"Intonation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... speaking there was a profound silence for a minute, which Mr. Fanshawe was the first to break as he said with a peculiar intonation in his voice, "It is very strange, very ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... he asked, with an ineffable intonation, "that Susan and that there young farmer have gone gadding off to Canada and left you all alone ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... conflict with, and mastery over, passion), which did not seem so much to disdain a sympathy with trivialities as to be incapable of denoting them. Nor had his voice, so far as I could discover in our quiet talk, much change or richness of intonation, but he always spoke with earnestness, and his eyes (glorious conductors of the light within) burned with a steady fire which no one could mistake for mere affability; they were one grand expression of the well-known line: "I am a man, and interested in ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... with a jerk, and spoke to him, the sound of her voice amazed him. It was not unlike the tone in which she had answered Colonel Witham, the night Henry Burns overheard her. It was shrill and sharp, though with a whining intonation. What she ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... with a smile that was half a leer and an intonation that was little less than a sneer—"here is a spot that will scarce have enough attraction for your worship to merit your ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... evident that the answer contented him, and Ethne felt that it was the intonation to which he listened rather than the words. His very attitude of concentration showed her that. She began to wonder whether it would be so easy after all to quiet his suspicions now that he was blind; she began to realise ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... probable that the Spaniard was as destitute of English as Master William Bascomb was of Spanish; but there is a language of intonation and gesture as well as of words, and doubtless that of the Englishman was intelligible enough, for the Spaniard, by way of reply, grasped his sword by the point and offered it to the sturdy Devonshire seaman who confronted him, and who accepted it with a very fair imitation of the bow ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... to look at my companion. He had repeated the name very softly, yet with a peculiar intonation, which made me at once aware that the name was of interest ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... my Esther?" he said. "This is pleasant, this is what I have conceived of home. A strange word for the old rover; but we all have a taste for home and the homelike, disguise it how we may. It has brought me here, Mr. Naseby," he concluded, with an intonation that would have made his fortune on the stage, so just, so sad, so dignified, so like a man of the world and a philosopher, "and you see a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the garden and stepped upon the porch—her slippers were thin and made no sound—she heard Colonel French's voice in the darkened parlour. Some unusual intonation struck her, and she moved lightly and almost mechanically forward, in the shadow, toward a point where she could see through the window and remain screened from observation. So intense was her interest in what she heard, that she stood with her hand on her heart, not ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and with rapt attention, should recite the text without too much slowness, without a labouring voice, without being fast or quick, quietly, with sufficient energy, without confusing the letters and words together, in a sweet intonation and with such accent and emphasis as would indicate the sense giving full utterance to the three and sixty letters of the alphabet from the eight places of their formation. Bowing unto Narayana, and to Nara, that foremost of men, as also to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thought so," said Mr. Pope, with a peculiar intonation; and after that he proceeded with great suavity to cross-examine her into a state of utter bewilderment. As to what had happened after the accident she contradicted herself six or seven times over, eagerly accepting any suggestion which he held out to her; and Mr. Pope glanced triumphantly at the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... being was sinful and unchristian. "He couldn't have done more for a regularly baptized child," said the postmistress. "And what mo' would a regularly baptized child have wanted?" returned Mrs. MacGlowrie, with the drawling Southern intonation she fell back upon ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Mr. Parkinson; and envied him and internally noted, and with an unholy fervor cursed, the adroitness of intonation and the discreetly modulated gesture with which the colonel gave to every point of his merry-Andrewing its ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... frightened," said Peggy at once. In spite of the bigness of the figure there was something reassuring in the voice with its crisp, humorous note and its intonation that Peggy ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... pale face twitching and overcast, the Spaniard, still supported by his attendant, moved over towards his guest, when, with even more than his usual embarrassment, and a strange sort of intriguing intonation in his husky whisper, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... fingers, the pulse gave one great leap, stopped, then fell to pounding madly. Meanwhile, there came a tightening of Opdyke's lips. Then he said, with a voice devoid of any intonation,— ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... your hand—comrade!" she said, with a peculiar intonation. "Oh! if you only knew how I longed to meet the right men. Uncle is a convert—no, hardly a backslider; but he swears by the regenerating process instead of violence. Formerly the cleverest living chemist, he now—oh! I shame to say it—he now indulges in firework displays instead of ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... so clear, so crisp, that we seemed to be entering a land of eternal dew and roses, and as our car filled with the delicious scent of pine branches and green grasses, the miner, with a solemn look on his face, took off his hat and, turning to me, said, with deep intonation: ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... how that thick man could speak of people, he interjected ambiguously) and his mother, with an insatiable curiosity for anything that was rare (filially humorous accent here and a softer flash of teeth), was very anxious to have me presented to her (courteous intonation, but no teeth). He hoped I wouldn't mind if she treated me a little as an "interesting young man." His mother had never got over her seventeenth year, and the manner of the spoilt beauty of at least three counties at the back of the Carolinas. That again got overlaid by the sans-facon of ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... your souls to the deepest hells, you chicken-hearted cowards! I'm done with you!" He said it calmly enough, but his strength spoke in every syllable, and every intonation was advertisement of intention. "Come on," he continued, "whack up, and in whatever way suits you best. I own a quarter-interest in the claims; our contracts show that. There're twenty-five or thirty ounces ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken with this perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity of his blue eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood. She continued. "For—I can speak to you openly on this tiresome subject—only think what a terrible strain this hope deferred must be for Felicia's ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... was the signal for Miss Ardmore to remark (apropos of her own discrimination and the American accent) that hearing a lady ask for a certain med'cine in a chemist's shop, she noted the intonation, and inquired of the chemist, when the fair stranger had retired, if she were not an American. "And she was!" exclaimed the Honorable Elizabeth triumphantly. "And what makes it the more curious, she had been over here twenty years, and of course ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... with due ceremony presented them to Bobby. And Bobby, who was already learning to prattle Eskimo words, received the gift with unfeigned delight. Then he must learn the name of each, which Abel patiently taught him to pronounce with proper accent and intonation: inuit—man; tingmik—dog; komatik—sledge. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... imagined from his expression or his intonation that he had already tried a l'aube du jour for the key-word and failed; nor that why he had failed he now knew. The book was right as to the word, and the slip that Harleston had taken from Crenshaw's pocket-book confirmed it. A l'aube ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... in The Whirlpool (1897) with a very significant change of intonation:—'And that History which he loved to read—what was it but the lurid record of woes unutterable! How could he find pleasure in keeping his eyes fixed on century after century of ever-repeated torment—war, pestilence, tyranny; the stake, the dungeon; tortures of infinite ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... song of liberty burst from the joyous company—one of those soul-stirring songs of Belman, which find a response in the breast of every Swede—wild, impassioned, and patriotic, breathing in every word and intonation the chivalrous spirit of men whose ancestry had fought under the glorious banners of ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... finished speaking than he began to shout a long string of further directions, to which the canoe men replied from time to time by waving their hands. Finally Oahika brought his communication to an end with a few words which, from the intonation of his voice, might have been an injunction to the men to hurry up; and away the canoe sped ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... into her voice which was almost pathetic. 'I think that to some men women are almost better than they deserve. I don't know why. I suppose it pleases them. It is odd.' There was a different intonation,—a dryness. 'Have you ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... reared in the various localities in the garden; and over at Chia Se's, had also been learnt twenty miscellaneous plays, while a company of young nuns and Taoist priestesses had likewise the whole number of them, mastered the intonation of Buddhist ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... brisk and resolute cast of countenance, that, Ethel thought, might have suited the Norman of Glenbracken, who died on the ruddy Lion of Scotland, and speaking with the very same slight degree of Scottish intonation as she remembered in her mother, making a most home-like sound in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the manuscript and began. He had worked over the scenes so often with Bambi that he fell into her dramatic way of "doing" the scenes. Once or twice the manager chuckled as he recognized her touch and intonation on a line. Certainly Jarvis had never read so well. He was encouraged by frequent laughs from his audience. There were interruptions now and then, criticisms and suggestions. As he read and laid down the last page, Mr. ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... the special intonation of the question infuriated Flame.... Maybe she thought his mouth scornful,—his narrowing eyes...? Goodness knows what she thought of his ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... smiling on me, but driving wedges between every fibre of my body as she spoke. "Be it so," I said, proudly. "At any rate, I am not so much of a boy that I shall forget you." "And, John, you still have the trade to learn," she added, with her deliciously foreign intonation—speaking very slowly, but with perfect pronunciation. The trade to learn! However, I said not a word, but stalked out of the room, meaning to see her no more before she went. But I could not resist attending on her in the hall as she started; and, when she took leave ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... old story everywhere," sang Vautrin, with a satirical intonation. At this juncture, Goriot, Mlle. Michonneau, and Poiret came downstairs together; possibly the scent of the gravy which Sylvie was making to serve with the mutton had announced breakfast. The seven people thus assembled bade each other good-morning, and took their places at ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... feelings of her persecutors. In the intervals of silence from the clamour, her voice, though low, clear, well-tuned, and impressive, forcibly arrested the attention of young Nevile; for at that day, even more than this (sufficiently apparent as it now is), there was a marked distinction in the intonation, the accent, the modulation of voice, between the better bred and better educated and the inferior classes. But this difference, so ill according with her dress and position, only served to heighten more the bold insolence of the musical Bacchantes, who, indeed, in the eyes of the sober, formed ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his club, and dealt a sound douse or two on each side of him; and then, like a coach-horse pricked by the spur, started off at once into the full career of his address, and by dint of active prompting on the part of Dickie Sludge, delivered, in sounds of gigantic intonation, a speech which may be thus abridged—the reader being to suppose that the first lines were addressed to the throng who approached the gateway; the conclusion, at the approach of the Queen, upon sight of whom, as struck by some heavenly vision, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... not been thought necessary to prefix to the present Volume any instructions in the art of Elocution, or to direct the accent or intonation of the student by the abundant use of italics or of large capitals. The principal, if not the only secrets of good reading are, to speak slowly, to articulate distinctly, to pause judiciously, and to feel the subject so as, if possible, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... thought I would be afraid to resent this," he said, with just a faint tinge of bitterness. I was interested enough to discern the slightest shades of expression, but I was not in the least enlightened; yet I don't know what in these words, or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced me suddenly to make all possible allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... never to mind trifles," said a great man. "So should I if I could only tell what were trifles," said a greater. One is far on if he can predict consequences that may flow from one kind word or the intonation of a word. Fortune sometimes hangs upon a glance or nod of kindly recognition ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... much frightened for fear he should talk Greek; on the other side he was relieved by Sir John Merton,—very civil, very pompous, and talking, at strictured intervals, about county matters, in a measured intonation, savouring of the House-of-Commons jerk at ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... used the words "Perikot, Nokot, Mankiterre, Lumbo Lumbo, Nana Nana Nana," all of which we did not understand till after our arrival at Port Essington, where we learned that they meant "Very good, no good, Malays very far." Their intonation was extremely melodious, some other words, the meaning of which we could not make out, were "Kelengeli, Kongurr, Verritimba, Vanganbarr, Nangemong, Maralikilla;" the accent being always on the first syllable of the word, and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the giddy girl, and giving to his voice an intonation, the gravity of which contrasted with that of Montalais; "forgive me, but may I inquire the name of the protector you speak of; for if protection be extended towards you, Mademoiselle de Montalais,—for which, indeed, so many reasons exist," added Raoul, bowing, "I do not see that the same reasons ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all your great-grandmother's treasures to the attics," said Lady Mary, with rather a wilful intonation. "I always long to bring them to light again, and to make this place livable; but my ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... at least, I will say for this never still small voice of mine: its intonation is always perfect; it keeps ideal time, and its quality, though rather thin and somewhat nasal and quite peculiar, is not unsympathetic. Sometimes, indeed (as in that Islington omnibus), I can compel it to imitate, a s'y meprendre, the tones of some singer I have recently heard, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... of arms between mistress and cook. Rapidly forgotten by the principals, it has been carefully stored up in the memory of the witness, who will subsequently bestow an immense amount of misguided energy in teaching a young sister to reproduce, with appropriate gesture and intonation, "Cook, I desire that you will not speak to me in that way. I am extremely displeased with you, and I shall acquaint your master with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... that Coquelin, in the creation of a part, makes his way slowly, surely, inwards, for the first few weeks of his performance, and that then the thing is finished, to the least intonation or gesture, and can be laid down and taken up at will, without a shade of difference in the interpretation. The part of Maitre Jacques in "L'Avare," for instance, which I have just seen him perform with such gusto and such certainty, had ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... there were volumes in the intonation. 'I was alarmed when she came in, and then so glad if it was all over. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here as well sustained, I believe, as anywhere in the world at present; all about it is certainly quite good, but alas! nothing excellent, nothing admirable. Yet no! I must not say nothing: Lablache is excellent,—voice, intonation, manner of song, action. Ronconi I found good in the Doctor of "L'Elisire d'Amore". For the higher parts Grisi, though now much too large for some of her parts, and without a particle of poetic grace ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... gruff bark to a shrill whistle; and we could tell by them, without seeing him, when it was he was hungry, eating, frightened, or menacing; doubtless, one of his own species would have understood various minor shades of intonation and expression that we, not entering into his feelings and wants, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... have seen him sitting there and telling me these things in a gentle, throaty and rather thick voice with a cockney accent and a sort of tenor ring in it and a queer, humorous intonation that was like an audible twinkle, as if he saw himself as he thought I must see him, mainly in the light of absurdity. You should have seen his face, its thin cheeks, its vivid flush, its queer, inquisitive, contradictory nose that had a slender, ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... dull sermon, surely have the right to choose, whether with trees and flowers and singing birds to worship in "That temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," or within four walls to sleep during the intonation of that melancholy service that relegates us all, without distinction of sex or color, to the ranks of "miserable sinners." Let each one do what seemeth right in her own eyes, provided she does not encroach ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the astonished King, as a wild cry ran round the hall, and "Death to the ungrateful foreigner!"—"Death to the base-born Englishman!"—"Tortures and death!" escaped, in every variety of intonation, from the fierce soldiery, who, regardless even of their Sovereign's presence, drew closer and closer round, clashing their weapons, and with difficulty restrained from tearing him ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... England and of the cities of Europe and Asia. He had been for a journey round the world, and had much to tell of his travels in foreign lands. Gradually as he talked, he dropped the precise English manner of speech and reverted to the homely phrases and drawling intonation of the West. And so they ceased to think of him as Lord St. Olave, regarding him without restraint as their ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... dull eyes on Marius, and burst out laughing, saying, with an intonation which contained every form of anguish, stifled by ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... loving words. And although he often doubted whether he was heard, he still talked; for it seemed to him that even if he did not understand him, the sick man listened with a certain pleasure to his voice,—to that unaccustomed intonation of affection and sorrow. And in this manner passed the second day, and the third, and the fourth, with vicissitudes of slight improvements and unexpected changes for the worse; and the boy was so absorbed in all his cares, that he hardly nibbled a bit of bread and cheese twice ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... minutes without interruption, and you close with an appealing "Well?" armed with an intonation which suggests an interrogation point of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... Jansoulet, on going up to his wife's room, would find her smoking in her easy-chair, with her head thrown back and piles of manuscript by her side, and Cabassu, armed with a blue pencil, reading in his hoarse voice and with his Bourg-Saint-Andeol intonation some dramatic lucubration which he cut and slashed remorselessly at the slightest word of criticism from the lady. "Don't disturb yourselves," the good Nabob's wave of the hand would say, as he entered the room on tiptoe. He ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... a peculiar intonation in her voice which told me that in her own queer little way she was trying to punish me for my failure to come to see her oftener with inquiries about Jack. She evidently thought that my vanity would be piqued at the thought of Jack becoming ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... part of the concert was very successful except for Madam Glynn's item. The poor lady sang Killarney in a bodiless gasping voice, with all the old-fashioned mannerisms of intonation and pronunciation which she believed lent elegance to her singing. She looked as if she had been resurrected from an old stage-wardrobe and the cheaper parts of the hall made fun of her high wailing notes. The first tenor and the contralto, however, brought down ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... long time ago," Mr. Morgan Griffiths repeated, in short, clipping intonation of the English language I will not attempt to reproduce, "but I've often talked it over with Mrs. Morgan Griffiths, and I can see it all now. Times was sore bad, and there was a deal of poverty about. Bread was dear, and iron was cheap—at ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... your words and may believe them? No, that would be a cowardice unworthy of our love and the true lives we hope to lead together. Sirs!" and each man there held his breath to catch the words which came in faint and fainter intonation from her lips, "I know my husband to be innocent, because the hand that held the dagger was mine. ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... he displayed such distinct talents for literature and for politics that there seemed little likelihood of his devoting himself to the business of law. He soon became known at Oxford as a charming poet, a keen and brilliant satirist, and a public speaker endowed with a voice of marvellous intonation and an exquisite choice of words. He made the acquaintance of Sheridan and of Burke; by Burke he was introduced to Pitt, and by Sheridan to Fox, and it is believed to have been on the suggestion of ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... remembered his dreary ramble about the lanes as if it had taken place last week. Miss Derwent was still speaking to him; his mind echoed again and again every word she had said, perfectly reproducing her voice, her intonation; he saw her bright, beautiful face, its changing lights, its infinite subtleties of expression. The arch of her eyebrows and the lovely hazel eyes beneath; the small and exquisitely shaped mouth; the little chin, so delicately round and firm; all ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... "how;" which, by the way is a most elastic word. It means good-bye, how-do-you-do, expresses anger, friendship, pleasure, sorrow, hate, insult, and in fact, almost every feeling of the human heart, all depending on the intonation given the voice and the manner ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... She opened the door leading from the sitting-room into the hall. She paused a moment to ascertain the reason for the bell's ringing. A murmur of voices came from the several rooms below. They were beautifully modulated with the intonation of those who have ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... stranger said, addressing him in pure and limpid English, which sounded to Philip like the dialect of the very best circles, yet with some nameless difference of intonation or accent which certainly was not foreign, still less provincial, or Scotch, or Irish; it seemed rather like the very purest well of English undefiled Philip had ever heard,—only, if anything, a little more so; "I beg your pardon, but I'm a stranger hereabouts, and I should be so VERY much obliged ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... the doctor could teach me in a few hours in the evening what it had taken him all day to learn. Naturally I picked up the most common phrases used in receiving and handling the grain, by hearing them frequently; but I soon learned that I must pronounce them with exactly the same intonation and emphasis, or they were not understood. Knowing but one language themselves, they had no facility in recognising mispronounced words, or in guessing at the meaning of incomplete phrases on which ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... his own one of the feverish little hands locked so fast in those of Aunt Barbara. She did know then, and remember, and her lip quivered in a grieved, disappointed way as she said, "Yes, Richard, I know now. I am not at home, I'm here;" and the intonation of the voice as it uttered the word "here," spoke volumes, and told Aunt Barbara just how homesick and weary and wretched her darling had been here. She must not talk much, the physician said, and so with one hand in Richard's ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Scholar can sing his part at Sight; whom one would at least wish to be an honest Man, diligent and experienced, without the Defects of singing through the Nose, or in the Throat, and that he have a Command of Voice, some Glimpse of a good Taste, able to make himself understood with Ease, a perfect Intonation, and a Patience to endure the severe Fatigue of ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... Her intonation demanded a negative, but Artois did not hasten to give it. Instead he turned the conversation ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... ear caught this vast Aeolian intonation, when my eye filled with the golden fulness of life, the pomps of the heavens above, or the glory of the flowers below, and turning when it settled upon the frost which overspread my sister's face, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... understand why Aunt Nancy, and many more, seemed to be so much amused at serious and learned examples and questions which I laid down to them. For though they did not "smile outright," I had learned to penetrate the New England ironical glance and satirical intonation. My mother said that, when younger, I, having had a difficulty of some kind with certain street-boys, came into the house with my eyes filled with tears, and said, "I told them that they were evil-minded, but they laughed me to scorn." On another occasion, when some vagabond street-boys asked ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said, "I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... reason why mannerisms of walk or gesture or vocal intonation are objectionable in an actor is that they distract the attention of the audience from the effect he is producing to his method of producing that effect. Mansfield's peculiar manner of pumping his voice from his diaphragm and Irving's corresponding system of ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... should be given to the subject of force, since that expression, which is so very important in elocution, is almost altogether dependent on some one or other modification of this attribute of the voice. It may truly be considered the light and shade of a proper intonation. Force may be applied to sentences or even to single words, for the purpose of ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... at the conclusion of which the husband entreats his wife to pardon his faults, MOLE contrives to find accents so tender, so affecting; he envelops his voice, as it were, with sounds so soft, so mellow, and at the same time so delicate, that the audience, fearing to lose the most trifling intonation, dare not draw their breath. Mademoiselle CONTAT replies, and, although she has to express the same degree of feeling, the charm ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... chivalrous action of Aunt Aggie's "turned out wrong," she knew well the intonation in which Lady Blore would ask her why she had been such a fool. Nevertheless she, Aunt Aggie, had only done with consummate tact what Mary herself had contemplated doing in her rough way, and had ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... of those sudden flights of thought so common in dreams I heard the hoarse falsetto of the bric-a-brac dealer, repeating like a monotonous refrain the phrase he had uttered in his shop with so enigmatical an intonation: ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... icy shudder, though no one perceived it. Thanks to the good breeding of the best society, she completely concealed the rage in her heart, and answered her sister-in-law with the words, "I knew it," with a fulness of intonation and inimitable decision which the most famous actress of the time might have envied her. She went straight up to the desk. Longueville looked up, put the patterns in his pocket with distracting coolness, bowed to ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... both in his broad, bold face, his huge head with its upstanding tawny hair like a mane, and in the speech and force that betokened the nature of his heart. He was not as old as Jean's father. He had a rolling voice, with the same drawling intonation characteristic of all Texans, and blue eyes that still held the fire of youth. Quite a marked contrast he presented to the lean, rangy, hard-jawed, intent-eyed men Jean had begun to accept ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the rough, with the deep rasping intonation of a savage. "Garn out o' this or I'll——" He took a step forward with uplifted hand, but in an instant down came cut number three upon his wrist, and cut number five across his thigh, and cut number one full in the center of his rabbit-skin cap. It ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... see if he is not," reiterated the senior clerk with kindly intonation. "Don't make a noise, there's a good fellow;" and once more John Clark, the dean of the office, guilefully buried ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... the story that was lost," said Jack, with the solemn intonation of one who has himself received ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... went on. 'But of course she is very young for her age. At first she was far too ready to rush into bosom friendships and enthusiastic admirations and all that sort of thing. And she perfectly adores games,' with a slight intonation of contempt. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... those of father and Algy, in either of which I can at once detect each fine inflection of anger, contest, or pain; but, comparatively unversed as I am in it, there sounds to me a slight, carefully smothered, yet still perceptible, intonation of disappointment—mortification. I wish that the air would give me back my words; but that it never yet was ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... look up, and her voice, in which the peculiar sing-song of Trojan intonation was intentionally emphasised, sounded so strangely that still greater amazement ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I want 'im to come." Mrs. Drake had not heard a word of her brother's rambling comment, and there was a decidedly expectant intonation in her voice. "Nobody's usin' the company-room, an' the presidin' elder won't be here till fall. Mr. Mostyn never was a bit of trouble and seemed to love everything I set before him. But I reckon we needn't feel so flattered. He's ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... my dearest," said she, speaking at last, a certain hesitation and catch in her throat and a tear in the broken intonation of her voice, "Dick, I've been thinking and—and—it was a power greater than that of the winds and seas that brought us together. It ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... Aramis, with the same intonation on the word friend that he had applied to it the first time—"I mean that if there has been any confusion, scandal, and even effort in the substitution of the prisoner for the king, I defy you to ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she?" asked Vilda with a grim intonation; but her face softened a little as she glanced at Gay asleep on the rustic ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... discovered America, we aboriginals had been trying to invent a national musical dialect which should identify us as completely to the foreigner as our nasal intonation and our fondness for the correct and venerable use of the word "guess." But Dvorak is to credit for taking the problem off the shelf, and persuading our composers to think. I cannot coax myself ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... Finally, incense was brought, of charcoal with juniper-sprigs; it was swung about, and concluded the morning service to our great relief, for the noises were quite intolerable. Fervid as the devotions appeared, to judge by their intonation, I fear the Lama felt more curious about us than was proper under the circumstances; and when I tried to sketch him, his excitement knew no bounds; he fairly turned round on the settee, and, continuing his ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... strength. As an intimate friend of her brother, I was already, with Dora, on the footing of an old acquaintance; she seemed well enough pleased with my society, and chatted with me willingly and familiarly; but in vain did I watch for some slight indication, a glance or an intonation, whence to derive hope. None such were perceptible; nor could the most egregious coxcomb have fancied that they were. We once or twice fell in with other acquaintances of her's and her brother's, and with them she had just the same frank friendly manner, as with me. I had not sufficient ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... By some trick of the actor's art, the shriveled figure of the expert seemed to swell out and thicken, while his low, gentle voice deepened into a full, metallic baritone. Of accent in his speech there was none, but Desmond's ear, trained to foreigners' English, could detect a slight Continental intonation, a little roll of the "r's," an unfamiliar sound about those open "o's" of the English tongue, which are so fatal a trap for foreigners speaking our language. As he watched Crook, Desmond glanced from time to time at the photograph of Bellward which he had picked ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... The musical intonation of her voice, chiming in with the melodious images that then filled the goldsmith's busy brain, impressed him so pleasantly that he turned, and saw that the damsel was holding a cow by a tether, while it was browsing the rank grass that grew ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... for a few moments in such vivid intensity that his eyeballs ached; then all was black again for a few moments, and then came the deep-toned roar as of hundreds of distant mighty cannons; not a sudden, sharp, metallic crash as in the last instance, but a deep murmurous intonation which made the woodwork ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... too, with bleak rehearsals, hours of listless waiting for his little scenes; with his powerlessness to get into his simple words the particular intonation required by an overdriven producer. Familiar, too, with long and hungry Sunday railway journeys when pious refreshment rooms are shut; with little mean towns like Bludston, where he and three or four of ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... he presently cooked and served me himself was lavishly done. He spoke good English, but slowly, heavily, with the guttural intonation of his race. He sat across the table from me, puffing his pipe ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... was also very well done. The old French gentleman was alone, and had it all to perform by himself. He began with calling his daughter, in various discordant keys, and with such a variety of impatient and exasperated intonation, that the whole room was full of laughter. His daughter not appearing nor answering, he next instituted a make-believe search for her, feigning to go into the kitchen, the buttery, her bedroom. Not finding her, and making a great deal of amusement for ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... of intonation which Isaac had never heard before from other than ladies' lips. Her slightest actions seemed to have the easy, negligent grace of a thoroughbred woman. Her skin, for all its poverty-stricken paleness, was as delicate as if her life had been passed in the enjoyment ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... plays himself, teaching the performers carefully, and going upon the stage, if need be, to act the scene as he wanted it to be acted, indicating the expression, the intonation and the gesture which he felt to be demanded ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... that face must no doubt be death to those on whom her eyes had smiled, for whom her set lips had parted, for those whose soul had drunk in the melody of that voice, lending to her words the poetry of song by its peculiar intonation. Inhaling the perfume of violets that accompanied her, I understood how the memory of this wife had arrested the Count on the threshold of debauchery, and how impossible it would be ever to forget a creature who really was a flower to ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... house, and is chased off the stage by the old gentleman in a manner that no gentleman ever chases his servants. Something is the matter with the men's legs: they all move by two steps and a hitch. They all speak with an intonation as unlike the English of real life as if they talked Greek. The young people make fools of the old people in a way they would never dream of in life,—and the old people are preternaturally stupid in submitting to be made fools ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... recognize the lineaments of the face, but her heart recalled the intonation of tenderness, though the voice was weak and changed. Throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her full red lips in sobbing kisses upon his corpse-like face, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... heard such elocution. The intonation, the fervour and fire, the gesticulation were the perfect interpretation of a poet, a mystic, a veritable Thespian. On and on Jim went in uninterrupted, almost breathless silence. Phil was anxious for his friend's well-being, ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... words are not formed by this method, yet words are intoned for certain purposes, chiefly rhetorical. We use the rising intonation (or inflection, as it is usually called) to indicate that a question is asked, and various effects are given to speech by the various intonations of rhetoric. But this process is used in other languages to form new words with which to express new ideas. In Chinese eight distinct intonations ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell
... passed. Then he left home and became an inhabitant of history. His face was solid and healthy, his step young, his speech and manner bold and kindly. I saw him at Trenton stand in the Legislature, and say, in his conversational intonation: ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... to influence its hearers, to carry you indeed a little out of yourself by its variety of intonation, its fire and fervour, its languishing modulations, broken pauses, yearning melancholy of effect. The part of the neurotic hero of the—then—Laureate's poem, that somewhat pinch-beck Victorian Hamlet, suited our young friend, moreover, down to the ground. It offered sympathetic ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Andras if she would consent to become his wife or not. It was a yes, almost as curt as another refusal, which fell at last from the lips of the Tzigana. But the Prince was not cool enough to analyze an intonation. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the last verse he sank upon one knee, and folding the standard to his heart, raised his eyes towards heaven, he drew all hearts with him; tears flowed, hand grasped hand, and deeply solemn was the intonation of the volunteer chorus following the call ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... and formal, and his voice had assumed a slight nasal intonation. Potts had evidently looked on him as a ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... melancholy in the intonation which caused the reporter to look at his companion a little sharply. For a moment Dryden stirred in his chair as though about to make some comment, and twisted the morsel of bread at his fingers' ends into a small pellet. But he poured out another glass of claret ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... voice had dropped into the rhythmic intonation of the Indian orator, and his eyes were fixed upon the names that curled, lean and red, among the dry sticks of the camp-fire. Chloe gazed in fascination into the rapt face of this man of many moods. The soul of the girl caught the enthusiasm of his words, and ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... cause of existence beyond himself—an intoxicating whiff of the peculiar essence of Francois le Champi. Beneath the everyday incidents, the commonplace thoughts and hackneyed words, I could hear, or overhear, an intonation, a rhythmic utterance fine and strange. The 'action' began: to me it seemed all the more obscure because in those days, when I read to myself, I used often, while I turned the pages, to dream of something quite different. And to the gaps which this habit made in my knowledge of ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... (darting at him, holding him by the shoulders, and then kissing him violently. With an intonation of affectionate ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... was unconsciously and instinctively dropping into the fashion that to him was so sacred. Love always delights in imitation; and the disciples of a great teacher will unconsciously catch the trick of his intonation, even the awkwardness of his attitudes or the peculiarities of his way of looking at things—only, unfortunately, outsides are a good deal more easily imitated than insides. And many a disciple copies such external trifles, and talks in the tones ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... suspect young Nerac is bleeding his elderly mistress. Well, but at his age nobody has a conscience. Yes, and Madame Dorothy is handsome still; and still my pulse is playing me queer tricks, because she is near me, and my voice has not the intonation I intend, because she is near me; and still I am three-quarters in love with her. Yes, in the light of such cursed folly as even now possesses me, I have good reason to give thanks for the regained infirmities of age. Yet living seems to me a wasteful and inequitable process, ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... for the life of me, comprehend the drift of this question, but there was no mistaking the insolent intonation of it. I ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... honour?"—his host took him up with an intonation that often comes back to him. "That's what I want you to go in for. I mean the real thing. This ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... with an indescribable intonation, 'ask Mr. Falkirk that, Dr. Maryland. Poor Mr. Falkirk! he is learning every day of his life what it is to know me ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... turned and walked quickly down the stairs to the door, turning to me just as he reached it and adding with an almost spiteful intonation, "But then again, what clarity of mind can be expected from someone from the unenlightened past." He then left the room, closing the door with a powerful thud, after which I heard a small metallic click and his strong, commanding footsteps fading down the long stairway. ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... Burroughs and myself went away together, and the doorman showed a mild surprise in the fact that no carriage awaited us. Gilder with comic intonation said, "Some of you fellows ought to have saved this situation by ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... They bear evidences of "culcha" that are truly encouraging, but here is a case that is actually exhilarating, or would be were it not somewhat bewildering. It is from an article about the Jersey Lily, Mrs. Langtry: "Who ever vocalized such a word with a more complex intonation, or with a more marvellously intimate union with a more inextricably intertwined relationship to the most exquisite sensibilities that accompany and mark the infinite flights and reachings of the soul, as within its human casement ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... was speaking, the proud young girl with a queenlike bearing, whose voice rang out like crystal? Was it she indeed, who imitated the harsh, coarse dialect of the lower classes with such accuracy of intonation? Ah! at that moment, as her past life rose so vividly before her, it seemed to her as if she were still in the years gone by, and she fancied she could still hear the ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... the foremost men were edging toward the stairs, while the densely packed throng at the back were struggling among themselves. In the passages behind, some were yelling and screaming with a wild intonation which Steinmetz recognized. He had been through ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... relations being indicated by position. From the earliest forms of speech several subordinate vernacular languages arose in various districts, and from these sprang local dialects, etc. Tone-distinctions arose—i.e. the same words pronounced with a different intonation came to mean different things. Development of these distinctions led to carelessness of articulation, and multiplication of what would be homonyms but for these tones. It is incorrect to assume that the tones were invented to distinguish similar sounds. So that, at ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... fellow in his way, was strangely affected. It is to be noted that he knew very little of Heyst. He was one of those whom Heyst's finished courtesy of attitude and intonation most strongly disconcerted. He himself was a fellow of fine feeling, I think, though of course he had no more polish than the rest of us. We were naturally a hail-fellow-well-met crowd, with standards of our own—no worse, I daresay, than other people's; but polish was not one of them. Davidson's ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... hum came from the speaker. Through it I could hear harsh chopping consonants, a whining intonation. I doubted that Mannion would be able to make anything of ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... gave her an excuse for silence. She had only to attend to her cups and saucers, and to listen to Miss Wendover and her nephew, who had plenty to talk about. To hear that deep full voice, with its perfect intonation, was in itself a pleasure—pleasant, also, to discover that Brian Wendover, albeit a famous Balliol man and a Greek scholar after the Porsonian ideal, could still be warmly interested in simple things and lowly folk. She began to feel ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... forever on our unhappy state. In the past six months I have so far mastered the Spanish tongue that now I can converse in it with more ease than in the French. The Governor declares that I have the true intonation; and even Dona Orosia admits that I have shown some aptitude. I care nothing for it as a mere accomplishment; but I hope that the knowledge may be of use if ever we attempt escape. (Though what chance of escape is there when Mr. ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... they must be played in perfect tune so that each tone stands out in all its fullness and clarity like a rock in the sea. And without a fundamental control of pitch such a master work will always be beyond the violinist's reach. Many a player has the facility; but without perfect intonation he can never attain the highest perfection. On the other hand, any one who can play a single phrase in absolute pitch has the first and great essential. Few artists, not barring some of the greatest, play with perfect ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... had gone in a flash. Evening came while they were still under the oak-trees, and the voice of Lucrezia was heard calling from the terrace, with the peculiar baaing intonation that is characteristic of southern women of the ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... her unbound hair, her crude forms of speech and soft, drawling intonation—such as the throaty, unvarying pronunciation of "the" as though it were "ther," and "a" like "er"—which sounded so deliciously odd to his New England ears, could not erase from his mind the impression that she did not belong in the picture. To be sure he had, during his tramps, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... caught this vast AEolian intonation, when my eye filled with the golden fullness of life, the pomps and glory of the heavens outside, and, turning, when it settled upon the frost which overspread my sister's face, instantly a trance fell upon me. A vault seemed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... production. In this case the critic will note exactly the same sort of differences in tonal value as in the case of the violinist. Some of the singer's notes will be perfect musical tones, others will be marred by faults of intonation or of quality. But a great difference will be noted between faulty tones played on the violin, and faulty tones sung by the human voice. In addition to their blemishes as musical tones, the faulty notes of the voice also convey to the critical ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... that had kept him chained for a year? And Danny did not know what it was. The preacher, who was in a hurry to go to his dinner, had told him, but Danny had had no libretto with which to follow the drowsy intonation. But the preacher ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... this purpose, a lot 150 x 150, lying a little way from the river-bank, and occupied by a seven-story loft-building, was owned by the previously mentioned Redmond Purdy, a long, thin, angular, dirty person, who wore celluloid collars and cuffs and spoke with a nasal intonation. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... by an unfamiliar voice, a voice which had a queer, guttural intonation. It was the sort of voice he had learned ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... invisible Lingard. His voice changed its tone as he moved in the cabin, and directly afterward burst out with a clear intonation while his head appeared above the slide ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... his head, which had been bent forward for a few moments past, looked at Edith with a softer light in his solemn eyes, and said, in a low voice, which had a wonderful sweetness in its intonation, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... was so marked in the intonation of the King's voice that Frina Mavrodin was on her guard in a moment. "She is a woman, your Majesty, and, since I am no politician, I pity ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... average voice, yes," said Dr. Shalt. "Cosmic disturbances would drown out a normal voice amplified a thousand times beyond its regular frequency. But a voice in a higher octave—like your second voice ... Well, we believe there's a certain resonant intonation which can be curved and regulated in any direction, in the voice you use for ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin
... rule over his thought, his feelings, and all his physical powers, so that the outer self may give perfect, unhampered expression to the inner. It is futile, we assert, to lay down systems of rules for voice culture, intonation, gesture, and what not, unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt in ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... below him, so clear and close that he could distinguish the intonation, and who it was that spoke, though ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... contemplation, "the glass, the glass! Anything so precious must have had commensurate treatment. What color, what clarity, what bulk!" and as the unhappy creature yielded to that species of intoxication which even the grace of God seems unable to ameliorate, the Sepoy, with the easy poise and balance of intonation and phrase which had served as such facile vehicles for ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... in the intonation, and the verse floated over the weeping throng; when, after a pause, the strain ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... consequence of Olive's influence she had read and studied so much that it seemed now as if everything must take form beforehand. Olive was a splendid critic, whether he liked her or not, and she had made her go over every word of her lecture twenty times. There wasn't an intonation she hadn't made her practise; it was very different from the old system, when her father had worked her up. If Basil considered women superficial, it was a pity he couldn't see what Olive's standard of preparation was, or be present at their rehearsals, in the evening, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James |
