vocal sounds by the naked eye on phonograph records. Mr. Edison has studied them with the microscope in his world-wide search ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... his lofty contempt of them, whirled suddenly and picked up a rock. Johnny could pitch a very fair ball for an amateur, and the rock went true without any frills or curving deception. It landed in the middle of Bud Norris's back, and Bud's vocal efforts ended in a howl ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... did autopsies on the six that you brought up here and made slides of every different kind of tissue I could find. The anatomy is perfectly clear cut, no objections there. These people are very similar to Earth-type monkeys in structure, with heart and lungs and vocal cords and all. But I can't find any reason why they should be dying. Any ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... this point one delegate with a big voice from a big State (Texas) let out a loud yell of approval. This was the signal for blast after blast of vocal vociferousness which fairly raised the roof. Men stood on their seats, and cheered. "You're dead right" and "Get a new mayor, Chicago," while others began to point at placards advertising Chicago which had been placed on the ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... PTOLEMY (without any vocal inflexions: he is evidently repeating a lesson). Take notice of this all of you. I am the firstborn son of Auletes the Flute Blower who was your King. My sister Berenice drove him from his throne and reigned in ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... to look again, a party of workmen were removing the horses and broken car; another party were taking off the man himself; and every bench upon which there was a Greek was vocal with execrations and prayers for vengeance. Suddenly she dropped her hands; Ben-Hur, unhurt, was to the front, coursing freely forward along with the Roman! Behind them, in a group, followed the Sidonian, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... 1200 performers were assembled under my direction, at Paris, I had to employ four chorus-masters, stationed at the four corners of the vocal mass, and two sub-conductors, one of whom directed the wind-instruments, and the other the instruments of percussion. I had earnestly besought them to look towards me incessantly; they did not omit to do so, and our eight sticks, rising and falling ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... point occurred in 1777 when general patriot outcries against those not supporting the Revolutionary cause forced the assembly to pass a test oath. Washington and Jefferson were especially vocal on this point. Every male over 16 was required to renounce his allegiance to the king and to subscribe to a new oath of allegiance to Virginia. In 1778 those who refused to take the oath were subjected to double taxation; ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... hearing, or "false voices," added to my torture. Within my range of hearing, but beyond the reach of my understanding, there was a hellish vocal hum. Now and then I would recognize the subdued voice of a friend; now and then I would hear the voices of some I believed were not friends. All these referred to me and uttered what I could not clearly distinguish, but knew must be imprecations. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... beyond belief at this distance of time?" she went on; "and isn't it a curious fact, as Mr. Macdonald told me a moment ago, that though the whole country was vocal with songs for the lost cause and the fallen race, not one in favour of ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... now, by spring repress'd, Forbears the long-continued strife; And nature, on her naked breast, Delights to catch the gales of life. Now o'er the rural kingdom roves Soft pleasure with the laughing train, Love warbles in the vocal groves, And vegetation plants the plain. Unhappy! whom to beds of pain, Arthritick[a] tyranny consigns; Whom smiling nature courts in vain, Though rapture sings, and beauty shines. Yet though my limbs disease ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... itself in a perfect chord. Her voice is like a thing detachable from herself, a thing which she takes in her hands like a musical instrument, playing on the stops cunningly with her fingers. Prose, when she speaks it, becomes a kind of verse, with all the rhythms, the vocal harmonies, of a kind of human poetry. Her whisper is heard across the whole theatre, every syllable distinct, and yet it is really a whisper. She comes on the stage like a miraculous painted idol, all nerves; she ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... made by those ebony flutes of boys, and that there were some wonderful performers in the city. I have listened to the same music at a public exhibition. I greatly wonder that I have never heard of this kind of music in Europe or the East. It is distinctly instrumental, not vocal in its tones. It has the obvious recommendation of economy, since by means of it a young lady could be performer and pianoforte all in one, which was indeed the beginning of the invention in Syrinx, who was made into a pan-pipe, which as a piano became the great musical curse (according ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... statesmen who, like Seward himself, were in close touch with this commercial influence. Tenacious adherence to declared principle may have been as strong in country districts as the desire for accommodation was in these cities, but it was at any rate far less vocal, and on the whole it seems that compromise was then in the air. It seemed clear from the expressed opinions of his closest allies that Seward would support this compromise. Now Seward just at this time received Lincoln's offer of the office of Secretary of State, a great ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... of criticism in the relation between teacher and pupil. The preliminary fundamental work of Part Two, Technical Training, deals first with the right formation of tone, the development of voice as such, the securing of a fixed right vocal habit. Following comes the adapting of this improved voice to the varieties of use, or expressional effect, demanded of the public speaker. After this critical detailed drill, the student is to take the platform, and apply his acquired ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Sir Lewis said. "But I understand that there is a large and somewhat vocal group which does make rather solid-sounding claims in that direction. They say that they have seen fairies, talked with goblins, ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... vague surprise that the lieutenant was standing mutely with his legs far apart and his sword held in the manner of a cane. The youth wondered what had happened to his vocal organs that ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... as much to us a picture of the idea as of the sound; but the difference of procedure is radical. The glyph is related to the idea directly, the spelled word only through the formal combination of symbols for single vocal speech-elements, meaningless when separate. The relation of spoken sound to glyph is wholly adventitious; the relation of the idea to the spelled word is equally adventitious. The ascent, if we so call it, of written speech from the ideographic to the alphabetic, ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... him. His sweet whistle rang out in answer like a vocal salute, and in a moment she was seated again in front of him, with that deft, tail-like left leg of his steering them down, down over cross-street, through teams and sleighs and unwary pedestrians; past the miners coming off shift; past the lamplighter ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... the vocal systems among the animals form a subject well worthy of the deepest study, not only as another character by which to classify the animal kingdom correctly, but as bearing indirectly also on the question of the origin of animals. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... silent meeting she went,—little, indeed, as the only regular attendants were two old men; and silent, chiefly because between these two there was a bitter feud, and the communion of spirit was naturally preferred to vocal intercession. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... of virtually no importance; small and vocal group of Communists has gained strong position in leadership of AKFM, the rank and ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... development, Gloster is the personification of evil purpose only beginning to ripen into evil deed), and then permitting them to become deeper and more significant and thrilling as the man grows old in crime and haggard and convulsed in self-conflict and misery. But it was less with vocal excellence that the auditor was impressed than with the actor's identification with the part and his revelation of the soul of it. When first presented Gloster was a mocking devil. The murder of King Henry was done with malice, but the malice was enwrapped with glee. In the wooing of Lady ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... body which is the organ of my spirit's self-expression and the medium both of my life's experience and of my intercourse with other men. I think, and my thoughts are mediated by movements of the brain. I speak, and the movements of my vocal chords set up vibrations and sound-waves which, impinging upon the nerves of another's ear, affect in turn another's brain: and the process, regarded from the point of view of the physiologist or the scientific ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... through the squalid streets was quite triumphal. A large juvenile crowd attended me, with appropriate vocal music, and adults cheered from the pavements, though no one embarrassed me with gifts. But, for all my outward gaiety, I was secretly anxious. It was barely ten o'clock and many hours of the dreary November day had yet to run before it would ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... of England loved dearly at the earlier part of the present century, and which, whenever they can get it, they love dearly still. "The Death of Marmion," "The Battle of the Baltic," "The Bay of Biscay," "Nelson," under various vocal aspects, as exhibited by the late Braham—these were the songs in which the roaring concertina and strident tenor of Gustus Junior exulted together. "Tell me when you're tired, ladies and gentlemen," said the minstrel solicitor. "There's no conceit about me. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... one well-satisfied survey from the door, bent their steps homeward, looking forward to the pleasure with which grandpapa and Aunt Mary would see it to-morrow. As they went in the deepening twilight, the whole village seemed vocal: children's voices, shrill and tuneless near, but softened by distance, were ringing out ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... various arms of this tree hung cages of different kinds. In one, a large wicker cylinder with a ring at top, revelled a mocking bird; in another an oriole; in a third the impudent bobolink—while three or four more delicate prisons were loudly vocal with canaries. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Mrs. Austin and Dawn rode over the hills, their spirits rising at every step, under the exhilarating exercise. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves of the trees, and made the whole air sweet and vital. Birds carolled their songs, and made the woods vocal with praise. Nature seemed set to a jubilant key; while fresh inspiration flowed into the heart of man as he gazed on the scene so redolent with ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... elderberries between whiles to wet their whistles. If the weather is not too cold you will hear this music daily, wet or dry, all the year round. We may say that of all singing birds they are most vocal, yet have no set song. I doubt if they have more than half a dozen to a dozen sounds or notes which are the same in every individual and their very own. One of them is a clear, soft, musical whistle, slightly inflected; another a kissing sound, usually repeated ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... spirit which blunders all too easily. But the writer knows how much those mistakes hurt and how much energy might be saved for a life that, with just a pinch less of blunder, might be none the less savoury. School and college are no place for vocal soloists, and after some of us have sung so sweetly and so long at home, with every one saying, "Just hear Mary sing, isn't it wonderful!" it is rather trying, you know, to go to a place where vocal solos are not popular. And we wish some one—at least I did—had ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... are present at birth; most of them develop later in the child's life. Pillsbury says, "One may recognize the food-taking instincts, the vocal protests at discomfort, but relatively few others." This delay in the appearance of instincts and capacities is dependent upon the development of the nervous system. No one of them can appear until the connections between nerve centers are ready, making the path of discharge ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... about them, and at last the very lines of his body seemed expressive of the state of a man who has explained himself forty-five times, and is then politely asked to explain himself. For half an hour, I suppose, I sat on his knee while he sneezed and roared and played games with his vocal cords. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the excitement of his narrative, was about to give a vocal illustration, when Bounce suddenly extinguished him by clapping his hand on ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... raise Voices of gold in the Almighty's praise; The sunsets soar In choral crimson from far shore to shore: Each is a blast, Reverberant, of color,—seen as vast Concussions,—that the vocal firmament In ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... word in answer. She passed her hand along the mantelpiece for the matches she had seen there just before; but her hand shook so much that some little metal ornament fell with a crash as she fumbled there, and she drew a long almost vocal breath of sudden nervous alarm. And still there was no movement in answer. Only the tall figure stood watching her it seemed—a pale luminous patch showing ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... entered into a league of amity and commerce, whereby they exchange singers, so that all shall in turn be heard at every theatre. At New York the company includes, for leading soprani, Madame Lagrange, the wonder of the last two years, greatest of vocal gymnasts, and fine actress always, with voice well worn, and Madame Frezzolini, as the last imported celebrity from Europe; her voice, too, is past its prime, but her art is pronounced immaculate, and she is quite a charmer, if we may trust the critics. For contralto there is Vestvali, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... It was wonderful, indeed, but that was all that it was. There was no generous glow in her music; she did not cause him to feel any emotion other than that of astonishment at the perfection of her vocal organs. He had imagined that the great singer's voice would compel him to jump out of his seat and wave his hands wildly and shout and cheer ... but instead he had sat still and wondered at the marvellous way in which ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... place that I know on the earth which has the peculiar, bright, ineffable calm of the plain of these Colossi. It takes you into its breast, and you lie there in the growing sunshine almost as if you were a child laid in the lap of one of them. That legend of the singing at dawn of the "vocal Memnon," how could it have arisen? How could such calmness sing, such patience ever find a voice? Unlike the Sphinx, which becomes ever more impressive as you draw near to it, and is most impressive when you sit almost at its feet, the Colossi lose in ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... lamb, who was an orphan; which is to say, the extra pelt was the lamb's meal-ticket, and she had given him several meals on the evidence of smell. The deception had worked all the more readily because she had not had time to become familiar with her own lamb's voice; and now that a sort of vocal relationship had been established between the two, things promised to go along naturally, with probably a little insistence upon the ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... astonishment of the two men was beyond any vocal expression. Without a word, the drunken stranger got into the ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... display in the garden beds, although these city flowers are merely so many doors flung wide in Bond Street and the neighborhood, inviting you to look at a picture, or hear a symphony, or merely crowd and crush yourself among all sorts of vocal, excitable, brightly colored human beings. But, all the same, it is no mean rival to the quieter process of vegetable florescence. Whether or not there is a generous motive at the root, a desire to share and impart, or whether the ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... early April days when birds make a great fuss over their vocal accomplishments, and the brown earth grows green over night—when the hot spring sun draws vapours from the soil, and the characteristic Long Island odour of manure is far too prevalent to please ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... from my Mother, who had neither ear nor voice, and who had said, in the course of her last illness, 'I shall sing His praise, at length, in strains I never could master here below'. My Father, on the other hand, had some knowledge of the principles of vocal music, although not, I am afraid, much taste. He had at least great fondness for singing hymns, in the manner then popular with the Evangelicals, very loudly, and so slowly that I used to count how many words I could read silently, between one syllable of the singing and ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... formed a select circle. The conversation turned upon music, and the Queen who had been describing with national partiality the beauty of the hymns sung by the Portuguese mariners, suddenly addressing me, observed that since she left her native country she had heard no vocal music which had given her pleasure except from the lips of Miss Marchmont: 'I cannot' said she kindly smiling, 'as you may perceive, forget the name of one whose society I prized so highly; but if 'Lady Greville' will pardon my inadvertence, and oblige me by singing one of those ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... and rehangs it in position. Having repeated the process with the remainder, he glows with a sense of duty done, and bursts into his farewell song; I often wish that it was his swan-song. He produces in this vocal valediction noises which to the ears of a Futurist composer might seem as Olympian music, but which to my insufficiently educated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... warehouses lining the insecure wharves of rotten piles, half filled in—that had ceased to be wharves, but had not yet become streets,—their treacherous yawning depths, with the uncertain gleam of tarlike mud below, at times still vocal with the lap and gurgle of the tide. I remember the weird stories of disappearing men found afterward imbedded in the ooze in which they had fallen and gasped their life away. I remember the two or three ships, still left standing ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... up among the hazelled rubbish heaps that surround the caldron of the quarry, and lay flat upon the stones. The wind searched close along the earth, the stones were cutting and icy, the bare hazels wailed about him; and soon the air of the afternoon began to be vocal with those strange and dismal harpings that herald snow. Pain and misery turned in John's limbs to a harrowing impatience and blind desire of change; now he would roll in his harsh lair, and when the flints abraded him, ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must invite her to tea to-morrow," he said to me in a whisper that shook the Nissen hut to its foundations. Slingswivel was no vocal lightweight. Those people in Thanet and Kent who used to write to the papers saying they could hear the guns in the Vimy Ridge and Messines offensives were wrong. What they really heard was Major Slingswivel at Nullepart expostulating with his partner ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... clarinet and flute may agree in pitch and quantity, yet be unlike in quality. The same is true in regard to the tones of the voice of two individuals. This difference is occasioned mainly by the different positions of the vocal organs. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the rural charms of their secluded village were a source of ever pleasing variety. Spring, with its verdured fields, flowery meads, and vocal groves: its vernal gales, purling rills, and its evening whippoorwill: summer, with its embowering shades, reflected in the glassy lake, and the long, pensive, yet sprightly notes of the solitary strawberry-bird;[A] its lightning and its thunder; autumn with ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... happy family to a horizontal pole suitably fastened to the upper gallery, where she cultivated their intellects, and, assisted by her devoted husband, gave them flying and singing lessons, each vocal attempt being rewarded by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... weeks before ever Turkey Track is heard of 'round town ag'in. Also, it's in the Bird Cage Op'ry House he hits the surface of his times. The Mockin' Bird has jest done drove the vocal picket-pin of 'Old Kentucky Home,' when, bang! some loonatic shoots at her. Which the bullet bores a hole in the scenery not a foot ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Happy Accession to the Throne.' Jack Sheppard's library consisted of a few ragged and well-thumbed volumes abstracted from the tremendous chronicles bequeathed to the world by those Froissarts and Holinsheds of crime—the Ordinaries of Newgate. His vocal collection comprised a couple of flash songs pasted against the wall, entitled 'The Thief-Catcher's Prophecy,' and the 'Life and Death of the Darkman's Budge;' while his extraordinary mechanical skill was ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... citizens born in other lands have not entertained with sufficient intensity and affection the American ideal. But the number of such is, I am sure, not large. Those who would seek to represent them are very vocal, but they are not very influential. Some of the best stuff of America has come out of foreign lands, and some of the best stuff in America is in the men who are naturalized citizens of the United States. I would not be afraid upon the test of "America first" to take a census of all the foreign-born ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... are in perfect correspondence with the gaiety of the morning. The general warbling continues, with now and then an interruption by the transient croak of the raven, the scream of the jay, or the pert chattering of the daw. The nightingale, unwearied by the vocal exertions of the night, joins his inferiors in sound in the general harmony. The thrush is wisely placed on the summit of some lofty tree, that its loud and piercing notes may be softened by distance before they reach the ear; while ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... hounds rally in his rear, and chide till earth and air are vocal and harmonious. Hark! hark! how Archer's cheers ring on the wind! Now he turns once again—he nears the edge—how glorious! with what a beautiful bold bound he leaped from that high bluff into the flashing wave! with what a majesty he tossed his antlered head above the spray! with how magnificent ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Its summit towered above all the other trees, and could be seen far out at sea, so that it served as a landmark to the sailors. It had no idea how many eyes looked eagerly for it. In its topmost branches the wood-pigeon built her nest, and the cuckoo carried out his usual vocal performances, and his well-known notes echoed amid the boughs; and in autumn, when the leaves looked like beaten copper plates, the birds of passage would come and rest upon the branches before taking their flight across the sea. But now it was winter, the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... dhat evvery Inglish vowel haz, not onely a longuer and shorter, but even a different sound, az open or shut by a consonant; dho A braud, open and shut, differ but in quantity. Nor iz it yet a secret, dhat certain mutes, or silent letters, (espescially vocal quiescents,) ar named serviles; rendering essencial az vizzibel service, boath to' vowels and consonants. Hware such gards ar wanted, dhey doutles wil attend; and, hwen dhey proov superfluous, az reddily widhdraw. Dhus dhe open vowel ov dhe simpel shuts, and dhe serviles vannish, in dhe penultimate ...
— A Minniature ov Inglish Orthoggraphy • James Elphinston
... sausage, began an apparently preconcerted series of extraordinary and unimaginable noises. He coughed, sneezed, and barked simultaneously—bleated in one breath, and cackled in the next—sputteringly shrieked, and chatteringly squealed, with a bass of suffocated roars. There were desolutory vocal explosions, tapering off in long wails, half smothered in unintelligible small-talk. He whistled, wheezed, and trumpeted; began to sharp, thought better of it and flatted; neighed like a horse, and then thundered like a drum! ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... battles between theology and science in the field of comparative philology opened just on this point, apparently so insignificant: the direct divine inspiration of the rabbinical punctuation. The first to impugn this divine origin of these vocal points and accents appears to have been a Spanish monk, Raymundus Martinus, in his Pugio Fidei, or Poniard of the Faith, which he put forth in the thirteenth century. But he and his doctrine disappeared beneath the waves of the orthodox ocean, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Humboldt, belongs to the singing species of animals. True it is, that wherever found, he has some notion of music, cultivates the accord of sounds by some sort of instrument, and gives expression to his most acute emotions in modulations of vocal tone. ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... the last of silence in Canaan for an hour or so. The organ was merely inaugural: across the street a piano sounded; firm, emphatic, determined, vocal competition with the instrument here also; "Rock of Ages" the incentive. Another piano presently followed suit, in a neighboring house: "Precious Jewels." More distant, a second organ was heard; other pianos, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... all its pleasant traits and world-wide reputation, the English robin is a pretentious, arrogant busybody, characteristically pugilistic and troublesome in the winged society of England. In form, dress, deportment, disposition, and in voice and taste for vocal music, the American robin surpasses the English most decidedly. In this our grave forefathers did more than justice to the home-bird they missed on Plymouth Rock. In this generous treatment of their affection for it, they perhaps condoned for mating the English lark so ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... distinguishes all is this, that in singing, the words are to be considered, and how they are fitted with notes, and then the common accent of the country is to be known and understood by the hearer, or he will never be a good judge of the vocal musique of another country. So that I was not taken with this at all, neither understanding the first, nor by practice reconciled to the latter, so that their motions, and risings and fallings, though it may be pleasing to an Italian, or one that understands the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in the stillness—and another. A shot, the beat of running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination conjured—a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a huddled figure sank ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... I should like to see him do for us as many stunts as he can. I've heard from a mortal, named Shakespeare, that, in one performance, Puck could be a horse, a hound, a hog, a bear without any head, and even kindle himself into a fire; while his vocal powers, as we know, are endless. He can neigh, bark, grunt, roar, and even burn up things. Now, I should like to see the fairy that could beat him at tricks. It was Puck himself, who told the world that he was in the ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... that primitive language was only a vocal and individual sign of material images, and it was for a long while restricted to these concrete limits. Since the vocal signs of the relations of things are less easily expressed, these relations were at first set forth by gestures, by a movement of the whole person, and especially ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... Human nature is the same, face to face or voice to voice; surely then, if he set his mind to the task, he could make himself more than a mere string of words over a telephone. Heretofore he had been working wholly with his fingers, his ear-drums, and his vocal cords; he determined henceforth to exercise his intelligence, if he had any. It was indeed high time, for Miss Harris was undoubtedly slipping away, lured by luxuries no clerk could afford, and, moreover, he, Mitchell, was growing old; in a scant two years he would be able to vote. He began ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... millions, and three groats to pay. So swells each windpipe; ass intones to ass, Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass; Such as from labouring lungs the enthusiast blows, High sound, attemper'd to the vocal nose, Or such as bellow from the deep divine; There, Webster![323] peal'd thy voice, and, Whitfield![324] thine. But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain; Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again. 260 In Tottenham fields, the brethren, with amaze, Prick all their ears up, and forget ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... carry, and with nothing to weight him down, his feet felt light as feathers. He trudged briskly along the smooth highway, every sense alive to the delights of the forest. All about him the woods were vocal with the calls of birds. The wind whispered and sighed in the pine tops. And sometimes, when the air in the bottom was still as sluggish water, Charley could hear the wind roaring among the trees far up on the hillsides. The scent of spring was in ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... which he was so obliging as to roar a chorus to no particular tune, and with no words at all, but which amply made up in its amazing energy for its deficiency in other respects. The noise of this vocal performance awakened the other man, who, staggering upon deck and shaking his late opponent by the hand, swore that singing was his pride and joy and chief delight, and that he desired no better entertainment. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens |
