"Inflection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never omitted one of my performances, always occupying the stage box, and invariably sending me the next morning a letter, full of the most detailed and delicate criticism, showing a minute attention to every inflection of my voice, every gesture, every attitude, which, combined with expressions of enthusiastic admiration, with which this discriminating and careful review of my performance invariably terminated, was as strong a dose of the finest flattery ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... fear the Change?" he answered her unspoken question, calm serenity in every inflection of his quiet voice. "The life-principle is unknowable to the finite mind, as is the All-Controlling Force. But even though we know nothing of the sublime goal toward which it is tending, any person ripe for the Change can, and of course does, liberate the life-principle so ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... her inflection seeming to imply that Wilbur's crime was explained by his surname. "Wilbur Minafer! It's the queerest thing I ever heard! To think of her taking Wilbur Minafer, just because a man any woman would like a thousand ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... on Darling." As she did not reply, he added, with a gentler inflection, "You know why the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... a rising inflection, that we were hunting ducks," said De Young. "I temporized; made him forget that I hadn't answered. You know what will happen once the curiosity of the natives ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... ornithologists have made the discovery that it is a link between the geese and swans, but is more goose than swan. It is a beautiful white bird, with bright red bill and legs, the wings tipped with black; and has a loud musical cry of three notes, the last prolonged note with a falling inflection. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... slight change of inflection as she said "the packer" had not quite the effect she had intended. Stirling himself had once labored with his hands, and, what was more, afterward had a good deal to bear on that account. He was not particularly vindictive, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... in, his voice speaking the word with a rising inflection of intense interest. "It is well that you have come. I, too, know something of the visitors to the roses of Konopisht. The talk was not all of roses, nicht wahr?" he said quietly, with ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... do you suggest shall be done with my—rival?' asked the German with a sinister inflection ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... but only as such differences would be apparent in real life. Indeed, the aim today is to mimic reality in externals, precisely as the real characters themselves are impersonated in every shade of thought and artistic inflection of speech. There are, to be sure, ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... said, with the velvety South of Ireland vowel-inflection. "We keep Wednesday for the Women's Laager, always. Many of them are so miserable, poor souls, about their husbands and sons and brothers who are in the trenches, or who have been killed, and then there are the children ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Gentlemen, this next lot'll tempt you, I'm sure! Lot 33, a magnificent and very finely executed dramatic group out of the "Merchant of Venice," Othello in the act of smothering Desdemona, both nearly life-size. (Assist., with a sardonic inflection. "Group 'ere, Gen'lm'n!") What shall we say for this great work by ROCCOCIPPI, Gentlemen? A hundred guineas, just to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... stylus is attached; so that a human mouth uses a pen and inscribes its sign vocal. Yet after all we are just as far away as ever from enabling the young actors at Harvard to give Aristophanes with all the true, subtle intonation and inflection of the Athens of 400 B.C. The instrument is dumb. Ingenuity has been shown also in the invention of "talking-machines," like Faber's, based on the reed organ pipe. These automata can be made by dexterous manipulation to jabber a little, like a doll with its monotonous "ma-ma," or a cuckoo clock; ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... of a gracious and pleasant personality. She was tall and fair, rather English in type, and spoke with a noticeable English accent. She frequently ended sentences of simple statement with a rising inflection and was addicted to the use of the word very, which ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... considerable shrewdness frequently remarked that Stan was an awful ass, but he could paint some. This was the common last analysis, the degree of qualifying favor being measured in each case by the comparative pause between the last two words and the accent and inflection upon the ultimate. ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Every lineament of his face, every inflection of his voice, as well as every act of his life, and every trait of his ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... think—" said the elderly gentleman, getting in. The inflection of his voice suggested the Irishman. It was not a brogue. There were no strange words. But the general effect was Irish. Garnet congratulated himself. Irishmen are generally good company. An Irishman with a pretty daughter should ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... a warm welcome with gentle dignity, not forgetting the cloud of sadness which hung over the house and rendered her presence necessary. She called her "Nurse Gray" at the conclusion of every sentence, with an upward inflection and pretty rolling of the r's, which charmed Jane. She longed to say: "You old dear! How I shall enjoy being in the house with you!" but remembered in time that a remark which would have been gratifying condescension on the part of the Honourable Jane Champion, would be little short of impertinent ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... interrupted, in a bewitching and rising inflection of his soft and plaintive voice. "I know you got a kind feeling by me, and I couldn't to tell even how I got a kind feeling by you. Only it's about that kind feeling I should give you a present. I didn't"—with a glance at the crowded desk—"I didn't to have no soap nor ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... fumbled at his breast. Twisting his head aside, he got something between his teeth, and through the fetid fog went the shiver and whine of the Metropolitan Police Call. Three times he blew, with the correct inflection. ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... Millar, with an obstinate inflection of her voice which said, "I am of my own opinion still." She illustrated this by adding, in an ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... affections, this, the first that takes root in the infant's heart, is the last to die out under the blighting influence of vice, the deadening blows of time. "My Mother" is spoken by the world-hardened citizen with a gentler inflection,—a reverential cadence, as if the inner man stood with ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... with her back to it, smiled in enjoying recognition of the thin, high academic note, the prim finish of the inflection. It reminded her of a man she knew ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... a blind person in the canoe with the Lockwood sisters, that unfortunate person could never in this world have told which girl spoke at each time. Their voices were exactly alike—the same inflection, the same turning of phrases, the ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... saying yes was one of his chief weapons of annihilation. He had a peculiar, taunting inflection which he could give to it, upon occasion, which caused prickles of flesh upon the victim. To say that Miss Whitmore was not utterly quenched argues well for her courage. She only gasped, as though treated to an unexpected dash of cold ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... Was it the gentle inflection of the question, or his intent glance that made me feel, as I had felt before that day, that I was face to face with an alert antagonist? He called on me to speak, and I was loth to break my silence. If he had only left me to my own bitter thoughts,—but why should I have expected ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... got home," answered Mrs. Dent with rising inflection. "Be you gone crazy over that girl? The last boat from Porter's Falls was in before we went to bed. Of course she ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... company," remarked my uncle, who did not seem to catch the sceptical inflection in his younger daughter's voice, "and I sometimes fear she wishes to be alone because she is brooding ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... This word appears to be derived from the same root as Paup-puk-ke-nay, a grasshopper, the inflection iss making it personal. The Indian idea is that of harum scarum. He is regarded as a foil to Manabozho, with whom he is frequently brought in contact in aboriginal ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... conversation above recorded can hardly be had except my reader will take the trouble to imagine the contrast between the Scotch accent and inflection, the largeness and prolongation of vowel sounds, and, above all, the Scotch tone of Malcolm, and the pure, clear articulation, and decided utterance of the perfect London speech of Lenorme. It was something like the difference ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... rising inflection and a drawling note in his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure you ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... hastened to assure her. "I don't think there is anything for you to be uneasy about, except that his influence is always evil—" he paused on a raised inflection and looked at her admiringly. "One of the reasons," he went on regardless of the abrupt change, "why I like you and feel so sure that you are sound and good and strong clear through is because you have not yielded in the least to the subtle influence ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... some minutes had passed, the rattle of the newspaper and the measured ticking of the clock being the only disturbing sounds, "Father," he repeated, this time with a falling inflection. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... on reading into June. For the sake of the finer effects (in "Copperfield" principally), I have changed from St. James's Hall to the Hanover Square Room. The latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place exactly as it leaves your lips; but I miss my dear old shilling galleries—six or eight hundred strong—with a certain roaring sea of response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... first to make a sound—a broken, hypnotic sound, without emphasis or inflection, as though his lips were frozen, or the words torn from him ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... watch my companion, as he told me the names of the Tories who followed in Colden's wake, and commented on their characters. I do not recall them, but I remember every line of Philip Schuyler's face, and every inflection of his voice. He was then not quite forty years of age, almost of my stature—that is to say, a tall man. He held himself very erect, giving strangers the impression of a haughty air, which his dark face and eyes, and black lines of hair peeping from under ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... her a pillow, handing it without speaking and waiting significantly. She took it in silence, then got out her purse, a meagre-looking one, and put a little coin into the woman's hand. As she did so she said, "Thank you," and the least little foreign inflection—a lingering difficulty with the "th"—gave Noel the last assurance that he needed. How unforgotten the voice was! He believed he would almost have ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... was always too quick for him, and this reply held him in puzzled silence while she extended her hand and added, with the faintest inflection of sadness in her voice: "Before we bid each other goodbye, I want at least to thank you for having once thought of me ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... with so disagreeable an inflection that Arved was astonished. He looked around and ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... tones to him, the love displayed in every inflection, set out in more bitter contrast the coldness with which ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... was about to go." She turned to give Bailey her hand, smiling involuntarily in her relief. With a glance, an inflection, Lestrange had stripped their former meeting of its embarrassment and unconventionality, how, she neither analyzed ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... in the courtyard at last—but the only window that looked that way was set high in the wall of the little corridor, and he could not see who it was to whom she was talking. And he wondered, because the inflection of her voice was English—not the exquisite imitation of the French inflexion which he had so ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... partner, don't you think? Are you—but of course you must be acquainted with him, living in the same neighborhood?" Her inflection made ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... brilliant episode when individuals seem lost sight of in the general vividness of the scene with its gaily colored costumes and flash of jewels. There are alternating sentimental passages until, toward the end, the first melody bursts into a fortissimo—a great rising inflection, insistent and impassioned—then a final pitch of excitement as all seem to throw themselves into the whirl and the waltz reaches a brilliant end. While Nevin in the waltz which I selected from among his works, appears to tell the story of two people, Moskowszki here places before our eyes ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... Fritz repeated with a strong, rising inflection on the "los." And at that he drew his overcoat, which apparently had been thrown across his shoulders, high above his head and down over it, as if he were cold. I can see the silhouette of that coat against the stars ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... undeserving?" It was he who added the words, as though he had read them in my own mind; and there was a slight, sarcastic rising inflection of the voice at the end of the sentence, as if he put it ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... sentence, and was so devised in the mind of the composer, without the extensions. The method of manipulation is ingenious; observe the variety obtained by the striking dynamic changes from ff to pp; and, hand in hand with these, the changes from major to minor, and back (as shown by the inflection of b-flat to b-double-flat). These are first applied to members only, of the Antecedent, as indicated by the brackets a and b, and then to the entire Consequent phrase. Observe, also, that in the repeated form of the latter, the rhythm is modified ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... but not very far from them, come those that recognize a constructed object: for example, the fox, which knows quite well that a trap is a trap. No doubt, there is intelligence wherever there is inference; but inference, which consists in an inflection of past experience in the direction of present experience, is already a beginning of invention. Invention becomes complete when it is materialized in a manufactured instrument. Towards that achievement the intelligence of animals tends as towards an ideal. And though, ordinarily, it ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... subtle and plastic inflection of his voice, like the poise of wings descending, he dropped from that almost inspired height of emotion, and became shrewd and practical, thoroughly informed and competent, a physician with a flair for the secret of disease, a surgeon of the Soul, relentless in his handling of ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... and in addition he knew the different cockney voices of all the rabble of the London streets. He had learnt to know the queer types of people who drifted about the river banks and the poorer sections of the city. He knew every small inflection of their voices and their every trick and gesture, and now he acted them out to the great delight of the other clerks. But he could put his powers of mimicry to greater uses. He went to the theatre, particularly to hear Shakespeare's plays, as often as he could, ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... when a man expresses a wish that the rain may be dammed, he voices a desire for its everlasting condemnation, or the mere placing in its way of an impediment which shall prevent its further overflow. I think much depends upon the manner, the inflection, and the tone of voice in which the desire is expressed, and I am sorry to say that upon the occasion to which I refer, there was more of the asperity of profanity than the calmness of constructive suggestion in my father's manner. In any event I did not blame him, for ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... ladies of Monastier; it seemed to them frolicsome and racy, like a page of Pickwick; and they all got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort of accent and inflection, but I seem to lack ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blundering?" she echoed; and the inflection of the pronoun might have flattered him had he not reflected that it was impossible she could have understood his allusion. And now she bethought her that she had not thanked him—and the debt was a heavy one. He had come to her aid in an hour when hope seemed dead. He had come single-handed—save ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... hear the man and to see the poison of that rat soul of his exuding from his every pore, in every gesture and in each fresh inflection of his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their fierce approval and shook in our faces their bloody butcher's bayonets. It was a bitter draught. If they had killed us then it would have had to have been done ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... "Mist-er.....er Brierly!" (Mr. Braham had in perfection this lawyer's trick of annoying a witness, by drawling out the "Mister," as if unable to recall the name, until the witness is sufficiently aggravated, and then suddenly, with a rising inflection, flinging his name at him with startling unexpectedness.) "Mist-er.....er ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... If I turned slowly it was because I knew what was waiting me, and was adjusting several possibilities to meet it. It was a man's voice that called, yet its every inflection was familiar, familiar as the beating of my heart. For madame, my wife, had called to me more or less often in the twin of that voice with its slurring deliberateness and its insolent disregard of the pitfall accents of a foreign tongue. And now I turned to meet her cousin, ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... Field!" a voice behind him cried. "What are those cryptic rites that you're performing? What on earth are you bowing into a hairdresser's window for?"—a smooth, melodious voice, tinged by an inflection that was half ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... speeches, to herself. She only felt a slight shock, such as a word or a look from one we love too often gives us,—such as a child's trivial gesture or movement makes a parent feel,—that impalpable something which in the slightest possible inflection of a syllable or gradation of a tone will sometimes leave a sting behind it, even in a trusting heart. This was all. But it was true that what she saw meant a great deal. It meant the dawning in Myrtle Hazard of one of her as yet unlived secondary lives. Bathsheba's ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... difference in his delivery when he read the lessons after his visit. We all observed it, and some of the old-fashioned people thought that he was going to intone—to which there was a strong objection—but his efforts not carrying him beyond a peculiar rising inflection towards the middle of a verse, and a remarkable lingering fall into deep bass at the end, we soon regarded it as a praiseworthy attempt to give variety to his previous vapid utterances, and came rather to like it, as it gave the church somewhat of a cathedral flavour. The old pew-opener ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... to the warning. Deborah's voice had but reminded him of Deborah's presence. Its tone had escaped him. He was too engrossed in the purpose he had in mind to notice shades of inflection. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... children, is this rhythm the law; and grace and strength are inflections thereof. All human movement is a variation upon symmetry, and without symmetry it would not be variation; it would be lawless, fortuitous, and as dull and broadcast as lawless art. The order of inflection that is not infraction has been explained in a most authoritative sentence of criticism of literature, a sentence that should save the world the trouble of some of its futile, violent, and weak experiments: "Law, the rectitude of humanity," says Mr ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... Owen thought me the only woman worth looking at in the whole world. Ah, well! that is all over, long ago!" Mildred would say, with an inflection that was meant to be tenderly reassuring. And she would tilt her still pretty head on one side and smile with pensive kindness at her successor upon the throne ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a chair up to the couch, and his first words roused the woman's interest. He spoke for ten minutes or more, now in whispers, now with a rising inflection; now persuasively, now with well-feigned indignation and scorn. The effect which his argument had on his companion was shown by the swift changes that passed over her face; she interrupted him frequently, asking questions and making comments. At the end the woman rustled her ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... the false accusation made upon himself. Indeed, his noble and candid nature easily explained all as the ravings of some heartrending remembrance. Waiting, therefore, until the violent convulsions of the old man's frame had somewhat subsided, Herbert went to him, and with a low and respectful inflection of voice, said: ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... mastered only by long practice. Serious as they are, they need not frighten any one who is in the habit of learning foreign tongues. The ear and the tongue gradually become familiar with the peculiarities of inflection and accentuation, and practice fulfils the same function as ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... said in reproof, "But verily, your name is on all lips. The Roumi have branded you common criminal. You are to be seized on sight and great reward will be given he who delivers you to the authorities." He spoke without inflection, and Crawford could read neither support nor animosity—nor greed for the reward offered by El Hassan's enemies. He gathered the impression that the Tuareg chief was playing his cards ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... gravely, with that quaintest inflection of the English he had ever heard, "yes, mistaken. He mais—but it is just that the complaint. You ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... on some animal. Lessons are sometimes given on cats. As an element in a reading lesson—to arouse interest—to hold the attention—to secure correct emphasis and inflection—to make sure of the reading being good: such work is appropriate. But let us see what the effect upon the pupil is as regards the knowledge he gains of the cat, and the effect upon his habits of thought and study. The ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... only word he could have spoken just then, but it was all that was necessary. It told her everything. It was an outburst from a heart too full of emotion to grope after speech, the cry of a man for the One Woman who alone can call forth an inflection more eloquent than phrases and poetry. And, as she came into his outstretched arms as straight and direct as a homing pigeon, they closed about her in a convulsive grip that held her straining to him, almost crushing her in the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... worry my head about you, you old fox. You're too much of a master hand," Cronin returned, with an inflection that sounded like a grin. "I imagine you can hold up ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... or send it flowing on In pleasant waves? Can draw soft tears, or concentrate them hard To form a base whereon the martyr stands To take his leap to Heaven? What is this sound that, in Niagara's roar Brings us to Sinai; Or in the infant's prayer to Him, "Our Father?" That by a small inflection wakes the world, And sends its squadroned armies on To victory or death; Or bids it, peaceful, rest, and grow, and build? That reassures the frighted babe; or starts The calm philosopher, without a word? That, in the song of little bird speaks glee; Or in a groan strikes mortal agony? ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... will enable me to substitute for the face of some common-place player, or for that face repainted to suit his own vulgar fancy, the fine invention of a sculptor, and to bring the audience close enough to the play to hear every inflection of the voice. A mask never seems but a dirty face, and no matter how close you go is still a work of art; nor shall we lose by staying the movement of the features, for deep feeling is expressed by a movement of the whole body. In poetical ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... trial-scene from Pickwick, and a Christmas Carol in a prelude and three scenes. Scene first, Marley's Ghost. Marley was dead, to begin with." These words, or words very similar, were spoken in a husky voice, not remarkable in any way, and with the English cadence in articulation, a rising inflection at the end of every few words. They were spoken with perfect simplicity, and the introductory description was read with good sense, and conveyed a fine relish upon the reader's part of the things described. There was nothing formal, no effort of any kind. ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... eyes as he raised his head her own widened, and she withdrew from him imperceptibly, dismissing him with a mere inflection. ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... make my husband insane in order to establish the fact that his grandfather was not of sound mind?" queried pretty Mrs. Browne, with her calmest Boston inflection. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... collection of shells; and since then every noon and night he found her waiting here by her gate to speak to him; and she invariably asked the same question about his wife, always in the same tone, always with the same inflection. The meeting with her had become one of the frightfully unvarying things of his day. As he walked on now, he saw stretching before him an interminable vista of days, weeks, years—one deadly sameness of ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Inflection Defined Number The Formation of Plurals Compound Nouns Case The Formation of the ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... example of this willingness to dispense with inflection, of this endeavour on the part of the speakers of a language to reduce its forms to the fewest possible, consistent with the accurate communication of thought. Of our adjectives in 'en', formed on substantives, and expressing the material ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the beloved. Taking their source and their element from the soul itself, the vibrations of the air, charged with passion, put our hearts so powerfully into communion, carrying thought between them so lucidly, and being, above all, so incapable of falsehood, that a single inflection of a voice is often a revelation. What enchantments the intonations of a tender voice can bestow upon the heart of a poet! What ideas they awaken! What freshness they shed there! Love is in the voice before the glance ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... launch the desperate pun, A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. Turned by the current of some stronger wit Back from the object that you mean to hit, Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, One trivial letter ruins all, left out; A knot can choke a felon into clay, A not will save him, spelt without the k; The smallest word has some unguarded spot, And danger lurks in i without ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... tapestry, gay with silver lace, coquettish fans, and high-heeled Spanish slippers. Eighteen years old, married, and dead; and muy querida, much beloved! My thoughts stayed behind, as I moved on, and the words, with their soft inflection, would recur dreamily to me, again and again—muy querida; ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... another thing to hear Stevenson as he stood reading it aloud, with his hand stretched out holding the manuscript, and his body gently swaying as a kind of rhythmical commentary on the story. His fine voice, clear and keen it some of its tones, had a wonderful power of inflection and variation, and when he came to stand in the place of Silver you could almost have imagined you saw the great one-legged John Silver, joyous-eyed, on the rolling sea. Yes, to read it in print was good, but better yet ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... but a slight sound came from the lake, and he stayed. It was merely the cry of the night bird, calling to its mate, one would have said, but Robert's attention was attracted by an odd inflection in it, a strain that seemed familiar. He listened with the utmost attention, and when it came a second time, he was so sure that his pulses beat ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as he stood over his bed, having come to announce the arrival of Julia. "August!" Andrew tried to speak quietly, but there was a something of hope in the inflection, a tremor of eagerness in the utterance, that made the mother look up ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... English, and middle English: for instance, "dages endi nahtes" (Heliand), "daeges and nihtes" (Beowulf), "daeies and nihtes" (Layamon), all meaning "by day and by night." In all, or almost all, words ending in "ward," the genitive inflection, according to modern English practice, can either be retained or dropped at will. It is a mere pedantry to declare "toward" better English than "towards," "upward" than "upwards." Thus we see that here again there is neither logical principle nor ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... glad to receive you," he said. "It will be among the most memorable incidents of my reign that I welcome to my Court the first visitor from another world, or," he added, after a sudden pause, and with an inflection of unmistakable irony in his tone, "the first who has descended to our world from a height to which no balloon could reach and at ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... "I?" The inflection of doubtful surprise was a delight to the ear. "Oh!... I couldn't think of accepting.... Besides, I have ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... last, who till then had kept silence without having for a moment ceased to behold Corinne, "to which of your poetical talents do you yourself give the preference? To the work of inflection, or of momentary inspiration?" "My lord," answered Corinne, with a look that expressed the highest interest and the most delicate sentiment of respectful consideration, "it is you that I would wish to make the judge ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... "buffer," more than he could stand—or, rather, sit. Leaped to feet, and, with thrilling energy, repudiated gross imputation. Prince ARTHUR taken aback; hadn't meant anything particular. To call a thing or a person a buffer not necessarily a term of opprobrium. Everything depends on inflection of tone. Suppose, now, leaning across the table, he had addressed Mr. G. as "old buffer," that would perhaps have been a little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... straws would have seemed stable, caught the inflection of defiance and daring and hope ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... the faintest suggestion of the derisive inflection. After all, it might have been but a mannerism. The man had such a mild face and such a ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... belong to the Fairfaxes of Kirkham? Is your grandfather Richard Fairfax of Abbotsmead?" she said in a quick voice, with an inflection of surprise. ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... who seek to spare us the discomfort of repentance by teaching us to declare with a new inflection, "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves," forget that there is another side to this argument. It is, of course, very alluring to be told that we are not really blameworthy for acts which hitherto ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... courtliness he could muster, and releasing his passive prisoner, pushed her gently into the safe-keeping of the old cniht. Yet he was not so obtuse as to step back, as though the incident were closed; he read the King's inflection more correctly than that. Holding himself somewhat stiff in the tenseness of his feelings, he stood his ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... been so engrossed in the landscape that she seemed not to have been listening. It was her voice, come out of the distance, that asked, without any inflection except ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... bureau scarves that are in good condition but they have been washed so many times that they're a little faded. If you'd like those—?" she ended with an upward inflection. ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... are made, gentlemen should be presented to ladies, younger people to older people, etc. The formula for introductions may be abbreviated to a mere announcement of the two names: "Mr. Smith—Mrs. Jones"—the pause and inflection filling the ellipsis; and really, upon the tone and manner depends the courtesy of the introduction so barren of phrasing. A formal presentation is made in this form:—"Miss Smith, allow me ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... attention has been turned for many years, and the conviction grows upon me continually. There is no book in which children a little advanced beyond the simplest monosyllabic lessons will learn to read faster, or more readily catch the proprieties of inflection, emphasis, and cadence, than the Bible. I would by no means put it into the hands of a child to spell out and blunder over the chapters before he has read any thing else. The word of God ought not to be so used by mere beginners. But it contains ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... it difficult to say this with the proper inflection. It did not sound as business-like as he could have wished. But she was too much ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... in the habit of talking much about the things you see." She put it in the form of a statement, but the rising inflection indicated ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... or ordinary adjectives. Instead of having our attention taken up with thinking of the proper endings, we are left free to attend to the thought rather than to the vehicle of its expression. Although our pronouns are still declined, the sole inflection of our nouns, with the exception of a few like ox, oxen, or mouse, mice, is the addition of 's, s, or es for the possessive and the plural. Modern German, on the other hand, still retains these troublesome case endings. How did English ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... daredevils and were trying to imitate them. They were intimidated by Christophe's defiant manner, and when he said curtly: "This place is taken," they hastily begged his pardon and withdrew to their end of the bench so as not to disturb him. There had been a masterful inflection in his voice; their natural servility came to the fore. They saw that Christophe was ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... apartment in Braden's car, while Stella contrived prettily to take so much of Warrington's time with the wraps that by the time they were ready to go the manner of the breaking up of the party was as she wanted it. In her final triumph she could not help just an extra inflection on, "I hope I'll see you again at Vera's ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... varieties in inflection, such as "spiritu sancta" for "spiritu sancto," "pauperorum," for "pauperum," "vocitus" for ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... his arms on top of the open Bible, and leant forward for a long, silent moment, looking earnestly from side to side into the upturned faces of his hearers. Then he began to talk—to talk, not to preach, speaking every word with an inflection of the truest sincerity. The text was "Forgetting the things that are behind, I press towards the mark," and the "talk" ran pretty much ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... lessons fall into their natural order of sequence. When, through the development of the sentence, all the offices of the different parts of speech are mastered, the most natural thing is to continue the work of classification and subdivide the parts of speech. The inflection of words, being distinct from their classification, makes a separate division of the work. If the chief end of grammar were to enable one to parse, we should not here depart from ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... in the training is to try a more varied use of the voice, without a loss of what has been acquired as to formation of tone. The student is to make himself able to slide the voice up and down in pitch, by what is called inflection, to raise or lower the pitch by varied intervals, momentarily to enlarge or diminish the tone, in expressive ways; in short, to adapt the improved tone, the more effective method of voice control, to more varied ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Fortunately, however, effort was unnecessary, for Bob won his way quite as uncontestedly with the little inventor as with Celestina. There was no question that his aunt was delighted with him. One could read it in her affectionate touch on his arm; in her soft, nervous laughter; in the tremulous inflection ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... until he entered the lists, so the sly old fox had said to the baroness at the last moment: "Don't forget your cue. You are a mediator, and not an interested party. Troubert also is a mediator. Weigh your words; study the inflection of the man's voice. If he strokes his ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... cold, measured voice as ever, with only a slight sarcastic inflection to vary the deep, grave tones; but a very close observer might have seen his fingers clench the handle of a knife while he was speaking, as if their gripe would ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Spruce," he said, endeavouring to throw an inflection of sternness into his mellow voice, "I must ask you to explain matters a little more clearly. I know that the Manor has been practically shut up ever since I've been here,—that you are the housekeeper in charge, and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... dramatic suggestion to be looked for in the Pickwick trial, thus rendering comparison inapposite. Nevertheless one was bound to contrast them. Thackeray's features were impassive, and his voice knew no inflection. But his elocution in other respects was perfect, admirably distinct and impressive from its ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... diversity of sound. The syntax is the next source of effect. What could be better than Homer, or what worse than almost any translation of him? And this holds even of languages so closely allied as the Indo-European, which, after all, have certain correspondences of syntax and inflection. If there could be a language with other parts of speech than ours, — a language without nouns, for instance, — how would that grasp of experience, that picture of the world, which all our literature contains, be reproduced in it? Whatever ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful glances. Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad angel. She could not go on, although Rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought her to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky; they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them; she spurned children and children-lovers. "I have no taste ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I could not rid my tone of an ironical inflection. I was goaded to it by her attitude, by the scornful turn of her lip and the disdainful glance of her grey eyes—she had her father's eyes, saving that her gaze was as steadfast ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... father sitting, straight and slender, in his chair, talking in that quiet voice of his that never went sharp or deep or quavering, that paused now and then on an amused inflection, his long lips straightening between the perpendicular grooves of his smile. She loved his straight, slender face, clean-shaven, the straight, slightly jutting jaw, the dark-blue flattish eyes under the black eyebrows, the silver-grizzled hair that fitted ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... look at him, for there had been a curious inflection in his "what, what!" He was a stout, highly colored man with large, staring gray eyes. The young American wondered where ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... who had their interests in keeping. He tried his best to be cordial and natural in manner—to be, in brief, the sincere friend that he had professed himself—and Mr. Mayhew did not notice anything amiss; but even at some inflection of his voice, or at a pause in the conversation, Ida would turn towards him this sudden, questioning, child-like look, which touched him deeply while it puzzled him. But she gradually began to grow ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... foregoing without pause or inflection of voice from beginning to end, came to an abrupt stop. Whether from want of breath or ideas it is difficult to ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... kind of jumble between reading and acting,—staring, and bending his brow, and twisting his face, and gesticulating as if he were on the stage and dressed out in all his costume. My father's manner is quite different; it is the reading of a gentleman, who produces effect by feeling, taste, and inflection of voice, not by action or mummery. Lucy Bertram rides remarkably well, and I can now accompany her on horseback, having become emboldened by example. We walk also a good deal in spite of the cold. So, upon the whole, I have not quite so much time for ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... built dreams on the fanciful imagining that she should, despite everything, some day like him. He wearied his brain in recalling a chance expression of her eyes that could not have been unfriendly; an inflection of her voice that might have carried a hope, if only their paths had been less crossed: and his pride, despite rebuffs, sought her as a moth seeks a flame. It drew him to her and kept him from her, for he lacked for the first time in ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... in the man's eyes, a mocking inflection in his voice, that sent a thrill of cold horror through Cuthbert's veins. He was absolutely powerless in that merciless clasp. He felt the strength leaving his limbs and his head turning giddy. He only just knew it when he was laid upon the grass, his ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... music." His method was practically the memoriter method. A gentleman, who heard him give his "Daniel O'Connell" four times in succession, found that the lecture was repeated without the slightest variation whatsoever, in ideas, sentences, inflection of the voice, or even gesture. Phillips prepared his lectures with the greatest care, and then repeated them hundreds of times. From the moment when he came upon the platform his presence filled the eye and satisfied it. His very ease and poise begat confidence and delight. He carved ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... which has great interest for me. This pair were exceedingly talkative at first, uttering not only the usual musical three-syllable warble or call, which Lanier aptly calls the "heavenly word," but often soft twittering prattle, of varying inflection and irregular length, which was certainly the most interesting bird-talk I ever heard. When they could not see me they indulged in it more freely, with changing tones at different times, and after they became accustomed to ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... of isolation. They were enclosed in their common risk as in some secret meeting-place where no consciousness of the outer world intruded; and though their talk kept the safe level of their immediate concerns he felt the change in every inflection of Fulvia's voice and in the subtler emphasis ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... never do," groaned the chief inquisitor. "Now, Freddy, try not to cry. What is your papa's name,—Mr.—?" with the leading inflection as before. ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... born of her own rejected passion, which caused her to read in the beautiful girl's face all that lay hidden behind the pale, impassive mask. That same second sight made her understand Merlin's hints and allusions. She caught every inflection of his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at something, or listening to something, far away. As I grew older, I came to believe that it was only because she was so often thinking of things that were far away. She was quick-footed and energetic in all her movements. Her voice was high and rather shrill, and she often spoke with an anxious inflection, for she was exceedingly desirous that everything should go with due order and decorum. Her laugh, too, was high, and perhaps a little strident, but there was a lively intelligence in it. She was then fifty-five years old, a strong woman, of ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... "what" without the "how" in speech. The same written sentence becomes two diametrically opposite ideas, given opposing inflection and accompanying voice-effect. "He stood in the front rank of the battle" can be made praiseful affirmation, scornful skepticism, or simple question, by a simple varying of voice and inflection. This is the more unmistakable ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... and a coaxing kind of recitative it is, after all. Don't tell me of your soft Etruscan, your plethoric. Hoch-Deutsch, your flattering French. To woo and win the girl of your heart, give me a rich brogue and the least taste in life of blarney! There's nothing like it, believe me,—every inflection of your voice suggesting some tender pressure of her soft hand or taper waist, every cadence falling on her gentle heart like a sea-breeze on a burning coast, or a soft sirocco over a rose-tree. And then, think, my boys,—and it is a fine thought after all,—what ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... his the sign and test of that type of high, sincere manhood which he represents; but it is a dangerous business, this attempting to define the character and disposition of people by the turn of an eyelid, the curve of a lip, or a particular vocal shade and inflection. Not only has Art learned to imitate Nature very closely, but Nature herself plays many a trick upon our credulity in matters of this kind. Upon a woman who owns no higher motive than low and selfish cunning she bestows the musical tones of a seraph, as she sheathes the sharp claws of all her feline ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... know!" said Calvin, with an inflection of sympathetic inquiry. "Is it anything you feel disposed to mention, Mr. Cheeseman, or ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... window," he said with that inflection that Maggie was already beginning to think of as "his ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... you must go this afternoon?' said the Ironmonger's daughter dismally, but with an inflection that made it more ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... know and to have confidence in a gentle driver, and soon discovers how to secure for himself that which he desires, and to understand his surroundings and his duties. The tone, volume, and inflection of his master's voice indicate much, perhaps more than the words that are spoken. Soothing tones rather than words calm him if excited by fear or anger, and angry and excited tones tend to excite or anger him. In short, bad ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... combinatory, or inflectional, and that the transition from one stage to another is in fact constantly taking place under our very noses. Even Chinese is not free from combinatory forms, and the more highly developed among the combinatory languages show the clearest traces of incipient inflection. The difficulty is not to show the transition of one stratum of speech into another, but rather to draw a sharp line between the different strata. The same difficulty was felt in Geology, and led Sir Charles Lyell to invent such pliant ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... kill the familiar! Kill the devil's imp!" came in various voices, the angry tones being not without an inflection of fear. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... of His life, yet gentleness was the flower and fruitage of it all. For in Him the lion and the lamb dwelt together. Oak and rock were there, and also vine and flower. Weakness is always rough. Only giants can be gentle. Tenderness is an inflection of strength. No error can be greater than to suppose that gentleness is mere absence of vigor. Weakness totters and tugs at its burden. When the dwarf that attended Ivanhoe at the tournament lifted the bleeding sufferer he staggered under his ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... fragments of it were flashed before him fitfully, in swift disorder. If he would attempt to seize upon one of those fragments, to detain and fix it, for consideration—a speech of hers, a look, an inflection—then the whole experience suddenly lost its outlines, his recollection of it became a jumble, and he was left, as it were, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... furrowed their way across his forehead, and under his eyes were deep black marks. His bronze cheeks were white and sunken, and a bright red spot burned on one of them. But it was a change of which the details could give no idea. His face had caught the inflection of his inward agony, and retained it. It was there, if not for the world to see, at any rate terribly evident to me, to those ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wall of human masonry, and apparently barred further progress. Taking from his bosom the twisted section of a polished horn, only a finger's length, the cowled figure raised it to his lips, and blew three whistles, that ended in a rising inflection which waked all the wolfish pack of mountain echoes into fitful barking. Two moments later, an answering signal seemed to issue from the invisible jaws of Hades; a wild, quivering sepulchral cry, as of a monster half throttled. Twenty feet beyond the spot where the party had halted, a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... from a little distance called, "Clarion!" in a guarded inflection; meantime the hound had discovered his mistress, and was jumping about her horse, giving ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... a beady-eyed, cheery-looking ancient woman, answers questions with a rising inflection, and gives a good account of the Captain, who got into the vehicle without assistance, and was in excellent spirits.—Of course he had struck for Hagerstown as the terminus of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, and was on his way to Philadelphia via Chambersburg and Harrisburg, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... they call you?" This was said with a contemptuous, rasping inflection that irritated the new scholar. His eyes twinkled, partly with annoyance and ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston |
