"Inflection" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... novel then just out, "Predestined." "He [the author] is one of our [Sun] men, you know." Fraternal pride and affection in inflection, though he said he did not know Mr. Whitman. "Thank you very much ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... at this language, which established between him and the French gentleman equality at least, raised his piercing eye to the stranger's face, and with a sensible irony conveyed by the inflection of his voice alone, for not a muscle of his face moved,—"I thank you, monsieur," said he; "but, in the first place, to whom have I ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... erbout one y'ar ago, Bas," came the even and implacable inflection of the other, "thet us two stud up hyar tergither, an' a heap hes done come ter pass since then—don't ye want ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the instinct 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
... 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 hard work, long hours, scanty pay, poor living, growing debts—and ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... said, "Ah, mon vieux!" You know the inflection they give this expression, particularly when it means, "This is something wonderful!" He added that they had seen the combat and my fall, and little expected to find the pilot living, to say nothing of speaking. I hoped that they would go on talking, but I was being carried along a ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... began in a voice lacking perceptible inflection ... "what is between you and me needs no recounting. You know it too well—I likewise. It is my wish and my intention to kill you with my two hands. Nothing can prevent that, not even what you count upon, my reluctance—to you incomprehensible—to commit ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... meeting with me this afternoon, Mabel? Come; this is your last day here; do go once before you leave the White Mountains." "What do you do in 'meeting'?" asked the gay, beautiful, "High Church" New York belle, with just a shade of contemptuous inflection in ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... plain, and the same consonant when aspirated, has been easily traced thus far. This distinction readily discovers itself, not only in the pronunciation and orthography, but also (as will be seen in its proper place) throughout the system of inflection. It takes place uniformly in those consonants which have been already considered. With respect to the remaining linguals, l, n, r, a corresponding distinction will be found to take place in their ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... guess there may be some truth in that," said Roy with a rather grim inflection. "Well, what do you want me to ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... Major better he would have been aware that what he meant to say was that he did not wish to know, but he did not detect the inflection of his voice, and went on—"They say he showed the white feather. If it is the same man, I was at school with him, and unless he has improved since then, I am sure I have no wish to renew ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... Beaton, wondering what that could have to do with her pleasure in seeing him alone. "I believe so?" He involuntarily gave his words the questioning inflection. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they call you?" This was said with a contemptuous, rasping inflection that irritated the new scholar. His eyes twinkled, partly with ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... 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 ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... red-eye's and the solitary's, both as to phrase and quality. The measures are all brief; with fewer syllables, that is to say, than the red-eye commonly uses. Some of them are exactly like the red-eye's, while others have the peculiar sweet upward inflection of the solitary's. To hear some of the measures, you would pass the bird for a red-eye; to hear others of them, you might pass him for a solitary. At the same time, he has not the most highly characteristic of the solitary's phrases. His voice is less sharp and his ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... sneer 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. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... nothing original in her music; it was mainly a reconstruction of common phrases afloat in the musical atmosphere; but she managed the slight dramatic element in the lyric with taste and skill, following tone and sentiment with chord and inflection; so that the music was worthy of the verses—which is not saying very much for either; while the expression the girl threw into the song went to the heart of the youth, and ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... answered, gushingly. "But all his letters were in writing, you know. Such wonderful letters!" She raised her blue eyes toward the ceiling in a naive rapture. "So tender, and so—er—interesting!" Somehow, the inflection on the last word did not altogether ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... twins, were as much the bane of Fraulein's life as were Mary Boyd and Peggy Austin. Fraulein was not stupid. She had learned that to call forth these names, distorting them with almost unrecognizable inflection, brought ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... who spoke. There was a brittle, intensely Gallic intonation about the query with its upward inflection, reminding one somehow of a postman's knock, a ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... had been 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 Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Blount calmly, giving the exclamation the true Boston inflection. "You are either too shrewd or not quite shrewd enough, Dick. You covered that up with a laugh, so that I might take it as a joke if I happened to be too thin-skinned to take it in disreputable earnest. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... least, if, indeed, after laying the matter before the proper authorities, such a formality is deemed necessary," said the girl, with a scornful inflection that cut her listener to ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of talking much about the things you see." She put it in the form of a statement, but the rising inflection indicated the interrogative. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... looked up at him. She might have sat straight and remarked: "Mr. Fores, what do you mean by talking to me like that?" But she raised her eyes and her crimson cheeks for one timid instant, and dropped them. His voice had overcome her. With a single phrase, with a mere inflection, he had changed the key of the interview. And the glance at him had exposed her to the appeal of his face, more powerful than ten thousand logical arguments and warnings. His face proved that he was a sympathetic, wistful, worried fellow-creature—and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... an inquiring inflection, is much better than simply "What?" when you do not hear what is said. The abruptness of ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... for men to read and struggle with for the sake of the women," said Robert. His voice had a tender inflection. They were passing a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, bordered with box. The scent of the box seemed fairly to clamor over the garden fence, drowning out the smaller fragrances of the flowers, like the clamor of a mob. Even ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... madame." Not an inflection was changed, not a note was altered. The firm hand of necessity had wound them up day after day, all those three years, and they had ticked together and tocked together to the swing of the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... all his old life, his pious childhood, his happy days at the seminary, and his first Masses in that burning valley of Les Artaud, where he had dreamt of a solitary, saintly life. He had always heard it speaking to him as it was doing now. He recognised every inflection of that sacred voice, which had so constantly fallen upon his ears, like the grave and gentle voice of a mother. Why had he so long ceased to hear it? In former times it had promised him the coming of Mary. Had Mary come then and taken him and carried ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... 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
... go, 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 ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the general slowly, in his deepest voice. But the German exclamation has a variety of significance, according to the inflection, and Adlerkreutz's ejaculation seemed to ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... imparting excessively mysterious information of the utmost importance, putting a finger to their lips, screwing up their eyes to enjoin secrecy. A provincial flavor distinguished them all, with differences of inflection, Southern excitability, the drawling accent of the Centre, Breton sing-song, all blended in the same idiotic, strutting self-sufficiency; frock-coats after the style of Landerneau, mountain shoes, and home-spun linen; the monumental assurance of village ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... vicious, face of the unfortunate waif. Something drew her sympathy toward him, and she pitied him for the mother whom he had never known. In the adjoining room she could hear the voices of her own "childer," with their cultured inflection and language, which was theirs by inheritance and as unconsciously as were "Bony's" harsh tones and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... 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 now. Of course ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... said the voice in a semi-undertone, slow and tense, "this ain't no arter dinner bloomin' siester. A little snap—ple—ease!" The last word in a sharply rising inflection, tightening up the spring again for the explosive ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... and fork, and looked at me with an air of gentle inquiry, as I took my seat at the table. "Mrs. Hopper tells me you're a literary," he said at length. I'm afraid I replied, "Yes?" with the rising inflection of the village belle, nothing else occurring to me ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... do they think that will do them?" Mrs. Oglethorpe's face and inflection betrayed no sympathy with ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... in modern comedy, were not mistresses of what he called, after Sir Walter Scott, the "big bow wow" style required for the part of Lady Constance in Shakespeare's history. He knew that he could find in the provinces many veteran players who knew every gesture and inflection of voice associated by tradition with the part; but he was afraid that they would remind Londoners of Richardson's show, and get Faulconbridge laughed at. Then he thought of Adelaide Gisborne. For some hours after the idea came to him he was gnawed at by the fear that her performance would throw ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... 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
... dull if you read much at a time, as the later Kerry essays do not, but nothing that he has written recalls so completely to my senses the man as he was in daily life; and as I read, there are moments when every line of his face, every inflection of his voice, grows so clear in memory that I cannot realize that he is dead. He was no nearer when we walked and talked than now while I read these unarranged, unspeculating pages, wherein the only life he loved with his whole heart reflects ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... wonderful what a fascination she felt for everything that concerned Miss Elton. Every act, every garment, every inflection of the girl she hated most was interesting to her. She watched Madeline like a cat, and ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... confronted him. The firelight played upon her red-gold hair, and surprise had driven the weariness from her face. Against the black oak of the chimneypiece she had almost the appearance of a framed cameo. Her voice was quite steady, although its inflection ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thinking of the curious inflection in that laugh now. Once before he had heard it—when he courted Florry's dead mother; and his old heart swelled a little with pain at the remembrance. He was wondering just what to do about that laugh ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... she, and there was an ominous inflection in the word as if the question were portentous, "have you asked our new niece by what name she desires us to ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... full of changes; unlike the notes from a musical instrument, there is no uniformity in it; the rise and fall of inflection, the varying sound of the vowels and consonants, the combinations of words and syllables—each produces a different vibration and different tone. To devise an instrument that would receive all these varying tones ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... made, not artificially and externally, but internally through the elements of the story which produce the pause. Tone-color, which is to ordinary speech what melody is to music—those varied effects of intonation, inflection, and modulation—is to be sought, not as a result from an isolated study of technique, but from attention to those elements in association with the complete realization of the life of the story. Genuine feeling is worth ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... speak of anything that has pleased you one will, with a gay rising inflection of the voice and a smile, say: "Ah! c'est gai la-bas—and monsieur was well amused while in that beautiful country?" "ah!—tiens! c'est gentil ca!" they will exclaim, as you enthusiastically continue to explain. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... Deerfoot, with a marked rising inflection. Another shake of the head might indicate a denial of such tribal relation, or what was more likely, a failure to comprehend the question. Deerfoot repeated the word "Nez Perce," and was replied ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... Inflection. Change in the form of a word to show a modification or shade of meaning. At a very early period in our language there was a separate form for practically every modification. Although separate forms are now less numerous, inflection is still a convenient ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... cloud, which had momentarily dimmed the brightness of his sun, was dispelled. The merest inflection in the Duchessa's voice had the power of casting him down to depths of heart-searching despair, or lifting him to realms of intoxicating joy. And it must be confessed that the past fortnight had been spent almost continuously in ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... a whole watched the affair with amusement, although Mr. Clark's friends adopted an inflection of voice in speaking to him which reminded him strongly of funerals. Mr. Tucker's week was up, but the landlord of the George was responsible for the statement that he had postponed ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... sometimes hardly above a whisper. When everything is quiet about him one may often hear an extraordinary performance. Beginning the usual call of "quee-o," in a tender and mournful tone, he will repeat it again and again at short intervals, every time with more pathetic inflection, till the wrought-up listener cannot resist the feeling that the next sound must be a burst of tears. Although his notes seem melancholy to hearers, however, the beautiful bird himself is far from expressing that emotion ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... kindly effort to set her at her ease, and to express 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 ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... a permanent place in American annals. "His formality just bordered on stiffness," wrote the interested Briton, as though he were studying some new example of the human species; "his conversation was elegant, but pointed, as he was gifted with a cultured economy of language. He accomplished by inflection what many people ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... expression of countenance, which Anthony but too well understood, accompanied these words; and villain was expressed by indications too unequivocal to be easily mistaken through every change and inflection of his visage. Anthony, though not of the most unsullied reputation, and probably habituated to crimes at which humanity might shudder, pressed the little victim closer to his breast. The prattle of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a rising inflection of the voice. "How kind of you, and so delicately expressed." She laughed. "And poor Major McDonald! Really, that is ridiculous. Could you imagine my flirting ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... uncertain tone, as if fearful he might lose his way among his son's vagaries. "I wanted a pleasant home, and a loving wife and children. I wish there had been more of them, Jack, for your sake," and his voice took on a tender inflection. "Then, if one wanted to go away, there would have been others left. You see, Jack, mother's heart is bound up in you, and she's getting to be an old woman with but few ties. I might manage to comfort your ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... 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
... what is written, the reader must group the words together in the way intended by the writer; and in doing this he can receive assistance in various ways. Partly by the inflection of the words; partly by their arrangement; partly also by punctuation. As to inflection, we see in Latin an adjective and a substantive standing together, yet differing in gender, in number, or in case; and we know that the adjective does not qualify ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce
... 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 here was I ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... not every moment stand a temple four-square to God? And in that morning, with its buoyant sunlight, was I any dearer to the Heart of the World than now?" "My beloved is mine, and I am his," she sang over and over again, with all varied inflection and profuse tune. How gently all the winter-wrapt things bent toward her then! into what relation with her had they grown! how this common dependence was the spell of their intimacy! how at one with Nature had she become! how all the night ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... 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
... Nevertheless, by a subtlety of discrimination, that seemed almost intuitive, by a force of judgment and a fervency of mind, that were simply exquisite and irresistible, this was the very man who could at any moment, by an inflection of his voice or by the syncope of a chuckle, move his audience at pleasure to tears or to laughter. He could haunt their memories for years afterwards with the infinite tenderness of his ejaculation as Hamlet, of "The fair Ophelia!" He could convulse them with merriment by his hesitating utterance ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... mingled strength and beauty 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 heavy burden. Weakness ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... thus, Nereus wrinkled look, Glaucus spell. The necessities of metre would naturally constrain to such forms. In a possessive followed by the word sake or the word side, dislike to [of] the double sibilant makes us sometimes drop the inflection. In addition to 'for righteousness' sake' such phrases as 'for thy name sake' and 'for mercy sake,' are allowed to pass; bedside is normal and riverside nearly so." The necessities of metre need not be taken into ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... over the top in a grand attack. They put down a box barrage close up against the Prince's platform, and at a distance of two feet, not an inflection of his face, nor a movement of his head, escaped the unwinking and merciless ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... said Betty, softening a little. But she did not like the woman, who was not frankly plebeian, but had buttered herself over with a coat of third-rate pretentiousness. And her voice and method of speech were irritating. She had a fat inflection and the longest drawl Betty had ever heard. Upon every fourth or fifth word she prolonged the drawl, and accomplished the effect of smoothing down her voice with her tongue. Capable as she might be, Betty wondered ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... member cried, 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 times better was a little wild one night ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... man has to love a nice girl or two as an educative process." Her voice trailed into the rising inflection of a question. "Then the right girl ought to thank me for helping to prepare Mr. Yeager for her—if ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... scene between them with every inflection and movement unerased from his memory. He even recalled the fact that he began to speak just at that point on the avenue where, a few days before, he had met Rachel walking with Rollin Page. He had wondered at the time what Rollin ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... "Miss Terroll," the inflection of surprise remained in his voice. It was well after ten o'clock and in those circles of society where he was received the system of chaperonage was rigid enough to fail of understanding for the women who dared the streets at night ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... it?' cried Mr. Nicholson, with a strong rising inflection. 'Robbed? Be careful what ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... minutes past twelve. The rumble of an elevated train approached, hung about the room, and receded. Death could be no more dragging than this. Why, then, didn't he fall asleep? Lee went over and over every inflection of Savina's final words to him; in them he tried, but vainly, to find encouragement, promise, any decision or invitation. What, in the short passage from the automobile to the house, could have so wholly changed, frozen, her? ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... went, but her inflection showed that she knew herself to be in the right. Nita was too good a servant ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... Partright window," he said with that inflection that Maggie was already beginning to think of as ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... to Ann Wales, so was the week following. The next Tuesday, right after dinner, she was up in a little unfinished chamber over the kitchen, where they did such work when the weather permitted, carding wool. All at once, she heard voices down below. They had a strange inflection, which gave her warning at once. She dropped her work and listened: "What ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... time, force of utterance, emphasis, and inflection should be carefully corrected, and then ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... fallen across him, instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... isolating, or 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 names as Eocene, Meiocene, and Pleiocene, names which ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... with a satiric inflection. "Well, why in the name of common sense didn't you say so at first? I do not know, however, that I can positively get you an appointment today. You must not mind if His Lordship keeps you waiting for a few minutes if he happens to be talking ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... voice had yet the conscious fullness, the deliberate inflection, of a man accustomed to speak to ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... emotion be so tenuous as almost to defy verbal expression, for the most part we ally words and music. The timbre of a voice, singing tones without words, might carry a message to the sensitive, just as the inflection of a voice may be exquisite joy or suffering to a lover: but it would be insufficient to move the average hearer to any response. The reason is that there is always a dual process at work in mind: there is the sense-perception of the actual sound, and a brain-recognition ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... reply, delivered with a mocking inflection, fanned to sudden laughter chuckles that ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... have been one of the shapers of his country's destiny. The phraseology of their current talk to one another and to outsiders reflected this belief. "If I had continued in the House," Sir William would say, with a manner and inflection which conveyed that he had left it of his own free will and not attempted to return to it, "I should have——" or, "If I had taken office——" or even sometimes, "If I were leading the Liberal party——" and no one, indeed, was in a position to affirm that these things might not have ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... we can find no spelling to reproduce that combination of guttural and aspirate and the inimitable inflection of voice. It is so delightful that I ask him again, and again the answer comes with even more emphasis upon guttural and aspirate, and an ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... walking, madam, and to go alone. He ordered us—I say, he ordered us not to come. Surely we are right to obey him?" The sarcastic inflection of his voice conveyed his opinion ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... weather, as if he were perpetually exposed to sun and wind, rain and hail; sharp of movement, evidently of more than ordinary intelligence, and, in spite of his rough garments and fur cap, having an indefinable air of gentility and breeding about him. Brereton had already noticed the pitch and inflection of his voice; now, as Harborough touched his cap to the Mayor, he noticed that his hands, though coarsened and weather-browned, were well-shaped and delicate. Something about him, something in his attitude, the glance of ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... for the records of Table V. was read to the subjects, the tones were in every case those of the speaking voice, and intervals having a definite speech character were chosen. The fifth is the interval of the rising inflection of the question, the fourth is the interval of the rising inflection of indifference or negation, and the single falling slide used is a descending interval of a third or fourth at the close of the sentence. The fifth appears in the table as 5/, the fourth as 4/, and the single ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... salutation. He uncovered, describing so magnificent a sweep of extended hat that its plumes brushed the grasses at her feet. He bowed so low that his pink face disappeared from view in the forward fall of his lovelocks. When the rising inflection shook these back and the pink face again confronted her, he seemed to have recovered some measure ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... divined, rather than saw, Mignon's elfish eyes fixed upon her. "You met another girl, at noon, did you not, Miss Dean?" asked the French girl, with an almost sarcastic inflection. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... to her prattle. He revelled in the beautiful ring of her voice, which had an extremely penetrating, prolonged charm; and he must have been peculiarly sensitive to this human music, for the caressing inflection on certain words moistened ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... into its constituent parts: mathematically, it is the method of resolving problems by reducing them to equations.—Analysis of curves is that which shows their properties, points of inflection, station, variation, &c.—Analysis of finite quantities is termed specious arithmetic or algebra.—Analysis of infinites is a modern introduction, and used for fluxions or the differential calculus.—Analysis of powers is the evolution or resolving them ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... a pretty inflection—the rising inflection of great surprise. Her eyes, glowing of merriment, ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... deaf 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
... who turned to greet him with a carriage of perfect ease. He spoke to her in low tones, and she instinctively modulated her own to the same pitch, and her voice ultimately even caught the inflection of his. She was far from having a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him; but woman at the impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in her choice of words, which is apparent every day, but even in her shades of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... Peveril," said Alice, with an effort to speak firmly, which yet was disconcerted by a slightly tremulous inflection of voice—"a mockery, and a cruel one. You come to this lone place, inhabited only by two women, too simple to command your absence—too weak to enforce it—you come, in spite of my earnest request—to ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... looked as steadily, as unwinkingly, at you as if it were a steel ball soldered in her head; and when, while looking, she began to talk in an indescribably dry, monotonous tone—a tone without vibration or inflection—you felt as if a graven image of some bad spirit were addressing you. But it was all a figment of fancy, a matter of surface. Miss Mann's goblin grimness scarcely went deeper than the angel sweetness of hundreds of beauties. She was a perfectly honest, conscientious woman, who had performed ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the true sense of rhythm and the clearest enunciation; she has a deep and musical voice, which in moments of pathos thrills with a sweet and tender inflection. She has seized, in this instance, upon the touching rather than the harmonious side of Galatea, the pure and innocent girl who is not fit to live upon this world. She is only not human because she is superior ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... Sun, the great Deity of the Pagan world, and from his titles and properties. Both [Greek: areion] and [Greek: aristos] were from [Greek: ares], the Arez of the east. From Bel, and Baaltis, came [Greek: beltion], and [Greek: beltistos: ameinon] is an inflection from Amon. From the God Aloeus came [Greek: loios, loiteros], and [Greek: loistos]: from [Greek: keren] changed to [Greek: keras, keratos], were formed [Greek: kresson], [Greek: kreisson], [Greek: krateros], and ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... alternative question, or the question that simply allows the choice between two suggested possibilities is also fruitless so far as demanding thought is concerned. In a question like, Was Paul a Gentile or was he a Jew? the bright child can usually tell from the teacher's inflection how to answer. In any case he will run an even chance of giving the right answer ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts
... "Why, my dear, South America!" came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: "It's a wonderful chance, dearest, isn't it?" His voice by then had gained in heartiness, and his smile, always worshipful when turned on her, contained this time something of apology. So close were they, though, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... 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 to present ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... front seat, driving, caught the inflection of Tim's voice and cried testily: "You are allus runnin' the walley down. Why don't you tell him about the improvements instead of pintin' out the ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... obliterate and annihilate all traces of the original mother-tongue. It was not long enough for the usual processes by which languages are changed, to eject from even the Irish Gaelic (the most unlike of the two) every word and inflection which the progenitors of the present Irish brought from Gaul, and to replace them by others. So that, at the first view, we have a limit in this direction; yet unless we have settled certain preliminaries, the limit is unreal. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... retorted Mr. Connors, flushing a little. "But, for God's sake, are you going to sit here like a wart on a dead dog an' wait for 'em?" he demanded with a rising inflection. "Do you reckon yo're running a dance, or a ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... never so complicated. With him, it was either, "She loves me," or, "She does not;" he never tormented himself, after the fashion of women, by wondering what this look meant, or that inflection, and fearing that the innermost recesses of his mind might be guessed from a ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... such a curious inflection to her voice that the candidate exclaimed, "Why, what do you mean, Anna?" and she merely replied, "Oh, nothing!" which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked more attentively, and his eyes contracted ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... reason for this depressed manner was undoubtedly because he was very sad at the result, involving loss of land and change of home; but the fact remains that full information was communicated on a complicated subject without the aid of a manual sign, and also without even such change of inflection of voice as is common among Europeans. All theories based upon the supposed poverty of American ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... several subjects which I thought might interest her, but could obtain little other response than "Yes," with a faint rising inflection. After one of these unsuccessful attempts I detected a slight, peculiar smile on Miss Warren's face. It was a mischievous light in her dark eyes more than anything else. As she met my puzzled look it vanished instantly, and she turned away. Everything in my training and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... and she was conscious of an effort in holding her voice to its steady inflection; "that my house is bound in hospitality to that ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... ambition to go on the stage, her grandmother's tyranny, the indignity of being sent back to a school from which she had run away six months before. She flattered herself that she was stating her case for the sole purpose of getting an unprejudiced outsider's unbiased opinion; but from the inflection of her voice and the expressive play of eyes and lips it was evident that she was deriving some pleasure from the mere act of thus dramatizing her woes before that ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... see Lily, too, and failed. She had been very gentle over the telephone, but, attuned as he was to every inflection of her voice, he had thought there was unhappiness in it. Almost despair. But she had pleaded a ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... perversity," he said, with inimitable inflection. For a moment his wife eyed him, speechless with ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... and said her say, but the last words are spoken with sinking inflection, followed instantly by a sinking heart. He makes no answer whatever. She dares not look up into his face to see the effect of her stab. He stands there silent only an instant; then raises his ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... marquis who opened the door for the ladies; it was the marquis who said good night with an inflection which gave it a new meaning; it was the marquis who intruded into madame's thoughts, causing her partly to forget the letter and the broken sentence ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... through old Norse, old Saxon, old 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 ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... intestines of an animal inflated, inclosing small stones, which produced a sound like pebbles in a small gourd. With these, rude as they were, very good time was preserved with the vocal performers, seated around them, and by all the natives as they sat, in the inflection of their bodies, or the movements of their limbs. After the lapse of a little time, three individuals leaped up and danced around for a few minutes; then, at a concerted signal from the master of the ceremonies, the music ceased, and they retired to their seats uttering a loud ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... an ornament, being unable to play it. Then, as the girl reached the porch, the melody suddenly stopped, a merry laugh rang out and a fresh, sweet voice was heard through the open window talking rapidly and with eager inflection. ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... of boys at my school besides myself who took a private pleasure in poetry; but red-hot iron would not have induced most of us to admit this to the masters, or to repeat poetry with the faintest inflection of rhythm or intelligence. That would have been anti-social egoism; we called it "showing off." I myself remember running to school (an extraordinary thing to do) with mere internal ecstasy in repeating lines of Walter Scott about the taunts of Marmion ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... to be at the end of a chapter in his book, and he closed the volume, uttering only the single negative participle, with the interrogative inflection, as he glanced at ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... distinctly, with a rising inflection at the end, and in such manner that the command of execution ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... steadily toward her, Brock smiling into her eyes, holding her eyes with his, and as they were closer, she heard Mavourneen crying in wordless dumb joy, crying as she had not done since the day when Brock came home the last time. Above the sound Brock's voice spoke, every trick of inflection so familiar, so sweet, that the joy of it ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... heart seemed to stop still. She heard a voice, familiar in a sense, and yet so unlike the voice of which she had once known every inflection. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... musical inflection jarred on Gifford, who began to wonder whether their companion could be a professional singer. One of their own ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... ejaculated Ree with an inflection of contempt in his voice; but the next instant the intruder's hands were about ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... 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 ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... with a strong rising inflection. "I think I begin to smell the toasting of the cheese. Of course, when the villa was burnt out, Madame la Comtesse insisted that, as the fiancee of her brother, Mademoiselle de Carjorac must make her home at the Chateau until the necessary ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... comic is wide; with an inflection of the voice, a bend of that curious long thin body which seems to be embodied gesture, she can suggest, she can portray, the humour that is dry, ironical, coarse (I will admit), unctuous even. Her voice can be sweet or harsh; it can chirp, lilt, chuckle, stutter; it ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... no! never! 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
... were always willful, Hugh; but you have never been cruel to me before; it is cruel to doubt my love because my duty compels me to give you up. Ah," with a sudden passionate inflection in her voice, "do you know of what self-sacrifice a woman can be capable? for your dear sake, Hugh, I am content to suffer all my life, to stand aside and be nothing to you—yes, even to see another woman your wife, if only you will be brave and true to yourself, if you will ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with a heart-rending inflection in her voice. She drew a chair to the table as if to strengthen her illusions and realize ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... mix in here, and meddle with you?" Dick asked, helping himself to a piece of pie. You know the tone; it had just that inflection of surprised sympathy which makes you tell your troubles without that reservation which a more neutral ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... in the CHART forcibly, and with the falling inflection, several times in succession; then drop the subvocal or aspirate sounds which precede or follow the vocal, and repeat ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... The inflection on the last word is always a rising one. This is especially true on the last syllable of the last word, "tip." The counting out is not very different from that of white children. They all place two fingers of each hand in a circle; the one who repeats ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... her chair like a tragedienne. "It isn't my body, it's my mind!" she cried, with poignant inflection, clasping her head with both her hands; and her look transformed her in the eyes of the young scientist. It was the tragic gaze of one who confronts insanity and death at a time when life should be at its sweetest. For an instant she stood there absorbed in her terror, then dropped her hands, and ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... feech/ /interj./ If someone tells you about some new improvement to a program, you might respond: "Feetch, feetch!" The meaning of this depends critically on vocal inflection. With enthusiasm, it means something like "Boy, that's great! What a great hack!" Grudgingly or with obvious doubt, it means "I don't know; it sounds like just one more unnecessary and complicated thing". With a tone of resignation, it means, "Well, I'd rather ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... a little, and hold that gun like you knew what it was made for, anyway!" He regarded Muriel glumly. "Say! that ain't a stick of candy you're trying to hide in your skirt," he pointed out, with an exasperated, rising inflection at the end of the sentence. "John Jimpson! If I could take you two girls to pieces and make one out of the two of you, I'd have an actress that could play ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... said Melody, with her quiet smile. "It's just because you see her so much, Eben. that you can't tell. Besides, I can tell from Mandy's voice. Her voice used to go down when she stopped speaking, like this, 'How do you do?' [with a falling inflection which was the very essence of melancholy]; and now her voice goes up cheerfully, at the end, 'How do you do?' Don't you see the difference, Eben?—so of course I know she must be a great ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... I became afraid of Cousin Charles. Not that he ever said anything to justify fear of him—he was more silent at home than elsewhere; but he was imperious, fastidious, and sarcastic with me by a look, a gesture, an inflection of his voice. My perception of any defect in myself was instantaneous with his discovery of it. I fell into the habit of guessing each day whether I was to offend or please him, and then into that of intending to please. An intangible, silent, magnetic feeling existed between us, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... between them, 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 ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... a table glorified with toasted Sally Lunns and Melton Mowbrays, served by a waitress who said "Thank you" with a rising inflection, they gazed at the line of mirrors running Britishly all around the room over the long lounge seat, and smiled with the triumphant content which comes to him whose hunger for dreams and hunger for meat-pies are ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... ceases to be intelligible, it is nearly always altered by the people, with the end of approximating it to the sounds farmliar and significant to their ears. Is it not also to be feared that in this case the editor, in entire good faith, may lend some slight inflection to the text, so as to find in it the sense that he desires, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... historical nature of his subject precluded the 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 complete ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Common and Proper Inflection Defined Number The Formation of Plurals Compound Nouns Case The Formation of the ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... vowels; all the rest are unquestioningly replaced by the English vowels and consonants that most nearly resemble them." The substitution of sounds from one's own language in speaking a foreign tongue, and the changes in voice-inflection, are more numerous and more marked if the man who learns the new language is uneducated and acquires it in casual intercourse from an ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... The little maid always amused her. There was something cheerful in the queer little scolding sentences, spoken with a rising inflection on almost every word, musical and yet always seeming to protest gently against ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford |
