"Tuning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it, so every time I saw it I'd be thinking of the 'love, truth, and valor' of that song she was teaching me. Ain't that a beautiful song? Some of these days I'm going to make it echo. I'm a little afraid to be doing it with me voice yet, but me heart's tuning away on it every blessed hour. Will you be looking at ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... from the dressing room a different person, and plunged into the wild dance for which the limited orchestra was already tuning up. It was a veritable riot of whirl and rhythm. Never before had Constance seen Adele dance with such abandon. As she executed the wild mazes of a newly imported dance, she held even the jaded Mayfair spellbound. And when she concluded with one daring figure and sat down, flushed and excited, ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... what to say after the Amen, and looked up more shyly than ever, and stammered in her confusion Danke sehr, hoping that it was a proper remark to make; whereupon the parson bowed again, as one who should say Pray don't mention it. Then another man, evidently the schoolmaster, took out a tuning-fork, gave out a note, and the children sang a chorale, following it up with other more cheerful songs, in which the words Fruehling and Willkommen were repeated a great many times, while ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... the Tuning Fork trench system at the present moment," said I. "The Babe and the grooms are digging him out. If you hurry up you'll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... the scene of the quarrel as eagerly as if they were going to a racecourse. I stopped for a few minutes at the door of our cottage to listen to the volume of abuse that was rising across the stillness of the island. Then I went into the kitchen and began tuning the fiddle, as the boys were impatient for my music. At first I tried to play standing, but on the upward stroke my bow came in contact with the salt-fish and oil-skins that hung from the rafters, so I settled myself at last on a table ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... old soldier has got him a cassock and become a gentle-faced dominie. The sleepy music of bells calling, the pensive air of study, the odour of simple piety, the sober confidence of great possessions, are most impressive. Poitiers has beaten her swords into crosiers and her spears into tuning-forks. Never was there an old age so ripe, so mellow, so becoming. With this for evidence, you may look History in the eyes and swear that you have seen Poitiers in the prime of her full life. The dead will turn in their graves to hear you; children unborn ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... opportunity to test myself as well as my ship and crew. For during the whole of this time the Yakumo, with several other cruisers, and our four battleships, had been lying at anchor at our rendezvous at the Elliot Islands, not idle by any means, but, like the Yakumo, "tuning up" for a certain eventuality, the approach of which we all seemed to sense in some ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... had not begun. At six-thirty it had not begun. The orchestra was there, sunk out of sight and filling the dimness with the sounds of tuning. But the great curtain was down. And from behind it came shouting voices, noises of steps, loud and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... met the Moodus witches, who used white magic, in a cave beneath Mount Tom, and fought them in the light of a great carbuncle that was fastened to the roof. The noises recurred in 1888, when houses rattled in witch-haunted Salem, eight miles away, and the bell on the village church "sung like a tuning-fork." The noises have occurred simultaneously with earthquakes in other parts of the country, and afterward rocks have been found moved from their bases and cracks have been discovered in the earth. One sapient editor said that the pearls in the mussels in Salmon ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... egotistical and fluctuating adolescent. He lacks the courage to love and the wisdom to love. Love is here. But it comes and goes, it is mixed with greeds and jealousies and cowardice and cowardly reservations. One hears it only in snatches and single notes. It is like something tuning up before the Music begins.... The metaphor altogether ran away with Sir Richmond's half dreaming mind. Some day perhaps all life would go ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... meaning while he is picking off his outside sentences. He may make as great a blunder as that simple prince who praised the conductor of his orchestra for the piece just before the overture; the musician was too good a courtier to tell him that it was only the tuning of the instruments. ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in the way. I shall hope to be dismissed presently. I can hear you are tuning up, Charles. Ah, well, I shall have a clown for a husband. What more should a married woman wish for? And plenty of time to catch the roses and the sighs wafting up from my gardens. But Charles, where is your little ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... Juan Fernandez far behind us; we were both far away in that Utopia where mind penetrates mind, heart understands heart. We heard neither the squeaking of a swing beneath us, nor the shouts of laughter along the promenades, nor the sound of a band tuning up in a neighboring pavilion. Our eyes, raised to heaven, failed to see the night descending upon us, vast and silent, piercing the foliage with its first stars. Now and again a warm breath passed over us, blown from the woods; I tasted its strangely sweet perfume; I ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... work certain prominent subjects have been selected with which it behoves every one to be acquainted: such, for example, as relate to what may be called our HOUSEHOLD INSTRUMENTS, namely, the Thermometer, the Barometer, and Vernier; the Hydrometer, the Hygrometer; the Tuning-Fork, Musical Glasses and Music generally; the Compass; the Prism, the Telescope, and the Sun-Dial. These subjects, and those in immediate connexion with them, are treated of extensively; as also their application to ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... o'clock the servants were already on the watch. The porte-cochere was wide open and the concierge all in a flutter. The piano-tuner, who had just spent an hour tuning my Bechstein, had departed when a cart drew up in front of the door. What do you think it was? Nothing less than the King's own piano, an upright one, though it did connive at deception, as you will see. It was one ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... was tuning his violin. The guests, informed that this excellent artist was about to entertain them with his wonderful skill, ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... "My Faith looks up to Thee" for the first hymn, because Fiddling Boss could play it, and while he was tuning up his fiddle she hastily wrote out two more copies of the words. And so the queer service started with a quaver of the old fiddle and the clear, sweet voices of Margaret and Gardley leading off, while the men growled on their way behind, and Mom Wallis, in her new gray bonnet, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... The tuning of the six strings on the bass-viol was, on the bass staff, 1st string, or treble, D over the staff; 2nd or small mean, A on the top line; 3rd or great mean, E in the third space; 4th or counter-tenor, C in the second space; 5th or tenor, or ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... Into the middle area, around whom 320 Stood blooming youths, all skilful in the dance. With footsteps justly timed all smote at once The sacred floor; Ulysses wonder-fixt, The ceaseless play of twinkling[30] feet admired. Then, tuning his sweet chords, Demodocus A jocund strain began, his theme, the loves Of Mars and Cytherea chaplet-crown'd; How first, clandestine, they embraced beneath The roof of Vulcan, her, by many a gift Seduced, Mars won, and with adult'rous lust 330 The bed dishonour'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... show my thought, another his; if they agree, well; if they differ, we find the largest common factor, if we can, but at any rate avoid disputing about remainders and fractions, which is to real talk what tuning an instrument is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... study of the vocal organs as they form sounds. Examines the Helmholtz method for the analysis and synthesis of vocal sounds. Suggests the electrical actuation of tuning-forks and the electrical transmission of their tones. Distinguishes intermittent, pulsatory and undulatory currents. Devises as his first articulating telephone a harp of steel rods thrown into vibration by electro-magnetism. Exhibits optically the vibrations of sound, using a ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... tuning key of his matchless genius he struck the chords of sorrow to their inmost tone and played on the heart strings of joy with the tender vibrations of an aeolian harp, trembling with melodious echoes among the ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... night. For (I should say) some hours during the night of the 30th, I frequently heard a sound which seemed to come from near the fireplace, and which I can best describe as a gentle tap on a drum—like some one tuning the kettle-drum in an orchestra. I do not think Mrs. M—— heard this noise, for though she slept very badly, she was dozing a good deal during the first half of the night. At 3.55 A.M. I was in a state of semi-consciousness, when both I and Mrs. M—— were fully roused by a noise so loud that ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... "when their courtiers are so freezing? Doubtless they take their breeding from him they serve." These reflections were interrupted by the duenna suddenly introducing him into a room where three ladies sat working, and a pretty little girl tuning a lute. The ladies were richly but not showily dressed, and the duenna went up to the one who was hemming a kerchief, and said a few words in a low tone. This lady then turned towards Gerard with a smile, and beckoned him to come near her. She ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... chamber, resonator. [ringing in the ears] tinnitus [Med.]. [devices which make a resonating sound] bell, doorbell, buzzer; gong, cymbals (musical instruments) 417. [physical resonance] sympathetic vibrations; natural frequency, coupled vibration frequency; overtone; resonating cavity; sounding board, tuning fork. [electrical resonance] tuning, squelch, frequency selection; resonator, resonator circuit; radio &c [chemical resonance] resonant structure, aromaticity, alternating double bonds, non-bonded resonance; pi clouds, unsaturation, double bond, (valence). V. resound, reverberate, reecho, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was on again full swing. The fiddlers were tuning up and couples gathering for a quadrille. Denver came to claim Miss Messiter for a partner. Apparently even the existence of the vanished Holloway was forgotten. But Helen remembered it, and pondered over ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... senseless, deaf that tomb, This is the callous, cold resort of art. 'I give you this.' What do I give? to whom? Words to the air, and balm to my own heart, To its old luxurious and commanded smart. An end to all this tuning, This cynical masquerading; What comfort now in that far final gloom Can ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... sorry to say," said the doctor. "The action of thought on the human consciousness is exactly like that of sound on the tuning fork. When the mind is tuned right, we'll say for illustration, the lower vibrations are not picked out of the ether. But as few minds are tuned right, and as all vary from time to time, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... her child, will tell my story And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name; The orator, to deck his oratory, Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame: Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame, Will tie the hearers to attend each line, How Tarquin wronged ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... by these instruments of Stein and Stein's followers is in the spacing of the unisons; the Huhn grands having two strings to a note in the lower part of the scale, and three in the upper. The Cristofori Silbermann inverted wrest-plank has reverted to the usual form; the tuning pins and downward bearing being the same as in the harpsichord. There are no steel arches as yet between the wrest-plank and the belly-rail in these German instruments. As to Stein's escapement, his hopper was fixed behind the key; the axis of the hammer rising on a principle which I think ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... windows, the stripper girls were tuning up their voices preparatory to the late-afternoon concert, soon to begin. They hummed a few bars of one melody, then of another; and at last, Angela's voice leading, there burst upon the room in full chorus, to the rhythmic whir of the wheels, ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... deep, premonitory stillness, broken only by the precentor, who covertly struck his tuning-fork on the round of his chair, and held it to his ear with a faint, accordant hum; then the minister arose and spread his hands in solemn invocation above the ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... point would terminate by producing the Constitution. One member says this is Constitution, and another says that is Constitution—To-day it is one thing; and to-morrow something else—while the maintaining of the debate proves there is none. Constitution is now the cant word of Parliament, tuning itself to the ear of the Nation. Formerly it was the universal supremacy of Parliament—the omnipotence of Parliament: But since the progress of Liberty in France, those phrases have a despotic ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... adjusted or attuned to the electric waves as a string or pipe is to sonorous waves. In this way the receiver can be made to work only when electric waves of a certain rate are passing through the tube, just as a tuning-fork resounds to a certain note; it being understood that the length of the waves can be regulated by adjusting the balls of the transmitter. As the etheric waves produced by the sparks, like ripples of water caused by dropping a stone into a pool, travel in all directions from the balls, ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... poor girl. Not hers the hovering sense of marriage bells Tuning the air with fragrance of sweet sound; But the low dirge that ever rose and died, Recurring without pause or any close, Like one verse chaunted aye in sleepless brain. Down to the shore it drew her from the heights, Like witch's demon-spell, that fearful ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... did serve to pass over the drunkard's freaks, and he used constantly to come to the aid of the household with money. Besides the modest pension which he enjoyed as retired Kapellmeister, he was still able to earn small sums by giving lessons and tuning pianos. He gave most of it to his daughter-in-law, for he perceived her difficulties, though she strove to hide them from him. Louisa hated the idea that he was denying himself for them, and it was all the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... but they were intended simply to elucidate the text. Though succinct, they are sufficient for the general reader. Here and there, however, we come upon a more elaborate note, such as that upon the tuning of the lute (Vol. viii., 179), where Mr. Payne's musical knowledge enables him to elucidate an obscure technical point. He also identified (giving proper chapter and verse references), collated, and where needful corrected all the Koranic citations with which the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... abstracted;—therefore it is poetical, though not in strictness natural—(the distinction to which I have so often alluded)—and is purposely restrained from concentering the interest on itself, but used merely as an induction or tuning for what is ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... grasped one of her hands she made no effort to wrest it away. He imprinted a long-drawn kiss on it. She shivered and then rapidly glided into the adjoining room, where the jumble of sounds produced by tuning a variety of musical instruments was now heard. The strident notes of violins, the rumbling boom of a cello, and the broken chords of a piano were confusedly mingling, and the male guests were slowly dropping in or taking up a ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... days earlier the process of educating public opinion against Russia commenced. In fact, it required little tuning to arouse a national chorus, which was swelled subsequently by the Social Democratic voices, demanding that Russia too must ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... two or three days tuning up the machines, and many of our leisure moments in watching a howitzer battery which was just beside us. This was fascinating. If you stand by the gun when it is fired, you can see the shell leave the muzzle, and watch the black mass shoot ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... remarkable irritation of nerves, that he could not bear to hear the tuning of instruments, and therefore at a performance this was always done before he arrived. A musical wag, who knew how to extract some mirth from Handel's irascibility of temper, stole into the orchestra, on a night when the Prince of Wales was to be present, and untuned all the instruments. ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... could think of no good retort to make at that moment. And since the odd buzzing had stopped, and all three fiddlers were tuning up for more dance music, in his excitement Buster forgot all about the raising bee again, the bumblebee in the pumpkin, and even his dispute ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... by which every object, from a human form to a marble acanthus leaf, cast sharp-edged shadows, I soon discovered my violin on a tangle of flowering clematis, and began tuning its strings. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... regarded with suspicion, if not actual hostility. I affected not to notice the change, and dipped my hand uninvited in the pot to satisfy my hunger, and smoked and dozed away the sultry hours in my hammock. Then I got my guitar and spent the rest of the day over it, tuning it, touching the strings so softly with my finger-tips that to a person four yards off the sound must have seemed like the murmur or buzz of an insect's wings; and to this scarcely audible accompaniment I murmured in an equally low tone ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... finished his supper, he produced a book and sat reading by the light of the wicks of the three brass lamps. Annetta had taken away the things and had not come back again. Gigetto strolled in and took his guitar from the peg on the wall, and idled about the room, tuning it and humming to himself. He was a tall young fellow with a woman's face and beautiful velvet-like eyes, as handsome and idle a youth as you might meet in Subiaco on a summer's feast-day. He exchanged ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... moved along the passage. It was deserted, but the sound of laughing voices and the tuning of violins floated up from below. Again that feeling that was akin to physical sickness assailed Dinah. Down there he was waiting for her, waiting to be intoxicated into headlong, devouring passion by her dancing. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. Where 's the young master? has he come yet? or is he going to be late, with the ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Storm entered the sacristy by a low doorway like the auditorium entrance to a stage. There he met some six others of his fellow-curates. They nodded to him and went on arranging their surplices. The choir were gathering in their own quarters, where the violins were tuning up and the choir boys were laughing ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... now given those symmetrical proportions of ballistae and catapults which I thought most useful. But I shall not omit, so far as I can express it in writing, the method of stretching and tuning their strings ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... of preaching to priests who received licenses from the Crown silenced every voice of opposition. Even to those who received these licenses theological controversy was forbidden; and a high-handed process of "tuning the pulpits" by express directions as to the subject and tenor of each special discourse made the preachers at every crisis mere means of diffusing the royal will. As a first step in this process every bishop, abbot, and parish priest was required by the new Vicar-General to preach ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... however, is not unanswerable; indeed, the very comparison employed in stating it may enable us to supply at least a partial answer. For we understand that the success of wireless messages being transmitted and received depends upon absolutely perfect "tuning"; the electric waves set up, i.e., will only act upon a receiver most delicately attuned to a particular rate of oscillations, and when the difference between the rate of oscillation of the waves and the receiver exceeds one per cent., ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... butter, cranberry tarts, and cups of boiling hot tea, with which the supper finally ended. We were then supposed to be prepared for the labours of the evening; and after a good deal of preliminary scraping and tuning the orchestra struck up a lively Russian dance called "kapalooshka." The heads and right legs of the musicians all beat time emphatically to the music, the man with the comb blew himself red in the face, and the whole ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... of Vesey Street. It looks down to the water, and the soft music of steamship whistles comes tuning on a cold, gusty air. Thoroughly mundane little street, yet not unmindful of matters spiritual, bounded as it is by divine Providence at one end (St. Paul's) and by Providence, R. I. (the Providence Line pier) at the other. Perhaps it is the presence of the graveyard that has startled Vesey ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... orchestra was tuning up, the wide porches were filling with well-dressed people, while a stream of coaches at the door was delivering the arrivals on the special from Colon. It was a very animated crowd, sprinkled plentifully with Spanish people— something quite unusual, by-the-way—while the presence of many ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the earthquake shock as an oscillation. It is a quality of all bodies which oscillate under the influence of a blow, such as originates in earthquake shocks, to swing to and fro, after the manner of the metal in a bell or a tuning fork, in a succession of movements, each less than the preceding, until the impulse is worn out, or rather, we should in strict sense say, changed to other forms of energy. The result is, that even in the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... (No. 1) I have now hit on the expedient of striking the triangle (which aroused such anger and gave such offence) quite lightly with a tuning-fork—and in the Finale (Marcia) I have pretty nearly struck it out altogether, because the ordinary triangle-virtuosi as a rule come in wrong and strike ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... So George discovered that his engine wanted a little tuning, and started out on a voyage of discovery. Soon he came upon a heap of neatly cut, neatly piled wood. He loaded up until he heard shouts, then fled. That night we had a great fire, but in the morning came tribulation. The ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... themselves and the musicians tuning up, Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natasha was perfectly happy; she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... grant she may sing ill!' said Jaafer 'Why so?' asked the Khalif. 'Because,' replied Jaafer 'if thou crucify us all together, we shall keep each other company.' The Khalif laughed at his speech; then the damsel took the lute and tuning it, played a measure which made all hearts yearn to her, then sang the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... not in that," he resumed. "Its chief value to the Latin compact, gentlemen, is that the United States and England are now concluding negotiations, unknown to each other, by which they will protect their seaports by means of mines primed with this cap. The tuning of the caps which we will use is known only to us; the tuning of the caps which they will use is also known to us! The addition to the wireless apparatus which they will use is such that they can not, even by accident, explode a mine guarding ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... that threw within his reach Fragments and symbols of the bliss unknown? Was it vague hope that murmured down the beach, Tuning the billows ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... dogs were, and brought out a case covered with yellow satin, richly embroidered with gold and green silk. She went toward Safie and opened the case, from whence she took a lute, and presented it to her; and after some time spent in tuning it, Safie began to play, and, accompanying the instrument with her voice, sang a song about the torments that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... gold into our laps but for so long a time as he shall be in drawing of that string." But when he had spent some little time in making proof of the bow, and had found it to be in good plight, like as a harper in tuning of his harp draws out a string, with such ease or much more did Ulysses draw to the head the string of his own tough bow, and in letting of it go, it twanged with such a shrill noise as a swallow makes when it sings through the air: which so much amazed the suitors, that their ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the greasy cook tapped at the kitchen-window below, and she scolded inaudibly—but he still continued to amuse—himself, as regardless of the cook's scolding as of the area-railing against which he leaned, tuning his ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... were made whilst he was tuning his harp, for when he once more began to play, not a word was uttered. He seemed pleased by their simple exclamations of wonder and delight, and, eager to amuse his young audience, he played now a gay and now a pathetic air, to suit their ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... given are for rooms in which the teacher has only a pitch pipe or tuning-fork to get pitch from. If there is a piano the drill work for tone will be conducted ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... should recite or extemporise some piece of poetry, before the destined laurel was placed on his head. Corinne ordered her lyre to be brought to her—the instrument of her choice—which greatly resembled the harp, but was however more antique in form and more simple in its sounds. In tuning it she was seized with uncommon timidity, and it was with a trembling voice that she asked to know the subject imposed on her. "The glory and happiness of Italy!" cried all around her with a unanimous voice. "Very well," replied she already fired with enthusiasm, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... won't need to add anything but a few tuning devices, really, and they don't take a whale of a ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... had finished tuning their instruments, a middle-sized, handsome man stept forward with long strides, with a violin in one hand and bow in the other, and began waving the latter up and down, like a magician summoning his spirits. As if he had waved the sound out of his bow, the tones leaped forth from the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... related the story of his adventures among the Saracens; and then Blondel, tuning his lute, sang several canzonets which he had composed in the Holy Land, of feats of ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... parish clerk. "Old Joshway," as he is irreverently called by his neighbours, is in a state of simmering indignation; but he has not yet opened his lips except to say, in a resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of a violoncello, "Sehon, King of the Amorites; for His mercy endureth for ever; and Og the King of Basan: for His mercy endureth for ever"—a quotation which may seem to have slight bearing on the present occasion, but, as with every other anomaly, adequate knowledge ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't ending; and folks can look things that ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... her, and crept painfully along the quivering path, against which the wind shrieked and wailed as it shook it, causing it to murmur like a vast tuning-fork. On we went, I do not know for how long, only gazing round now and again, when it was absolutely necessary, until at last we saw that we were on the very tip of the spur, a slab of rock, little larger than an ordinary table, that throbbed and jumped like any over-engined steamer. There we ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... mason's lodge in Glasgow, a larger "finger organ," "which elicited the surprise and admiration of musicians." This extraordinary man improved everything he touched. For his second organ he devised a number of novelties, a sustained monochord, indicators and regulators of the blast, means for tuning to any system, contrivances for ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... is time to pass the dulces and wines? And think no more of thy lover until he can come out of prison and marry thee." She drew herself away as the woman attempted to clutch her skirts. "Go," she said. "The musicians are tuning." ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... samples for examination, we dined at the divisional Mess B and set out again to complete our tour. We visited the various filling points of water carts and gradually drew nearer the front line trenches. Turning down one arm of "the tuning fork"—a forked road near Festubert, we came upon an advanced dressing-station. A little to our left was a grey pile of bricks and rubble, all that remained of ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... first Sunday at church, it must be in vain to ask you to imagine our delight when we heard the tuning of a bass-viol in the gallery just before service. We pressed each other's hands most tenderly, looked up at the singers' seats, and then trusted ourselves to look at each other. It was more than we had hoped for. ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... at a little distance upon the bench on which Allan M'Aulay was placed, and tuning her clairshach, a small harp, about thirty inches in height, she accompanied it with her voice. The air was an ancient Gaelic melody, and the words, which were supposed to be very old, were in the same language; but we subjoin a translation of them, by Secundus Macpherson, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... Harry, all his wrath extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration of her ready wit,—"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he held out ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... entertainment. "I tell ye there's a lairge proportion of folk dies just because their neighbors have died before them, for the want of their attention being directed to something else. Away wi' ye, schoolmaster, and take your tuning-fork to ask the blessing wi'. What says the Scripture, man? 'The living, the living, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the gaping silence, the three ladies listened to the melancholy harper and the lachrymose fiddlers who, on the estrade in the far corner, sat tuning their instruments. At last the people began to come in. The first were a few stray blackcoats, then feminine voices were heard in the passages, and necks and arms, green toilettes and white satin shoes, ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... as she was requested, and shortly afterwards the tuning of three fiddles was heard. Which process having been protracted as long as it was supposed that the patience of the audience could possibly bear it, was put a stop to by another jerk of the bell, which, being the signal to begin in earnest, set the orchestra ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... adapted to class study are those of the eyes, such as the closing of the lids on moving objects near them and the dilating of the pupils when the eyes are shaded. The involuntary jerking of the head on bringing the prongs of a vibrating tuning fork in contact with the end of the nose is also a reflex action which can be ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... laughing. "They will do very well. There's the divil of a lot of cabs at their door," he continued, peering round the corner of the blind. "The rooms are all lighted up, and I can hear them tuning the instruments. Maybe we'd ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... all shall be saved." Then, further to recompense his Son for his devotion, God promises he shall reign his equal for ever and judge mankind, ere he bids the heavenly host worship their new master. Removing their crowns of amaranth and gold, the angels kneel before Christ in adoration, and, tuning their harps, sing the praises of Father and Son, proclaiming ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... sending battery is a ball of metultron, surrounded by an insulating shell of inertron, and this in turn by a spherical shell of katultron, from which the current radiates in every direction, tuning being accomplished by frequency of intermissions, with audio-frequency modulation. The receiving battery has a core pole of katultron and an outer shell of metultron. The receiving battery, of course, picks up all frequencies, the undesired ones ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... curtain; and I enquired concerning them and behold they were his brethren.[FN43] he set before them what they needed of wine and dessert, and they ceased not to press the damsel to sing, till she called for the lute and tuning it, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... I fancy it is a trade secret, the tuning. There's one good thing about it, you know how Highland landscape is ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... such cases. There were many forms of heart disease, but the most common kind arose from the heart being too fat. Excess of fat debilitated the heart and injured its working, just as a piece of wax attached to a tuning fork would impair its usefulness. In such cases he dieted his patients in order to reduce their weight. Every dose of brandy taken for heart disease increased the evil. The moment brandy was taken ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... other fish, and were only allowed to use the line. A great quantity of raspberries, and there had been many strawberries. His income at one time had been 25 dollars per week. He had received 100 dollars for tuning the ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... beat: his father tuned him delightfully: perhaps from fetching a tune out of the person beaten, or from a comparison with the disagreeable sounds of instruments when tuning. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the hound bay in Shadowland, Tuning his ear to understand What voice hath tamed this Aerie; Chafe, chafe he may The stag all day, ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... and going in their strange costume; a busy hum came through the open windows; and I believe that in a few minutes I should have been asleep, if Ching had not awakened me by his vigorous onslaught upon the instrument, one of whose pegs refused to stay in exactly the right place as he kept on tuning. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... that. I shall do what I can, but upon my word I feel, you know," he laughed, "that such a tuning-up as YOU'VE given me will last me a long time. It's like the high Alps." Then with his hand out again he added: "Have you any ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... was tuning a little, idly sounding chords of penetrating sweetness. There came a noise of jolting and jingling from ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the thought of their great future, and the attitude conform'd to it—especially their great esthetic, moral, scientific future, (of which their vulgar material and political present is but as the preparatory tuning of instruments by an orchestra,) these, as hitherto, are still, for me, among ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... ourselves among the ice.] which I have had fitted up for her reception abaft the binnacle. A spacious meadow of sweet-scented hay has been laid down in a neighbouring corner for her further accommodation; and the Doctor is tuning up his flageolet, in order to complete the bucolic character of the scene. The only personage amongst us at all disconcerted by these arrangements is the little white fox which has come with us from Iceland. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Song? Year after Year striking up some new Song, The Breath of some Old Story? Life is gone, And yet the Song is not the Last; my Soul Is spent—and still a Story to be told! And I, whose Back is crooked as the Harp I still keep tuning through the Night till Day! That Harp untun'd by Time—the Harper's hand Shaking with Age—how shall the Harper's hand Repair its cunning, and the sweet old Harp Be modulated as of old? Methinks 'Tis time to break and cast ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... eyebrows went up. An Englishman? Bewildered, he bent to the trifling labour of tuning the violins. Hawksley rejected the first two instruments after thrumming the strings with his thumb. He struck up a melody on the third but did ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... without an expression of exultant pride for my classmates who have done so nobly in their various vocations. Two had entered the literary ranks as book-writers, and had met with marked success in the acceptance and sale of their works; three stood high as teachers; one earned a good living by tuning pianos; several were engaged in various departments of the institution; and two ranked high as musicians, which profession has seemed an especial field ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... all, for he was very fond of Jimmy Hill, and thought it hard fate indeed that took Jimmy away from him. Jimmy was learning rapidly. He had made friends with one of the instructor pilots, a little man named Reece, who spent much time tuning up and ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... Maid, whom Mnesis, happy Nymph, first on the Banks of Hebrus didst produce. Thee, whom Maeonia educated, whom Mantua charm'd, and who, on that fair Hill which overlooks the proud Metropolis of Britain, sat, with thy Milton, sweetly tuning the Heroic Lyre; fill my ravished Fancy with the Hopes of charming Ages yet to come. Foretel me that some tender Maid, whose Grandmother is yet unborn, hereafter, when, under the fictitious Name of Sophia, she reads ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... with a great increase of sensibility'; or even if, though the message be unfamiliar, it suggests to us, in Wordsworth's phrase, to 'feel that we are greater than we know,' I submit that we respond to it less by anything that usually passes for knowledge, than by an improvement of sensibility, a tuning up of the mind to the poet's pitch; so that the man we are proud to send forth from our Schools will be remarkable less for something he can take out of his wallet and exhibit for knowledge, than for being something, and ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the villa young Nerva and Tullius Senecio were entertaining the Augusta with conversation. Terpnos and Diodorus were tuning citharae. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Wallace, to maintain his assumed character while the servants were removing the table, was tuning his harp when the Earl of Gloucester entered the room. The earl told Bruce the king had required the attendance of the border minstrel, and that after searching over the castle, the royal seneschal ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... in your orchestra you must tune the instruments to a single note, so must you tune your various bodies in order that harmoniously they may allow the spiritual force to come through from the higher to the lower plane. It is a real tuning, a real making of harmonious vibrations; and the difference between the vibrations that are harmonious and the vibrations that are discordant, from this point of view, is this: when all the bodies vibrate together, all the particles and their ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... art of acquiring riches was as well understood by our fathers, as by us; while an artist could receive as much money for tuning an organ, as would purchase an acre of land, or treat near half a gross ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... stage direction. "A tucket sounds. Enter the Vicomte, disguised." To tell the truth, this entry was a daunting business. A dance had just come to an end; and the musicians in the gallery had fallen to tuning their violins. The chairs arrayed along the walls were thinly occupied, and as yet the social temperature scarce rose to thawing-point. In fact, the second-rate people had arrived, and from the far end of the room were nervously watching the door for notables. Consequently my entrance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cannot help thinking that a cockerel brought up without any companions of his own sex and age would not often crow, but in this instance there were no fewer than ten of them to encourage each other in the laborious process of tuning thejr harsh throats. Heard subsequently in the quiet of the early morning, these first tuning efforts suggested some reflections to my mind, which may not prove entirely without interest to fanciers who aim at something beyond a mere ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... wan and wasted with sorrow and sickness, but glorified with the joy of the music. He is like one who has been four days dead, to whose body the music has recalled the soul. Down by his knee he holds a violin, fashioned like those of the orchestra within; which, as he listens, he is tuning ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... their way through the enthusiasts who swept down on them, Frank and Harry Chester, the Boy Aviators, who had just concluded a tuning up flight for the Hempstead Plains Cup—the contest for which was to take place in a week's time—entered the shed and, making their way to a screened-off room in the corner, shed their leather coats and woolen caps ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... all sides from mirrors of no common size. Nothing seemed worthy to attract our hero's attention but the lady of the house, whom he approached with an air of distinguished respect. She was reclining on a Turkish sofa, her companion seated beside her, tuning a harp. Miss Sharperson half rose to receive Sir John: he paid his compliments with an easy, yet respectful air. He was thanked for his civilities to the person who had been commissioned to bring the box of Sevre ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... days, while the upper-classmen looked at the Freshmen with a "now-you-see-what-you've-joined" expression, or nudged each other reminiscently, until the live-oaks in the pasture almost blended with the long shadows under them, and hoarse-throated frogs were tuning up in the irrigating ditches. Then they formed four abreast and went down for the mail, humming a march song and lifting their hats in concert to Professor Stillwell and his wife, smiling from their porch. At the post-office ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... horses and jingling of bridles, betokened that a good many followers were in waiting. Malcolm's harp was quickly brought, having been slung in its case to the saddle of Halbert's horse; and as he had used it to beguile the last evening's halt, it did not need much tuning. Surprised as his princely notions were at being commanded rather than requested to sing, the sweet encouraging smile and tone of kind authority banished all hesitation in complying, and he gave the ballad of the Clerks' ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could discover no structural basis for deafness, Panse (23 p. 140) expressed himself as unwilling to believe that the mice are deaf, and this despite the fact that he observed no responses to the sounds made by a series of tuning forks ranging from C5 to C8. He believes rather that they are strangely irresponsive to sounds and that their sensitiveness is dulled, possibly, by the presence of plugs of wax in the ears. Since another investigator, Kishi, has observed the presence of similar plugs of wax in the ears ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... the stage, rose from orchestra to dome. A gigantic Colosseum of a cup, lined in stacks and stacks of faces. From the door of his dressing-room, leaning out, Leon Kantor could see a great segment of it, buzzing down into adjustment, orchestra twitting and tuning into it. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... suppose that the commutator which produces the successive charges and discharges of the condenser consists of a vibrating tuning fork, we see that the duration of a vibration is equal to the product of the two ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... see if you can sing, and then what part you can sing, whether it's tribble, or counter, or bass, or tenor. The best way for us to find out is to have you sing the scale—the notes of music. Now these are the notes of music." And without recourse to tuning ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... of her brougham, the sharp rhythm of her horses' hoofs tuning her thoughts, she quietly endeavored to raise that cherished mental spectre, but could not, until by hazard she remembered the portrait of her ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... east toward Megara. Here, by the gate, were gathered a rustic company: brown-faced village lads and lasses, toothless graybeards, cackling old wives. Above the barred gate swung a festoon of ivy, whilst from within the court came the squeaking of pipes, the tuning of citharas, and shouted orders—signs of a mighty bustling. Then even while the company grew, a half-stripped courier flew up the road and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... The tuning coil is simply a variable choking coil, made of No. 14 insulated copper wire wound on an iron core, as shown in Fig. 7. After winding, carefully scrape the insulation from one side of the coil, in a straight line from top to bottom, the full length of the coil, uncovering ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... concerts and the tuning-up of the orchestra never failed to give her delicious thrills, but she had never had a speaking acquaintance—so to speak—with a 'cello before this, and the beautiful mellow tones delighted her more than anything she had ever heard before. As she undressed that night she revised ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... proper to her lightsome aspect as if she had been born in it. This gay stranger was appropriately burdened with that mirth- inspiring instrument, the fiddle, which her companion took from her hands, and shortly began the process of tuning. Neither of us—the previous company of the wagon-needed to inquire their trade; for this could be no mystery to frequenters of brigade-musters, ordinations, cattle-shows, commencements, and other festal meetings in our sober land; and there is ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a tuning fork against the desk, then hold the prongs lightly against your lips. Can you feel them vibrate? Tap it again, and hold the fork close to your ear. Can ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... biting clover racer bogy bitting over cider boggy caning halo label Mary canning solo yellow marry planer polo jolly mate planner flabby jelly matter ruder shabby maker robed rudder ruddy taker robbed loping tulip dummy pining lopping cedar common pinning baker tamer moment tuning shady liner silent stunning lady pacer ruby planing tidy giddy bonnet planning ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... surprised to hear her begin talking at any time," confided Cummins to Jan, one evening when the boy was tuning his violin. "She is nearly ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... an altitude of 10,000 feet above the earth's surface. Because of the crystal glint of duranium they were invisible to earth dwellers at that height. Then we used a suction draft at night, drawing the talc from the earth, filling one drum after another. This is done by tuning in a certain selective attraction that attracts only talc. It draws it right out of your ground in tiny particles and assembles it in the transportation drums as pure talc. On the earth, if noticed at all, it would have been called a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... the late eventide. Close was the garden and serene. The leaning reeds in quiet state About the pool, merged in the green Of misty leaves and hanging vines. The fireflies spun their silver lines Across the deeper atmosphere, And through the silence came the clear Persistent tuning of the frogs From ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... years later. Mesmer held that thought was communicated from brain to brain "by the vibrations of a subtle fluid with which the nerve substance is in continuity." Truly, if any sort of physical action is employed, this seems a significant enough remark. We know that two tuning forks will resound in unison, if one of them be struck. Put in motion a magnetized needle; at a certain distance and without contact another magnetized needle will oscillate synchronously with the first. Set in vibration a violin string, or the string of a piano; and at a certain distance ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... parson," he said at last, lightly enough, but with a hint of tiredness in his eyes. "And then vanish behind the scenes, leaving the hero and heroine in the middle of the spotlight, with the orchestra tuning up 'The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden,'" he finished, without a trace of bitterness. "So I sent Madame a note by a little nigger newsie." His eyes crinkled, and he quoted the favorite aphorism of the colored people, when they seem to exercise ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... companion had caught the first sounds of the tuning of the instruments, and here we were, before the invitation to dance, a customed observance at Moldwarp Hall, had begun to play. In a few minutes thereafter, the door of the drawing-room opened; when, pair after pair, the company, to the number of over a hundred and fifty, I should guess, walked ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... flowers was gathered for the mother at home. There were happy hours, too, when the father and his son read together great books of poetry in which tales of love and knightly encounters were interesting parts. And then, I am sure, there were other happy hours when, tuning their instruments together, they filled the time with ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... ineffectually to cast off his shroud. Most wintry sign of all I think, as I close the window hastily, is the open farm-stile, its poles lying embedded in the snow where they were last flung by Waster Lunny's herd. Through the still air comes from a distance a vibration as of a tuning-fork: a robin, perhaps, alighting on the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie |
