"Quaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Simmons fell back on the arm-rack deliberately, - the men were at the far end of the room, - and took out his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat, Sim!" said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot, and hurled it at Simmons's head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson's throat. Losson fell forward without a ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... quaver breathlessly, "I have the proof—the undeniable proof! They were intelligent beings. They did not die of disease. They were exterminated in war! They were ... but see for yourself!" There was a thud as he dropped something on the polished table top between the commissioner ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... heart did throb a little, and sink for a day, when this playfellow was shipped off for life, as you thought, and you did remember his funeral tears over his owl, and"—a quaver of voice and betrayed earnestness revealed the jealous pang shooting across the heart of the speaker; but her own was too heavy and deeply anxious to prolong this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... now getting old—faster and faster. I cannot help my gray hairs, nor the wrinkles that gather so slowly yet ruthlessly; no, nor the quaver that will come in my voice, not the sense of being feeble in the knees, even when I walk only across the floor of my study. But I have not got used to age yet. I do not FEEL one atom older than I did at three-and-twenty. Nay, to tell all the truth, I feel a good deal younger.—For then I only felt ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... to describe the service in detail. There was a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing, and the mournful-looking deacon who passed the collection-plate seemed inured to disappointment. The prayer had in it a note of despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living soul. ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... look into her face that transformed and transfigured her. "My boy was in Ann Arbor. He was killed on the train on his way home one day." She stopped, for fear of breaking into a quaver, and smiled brightly. "That's why I always like college boys. They all stop here with me." She rose hastily. "Well, you'll excuse me, won't you, and I'll ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... on, the subject of employing Mr. Rhythm to teach a singing-school was discussed. Mr. Quaver, a tall, slim man, with a long, red nose, had led the choir for many years. He had a loud voice, and twisted his words so badly, that his singing was like the blare of a trumpet. On Sundays, after Rev. Mr. Surplice read the hymn, the people were accustomed to hear a loud Hawk! from Mr. Quaver, ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Hopklns had great qualms, When they did quaver David's Psalms; "Which made their hearts full glad. But had the prophet back been sent, To hear them SING,—and you COMMENT, They surely had ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... can't go and leave Fellowes here all alone," he said stoutly, though he could scarcely keep a suspicious quaver out of his voice. "When I was going to be alone, Fellowes wrote and asked his mother to let me go home with him, and she couldn't, because his sister has got scarlet fever, and they daren't have either of us; and he's got to stay here—and he's never been away at ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter
... way to St. Paul now?" Griswold said to the newspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all the tone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver of anxious ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... mother she's sure lost her best friend. It's up to her paw to see she gets a square deal." There was a quaver of emotion in Tolliver's voice. "I don't reckon he can make up ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... handkerchief, showing a white face, whose expression matched the quaver in her voice, as she said breathlessly: "But how if I meet a man and feel I cannot live without him, and he is already—" she brought it out squarely in the sunny peace,—"if he is already as ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... guillotine and sat in the chair, and the jubilant patentee told me that it was the quickest scheme for extinguishing life ever invented—patented Anno Christi Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five. Verily we live in the age of the Push-Button! And as I sat there I heard a laugh that was a quaver, and the sound of a stout cane emphasizing a jest struck ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... celerity as unusual as the quaver in his voice. "Indeed thy words are white, O mightiest of magicians. What are indeed the evil eyes of savages against the power of thy magic, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly line—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... sold," said Daphne, with a small quaver in her voice, "just this afternoon. I came over to say good-by to it, and to get some mint and lavender ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... straps of the rifle-case with unnecessary care, but there was a quaver in his voice that was ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... man put his hand on her shoulder, and with a "I'll just trouble you—this way please," and not so much as a quaver in his voice, led her into the ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... back into the chamber, and then down the worn stone steps cut out of the rock, which seemed to lead down and down into the bowels of the earth. As we hurried down, leaping lightly on the tips of our toes, the quaver of the tune came after us, so clearly that I even made a ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... think you're trying to cheat us—to lead us out of the way toward your breed friends—you're going to have a chance to learn it better," she went on, never a quaver in her voice. "I won't wait to make sure—I'll shoot you through the neck as easy and as quick as I'd shoot a grouse. I haven't forgotten what you did last night; I'm just eager for a chance to pay you for it." Her voice grew more sober. "This is a warning—the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... hold dignity and happiness for her. He would fight that she might have those rights, if necessary; but he would rather have her lose her voice entirely, than to hear her sound a bass note so long as a demi-semi-quaver. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... odorous as a violet in April. There should be a flageolet, whence the Cigarette, with cunning touch, should draw melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying that aside, upraise his voice—somewhat thinner than of yore, and with here and there a quaver, or call it a natural grace-note—in rich and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slipped out before she saw its significance. She might not have perceived it so quickly even then had it not been for the second of hesitation before Drusilla answered and the quaver in her voice when ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... Norman Douglas admirably puts it in South Wind, "Enclosed within the soft imagination of the homo Mediterraneus lies a kernel of hard reason. The Northerner's hardness is on the surface; his core, his inner being, is apt to quaver in a state of fluid irresponsibility." The comparative method of approach to the institution of marriage among Latins and among Anglo-Saxons illustrates this truth. And it serves also, perhaps, for an example that, in the midst of the terrors of war, the dim project of ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... appetites. And when, in addition to this, the worn-out huskies pulled weakly, Hal decided that the orthodox ration was too small. He doubled it. And to cap it all, when Mercedes, with tears in her pretty eyes and a quaver in her throat, could not cajole him into giving the dogs still more, she stole from the fish-sacks and fed them slyly. But it was not food that Buck and the huskies needed, but rest. And though they were making poor time, ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... your Pa and Ma, eh? You're not angry with them, I hope? Oh, it would be wrong of you to be angry with them still! They're very fond of you, you know. They cried when you went away, Lily. Your ... going away," Jimmy insisted, with a quaver in his voice, "was ... a great blow ... to them ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... broken out?" inquired Marcolina from the window. She had turned round; her face betrayed nothing, but there was a slight quaver in her voice which no ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... long that I tried to find an explanation of it, she said, "You refer to my father?" There was a quaver in her voice which all her bravery could ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... The uncertain quaver in his voice brought Urquhart's eyes for a moment upon his face, that was always pale and was ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... to her breast, a quaver in her voice, of which she seemed slightly ashamed, for she turned suddenly and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... said Jessie, with a quaver in her voice; "but I should like to come and talk to you as often as I can." Then presently she added, in a conflicting tone, "I don't know what to call your mother. I don't like to say 'Mrs. Lang,' it seems so— so silly and—stuck-up, and I don't like to call her 'mother,' because, you see, ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... in mid-quaver stops, Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Richard, with a quaver of comic regret. "Our civilization has so narrowed the times that murder is inexpressibly inconvenient. One thing I ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... you can be very brave and generous," she answered. "What I WANT to know is whether I can serve you - now or afterwards," she added, with a quaver. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you for these words about my brother," she said very gently, and with a little pathetic quaver in her voice. "They have given me a comforting association with that awful day. Oh, I thank God for the thought. Remembering what Mrs. Yocomb said, it reconciles me to it all, as I never thought I could be reconciled. If Herbert believed that ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... to the house without further words, and Mrs. Forbes called to her son in a voice that had a wrathful quaver. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... the silence in Mrs. Markham's drawing-room, except the hiss of a light, quick breath and the intake and outgo of a heavier, slower one. And so suddenly, with such smothered intensity, that Norcross started in his seat, Mrs. Markham's voice emitted the first quaver of a musical note. She held it for a moment, before she began to hum over and over three bars of an old tune—"Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta." Thrice she hummed it, still sitting with ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... I don't mind a little mist and I'm plenty warm." This cheerful assertion was belied by the miserable quaver ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... manages to put the lonely quaver of the yellow-leg's call into that phrase "Look out for him! Look out for him!" with its four-note repetition is more than I know, but he always does, and you can see the big flock swing through the mist as he ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... she said, with a forlorn little quaver in her voice, "how could you be so foolish? Didn't you know there was something better in the world than grubbing after musty old tribes and customs and folk-songs? Oh, precious child, how ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... The quaver in her voice touched Mark's sympathy. "She was old and simple-hearted. She was Helen's aunt," and this, more than aught else, helped him to a decision. "She must be homesick in the Bowery; he should die if compelled to stay there long; he would take her to his mother's and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... take to his heels, but he was saved from this ignominious act by the timely recollection that he was an Englishman, whose glorious privilege it is to be born without fear. So he stood still, and in a voice which had something of a quaver in it, called out: ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... eyes to the reading, the quiet rhythm of the sentences, and the calm, deep music of his voice, sounding ineffably soothing, when a quaver, then a break in his voice, just as he repeated the last words, made me look toward him. The calm, strong man was weeping silently; and just then he broke into a paroxysm of sobs that shook his strong frame as by a palsy. Dear Lord! what hidden grief there is in the world! Who would ever ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... his heart had begun to pound so violently, (not from emotion, he told himself,—from a mere ridiculous sort of nervous excitement: what was there in the woman that should excite a sane man like that?) he was afraid to trust his voice, lest it should quaver and betray him. But fortunately this pounding of the heart lasted only a few seconds. The short business of getting the gate open, and of closing it afterwards, gave it time to pass. So that now, as they set forwards ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... in the dimness of the carriage, that she had flushed quickly, and he did not know that she disliked to be reminded of certain things which, for her, were mitigations of the hard feminine lot. But the passionate quaver with which, a moment later, she answered him sufficiently assured him that he had touched her at a ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Eubanks, was "The Pathos of Charles Dickens." Marcella had taken unusual pains in its preparation, bringing with her two volumes of the author from which to read at the right moment the deaths of Little Nell and Paul Dombey. She had practised these until she could make her voice quaver effectively, and she had looked forward to a genuine ovation when ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... away over the city toward all four quarters of the sky, and quaver into silence. We come out from the gloom of the staircase into the dazzling light of the balcony which runs around the top of the minaret. For a few moments we can see little; but when the first bewilderment passes, we are conscious that all the charm and wonder of ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Is he whose heart is the home of the great dead, And their great thoughts. Who can mistake great thoughts They seize upon the mind; arrest and search, And shake it; bow the tall soul as by wind; Rush over it like a river over reeds, Which quaver in the current; turn us cold, And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain A rocking and a ringing; glorious, But momentary, madness might it last, And close the soul with heaven as with a seal! In lieu of all these things whose loss ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... room, professional delicacy prompted the doctor to withdraw. As he bade her good-morning she became embarrassed, hesitated a moment, then abruptly throwing open the door which gave entrance to a parlor, she said with a suspicious quaver in her voice, "Won't you come in? I must thank you, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... you are much changed." There was a suggestion of a quaver in her voice, and the shadows did not prevent him from seeing the quick mist that flitted ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... plumbful of good cheer Till he struck that low-down year; Got so thin, so little to him, You could most see day-light through him. Never was his eye so bright, Never was his cheek so white. Seemed as if somethin' was wrong, Sort o' quaver in his song. Same old smile, same hearty voice: "Bless you, boys! let's all rejoice!" But old Doctor shook his head: "Half a lung," was all he said. Yet that half was surely right, For I heard him every night, ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... with a slight quaver composed of anger—and something else; for there was a touch of the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... she then, what is't that ails thee now? It seems to me I sing as well as thou; For mine's a song that is both true and plain,— Although I cannot quaver so in vain As thou dost in thy throat, I ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... was a curious quaver in her voice, "I've had to give in at last. The Lord knows best. He has given me many a happy year with you; yet I have never forgotten the folks over yonder. I shall be glad to see them again,—your father, Jack, and the rest. 'Then they came to the land of Beulah, where the sun shineth day and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... country to distinguish one from the other. The music to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either, though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of his own manufacture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... be good enough," Madame de Sevenie interposed in a fretful quaver—"and if it would not be taking him too far out of his way—it is night, anything may happen, the car might break down, and I am an old woman, monsieur, with ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most of her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... taken the precaution to open both doors of the cabin wide, after his hosts were safely asleep, letting in the moonlight and a little breeze that smelled keenly of pine woods. Now and then a faint bird-note broke the hush, or the mournful quaver of a screech-owl. The situation was not without picturesque piquancy for a collector ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... another hour in the blasted hole!" roared his guest, in a fierce quaver. Out of my way you fool! Where's Joan? Tell her to get up and come directly. I'm off, tell her. I'd as soon go to bed in the drifts as stop another hour ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... stood stock still, raised his nose, and emitted a long wail, a mournful, a ghastly sound, with a broken-hearted quaver at the end. Kate Cumberland shrank back still farther until the wall blocked her retreat. Black Bart had never acted like this before. He followed her with a green light in his eyes, which shone phosphorescent and distinct through the growing shadows. And most terrible of all was the sound which ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... mother-tongue in every vernacular, might take example from the conscientious creator, who would not put a particle of cant into the crooked marks and ruled bars which are such a mystery to the uninitiated, blot with one demi-semi-quaver of falsehood his papers, or leave aught but truth of the heavenly sphere at a single point on any line! Then our sternest utterance with each other would be concord, our common questions and answers more melodiously responsive than chants in great cathedrals, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the farthest corner. The place was rather large, and everywhere dark except within the narrow circle of the candle-light. In a quiet voice, with a little quaver in it, ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... sooner have heard anything than that Geoffrey was badly hurt," he exclaimed with a quaver in his voice. To the Chinaman, who brought the stranger in, he gave the order, "Get him some supper and tell Fontaine I ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... disinclination, it had occurred to him that he might make one, and return to his study in a virtuous frame of mind over a slight and unimportant, but bothersome duty performed. If he had had his wits about him he might have seen the feminine heads at the windows, he might have heard the quaver of Miss Bessy Dicky's voice over the club report; but he saw and heard nothing, and now he was seated in the midst of the feminine throng, and Miss Bessy Dicky's voice quavered more, and she assumed a slightly mincing attitude. ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... profession." He was requested by Dr. Burney to sing; rather unfortunately, it would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, "knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver." However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... time. His grandmother did not seem to notice that he was in a forbidden place, but asked, with an anxious quaver in her voice, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... piteous quaver in the treble voice, and, forgetting that he was no longer a school-boy, he brushed his eyes furtively with his coat-sleeve, as Jack pretended preoccupation ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... of these city-builders is most unusual; the males frequently utter the most varied and astonishing cries. They are jarring in the extreme, and are produced in the most leisurely manner, growing louder and louder and finally ending with a slow quaver. At other times, they grunt like small pigs. Hudson says that any quick noise, like the report of a gun, produces a most startling effect among these little animals. As soon as the report is broken on the stillness of the night a perfect furore of cries issues forth from ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... the Governor spoke; and, though his words were seemingly irrelevant, they were to the point. His voice had a note of martyrdom running through its senile quaver. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... unskilful Throat to chop and alter, to twist and change, according to their infinitely divers and no less Odd Humours and Fancies. I have myself paused twice in one note to take breath. No two Men in the Congregation quaver alike or together, it sounds in the Ears of a Good Judge like five hundred different Tunes roared out at the same Time, with ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... and other preachers, busied themselves in their ranks, and prevailed on them to raise a psalm. But the superstitious among them observed, as an ill omen, that their song of praise and triumph sunk into "a quaver of consternation," and resembled rather a penitentiary stave sung on the scaffold of a condemned criminal, than the bold strain which had resounded along the wild heath of Loudon-hill, in anticipation of that day's victory. The melancholy melody soon ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hoped, but something of what trivial and, heaven forgive them both, of what dismal order? Most of all, meanwhile, he felt the dire penetration of two or three of the words she had used; so that after a painful minute the quaver with which he repeated them resembled his-drawing, slowly, carefully, timidly, some barbed dart out of ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... of 3/8 andantino; and the time, 12/8 moderato or allegro, like the time, simple four in a bar. But if the movement be adagio, largo assai, or andante maestoso, either all the quavers, or a crotchet followed by a quaver, should be beaten, according to the form of the melody, ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... well-tutored voice, though modulated and repressed even in her present emotion, nevertheless had a tendency to quaver. "It's true. Frank Dowling was going to see her one evening and he saw Arthur sitting on the stoop with her, and didn't go in. And Ella used to go to school with a girl who lives across the street ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... were quite wary, usually scuttling out of sight at my approach. True, in Ohio many individuals also chose out-of-the-way places for habitats, but even then they were not timid, for often they would mount to the top of a bush or a sapling in plain sight and trill sweetly by the hour, with never a quaver of fear. At rare intervals a Kansas sparrow would visit the thicket on the vacant lot near my house, but, my! how shy he was! And as for singing, he would only squeak a ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... last word in a long-drawn quaver which gave it a horrid sound—especially in the woods, after dark. And Turkey Proudfoot felt chills a-running up and ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... a rush-light in the other. Its glimmer fell across the bed upon Nick's tousled hair; and when the master-player saw the boy's head upon the pillow he started eagerly, with brightening eyes. "My soul!" he whispered to himself, a little quaver in his tone, "I would have sworn my own desire lied to me, and that he had not come at all! It cannot be—yet, verily, I am not blind. Ma foil it passeth understanding—a freed skylark come back to its cage! I thought we had lost ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... had been stripped of some of your old vesture By Monk, or another. Now you wore no frill, And at first you startled me. But I knew you still, Though I missed the minim's waver, And the dotted quaver. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... that once one was dead what horrid people thought of one did not matter. It was said with infinite contempt; but something like a suppressed quaver in the voice made me look at her again. I perceived then that her thick eyelashes were wet. This surprising discovery silenced me as you may guess. She looked unhappy. And—I don't know how to say it—well—it suited her. The clouded brow, the pained mouth, the vague ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... country who sung out of that when they were little. I wish a few of us old codgers might get together some time and with many a hummed and prefatory, "Do, mi, Sol, do; Sol, mi... mi-i-i-i," finally manage to quaver out the sweet old tunes we learned when we were little tads, each with a penny in his fat, warm hand: "Shall we Gather at the River?" and "Work, for the Night is Coming"; and what was the name of ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... boy, running the words together and speaking with a parrot-like monotony in an unnaturally high-pitched key. Then his voice began to quaver a little till he stopped short with a cry of despair—"I cannot mind the words, I cannot say my prayers. Oh! will nobody say them for me? If mother, as is not in Lon'on, were here, she would do it fast," he ended, flinging out one thin arm and clutching ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... soldiers marched into that cold ocean water, dreading it with all their souls but soldiers to the core, without a quaver, eyes to the front, heads up, chests out, unflinchingly, up to their knees, up to their waists, up to their chins, when the captain shouted "As you were!" and such a hilarious, shouting, laughing, splashing, jumping, yelling, fun-filled hour as followed the world ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... Voltaire naturally enough danced with rage, screamed all manner of unpleasant things about robbery and the like, cashiered the secretary, and was, we see no reason to doubt, really afraid of a pirated edition. This time his cry of wolf must have had a quaver of sincerity in it. Herr Stahr, who can never keep separate the Lessing as he then was and the Lessing as he afterwards became, takes fire at what he chooses to consider an unworthy suspicion of the Frenchman, and treats himself to some rather ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... still sound in praise of Oriana and of Phyllis and the country life. What are called 'waits' are but a poor travesty of those well-sung Elizabethan carols. We turn in our beds half pitying, half angered by harsh voices that quaver senseless ditties in the fog, or by tuneless fiddles playing popular airs without ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... doubled, and not having a sound peculiar to itself, is invariably heard, in English, with the power of k; and is always followed by the vowel u, which, in words purely English, is sounded like the narrow o, or oo,—or, perhaps, is squeezed into the consonantal sound of w;—as in queen, quaver, quiver, quarter, request. In some words of French origin, the u after q is silent; as ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... should fly from the bowstring like a bird, without quaver or flutter. All depends upon a ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... contains more than one beat—for instance, the minim in the first bar—is shown by taking one step forward for the first beat and by a slight bend of the knee for the second beat. The next two crochets are represented by one step for each. A step is also taken for each quaver, but twice as quickly; for the dotted crochet, a step and a slight spring before the last quaver—all this while the arms are beating a steady four. After a short practice of these two bars, the master will glide into yet another rhythm, the pupils still ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... would have given a good deal that he had not helped that simple youth into his difficulty. But things must now take their course. So amid a decorous silence, Dan Loftus lifted up his voice, and sang. That voice was a high small pipe, with a very nervous quaver in it. He leaned back in his chair, and little more than the whites of his upturned eyes were visible; and beating time upon the table with one hand, claw-wise, and with two or three queer, little thrills and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the way, is the old formula to which my uncle has always been faithful. I heard Madeleine answer, with a quaver in her voice: ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... out with a quaver in my voice, "since you're not able to fill the bill, to be head of ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... devil-may-care, the bobolink, Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps O'er rapture's tremulous brink, And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a farmer mid ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... Margery Key's, having been delayed but a moment, and the quaver of her blessings was yet in my ears, when verily I did see that which I have never understood. As I live, there passed from the house of that ne'er-do-well next door, which was closed tightly as if to assure folk that all therein were sound asleep, a bright ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... minute Creede stood watching him, his eyes keen to detect the slightest quaver, but the little man seemed suddenly to have forgotten him; he moved about absently, mechanically, dropping nothing, burning nothing, yet far ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... and the bull fiddle—they umpah ump along. Underneath the quaver and whine of the jazz they beat the time, they make the tuneless rhythm. The feet dancing on the crowded cabaret floor listen cautiously for the trombone, the bassoon and the bull fiddle. They have a liaison with the umpah umps—the feet. Long ago they danced ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... and don't let her talk. I want you to pick a man to watch the morgue; to look up every case of reported suicide that by any chance might be Mrs. Marteen—here or in other cities." Gard felt the blood leave his heart as he said the words, though there was no quaver in his voice. "If they should find her, don't let her identity be known if there is any chance of concealing it, not until you reach me. Don't let Miss Marteen know. Put another man on the hotel arrivals. She left St. Augustine—Here—" He—jotted down times and dates ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... cowardly act, or betrayed a friend, or knowingly violated a trust, or broken his word, or forgotten a debt. He was always so entirely certain that he, Andrew Jackson, was in the right, his conviction on this point was so free from the least quaver of doubt, that he could always convince other men that he was right, and carry the multitude with him. His honesty, courage, and inflexible resolution, joined to his ignorance, narrowness, intensity, and liability to prejudice, rendered him at once the idol of his countrymen ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the latter case, for often when he had received bad news from home we have heard his voice quaver with anxiety, while the old smile played on his round, ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... woods, You who dare. Nothing harms beneath the leaves More than waves a swimmer cleaves, Toss your heart up with the lark, Foot at peace with mouse and worm. Fair you fare. Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Thousand eyeballs under hoods Have you by the hair. Enter these enchanted woods, You ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... Maraton replied. "These are just the words which you yourself cannot fail to understand. Neither you nor I hold life so dearly that the thought of losing it need make us quaver. I am here only to say this one word—to tell you that the heavens have never opened more surely to let out the lightning, than will your death be a charge upon me if you should vary even a hair's-breadth from our contract. If Maxendorf, the people's man, hides himself for only ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lovely?" cried Dodo, "I want to pick everything." She began to fill her hands with dandelions. "Only I wish that mother was here"—and a little quaver shook the merry voice. ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... thank you!" she said, with a quaver in her voice. And then, in obedience to Rainham's playfully threatening ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... his lip, and clenched his fists to keep from trembling. It was a moment before he could trust himself to speak without a quaver in his voice. "Nothing else I can do, I guess. Thanks, anyway. And by the way, there's enough credits in the ship's safe to pay for the ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... monotonous piece, composed of three tones, quite dissimilar to that composed by Rousseau. My sisters were near despair; but I told them it was not more uninteresting than the heath. Sometimes I made a little flight, a quaver; that was the heath-larks which flew up into the air. The introduction to the gypsy-chorus in 'Preciosa' signified the German gypsy-flock. Then came the thema out of 'Jeannot and Collin'—'O, joyous ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... where we are going?" "Why, to Throndhjem," answered Fitz. "We were going to Throndhjem," rejoins Wilson, "but we ain't now—the vessel's course was altered two hours ago. Oh, Sir! we are going to Whirlpool-to WHIRL-RL-POOO-L! Sir!" in a quaver of consternation,—and so glides back to bed like a phantom, leaving the Doctor utterly unable to divine ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... motion, And put his talents to the proof; Upraised his bruised and batter'd hoof, And, with an amiable mien, His master patted on the chin, The action gracing with a word— The fondest bray that e'er was heard! O, such caressing was there ever? Or melody with such a quaver? 'Ho! Martin![6] here! a club, a club bring!' Out cried the master, sore offended. So Martin gave the ass a drubbing,— And ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... "weighed anchor" and I went on deck to take a last look at Dixie with the rest of the party. Every heart was full. Each left brothers, sisters, husband, children, or dear friends behind. We sang, "Farewell dear land," with a slight quaver in our voices, looked at the beautiful starlight shining on the last boundary of our glorious land, and, fervently and silently praying, passed out ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... leaves, the rustle of the boughs as he pressed among them, the rise and fall of his own breathing, somewhat quicker than its wont, served to render appreciable to Persimmon Sneed the fact that he possessed nerves which were more susceptible to a quaver of doubt than that redoubtable endowment ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed—not young, indeed—but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal—and there was very little else to look at—he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he shouted, and there was no longer any quaver in his voice. "That is not the word. I shouldn't be surprised if you were German spies. Get out ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... assisting one another, we could walk erect and more quickly. Bohren the younger, who was one of our porters and the youngest of the company, continued his merry song. In moments of peril his voice acquired a decided quaver, but he never paused in his march or in his cadences, and never ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... "Ay, is it so?" quoth the governor; "why, then, let us have a relish of thy art." Whereupon the good Antony put his instrument to his lips, and sounded a charge with such tremendous outset, such a delectable quaver, and such a triumphant cadence, that it was enough to make one's heart leap out of one's mouth only to be within a mile of it. Like as a war-worn charger, grazing in peaceful plains, starts at a strain of martial ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... experiences of every feeling soul that manifest a sense, imperfect yet animated, of that marvelous sympathy that exists between all phases of life, whether in humanity or in external nature. His natural outbursts of feeling are rare, but delicious as caviare, with a certain quaver of piquancy. 'Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding, and night shall be my Germany of mystic ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to me!" said Mr. Brand, with a little quaver in his voice. "If you have the advantage of me that is ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... attempted to ride off, when he was stopped and brought back to the miserable error of his confession. The whole ground was then gone over again, and again pardon with warning was given. Even a glad good-night was exchanged, the wheelman's voice rising in a quaver of grateful affection. Then he seemed to try riding off again, and then he was stayed as before by the victim, whose sense of public duty flamed up at the prospect of his escape. I do not know how the affair ended; perhaps it never ended; but exhausted nature sank in sleep, and ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... his big jaw worked and a faint spray of moisture came out on his face. Then, finally, with no change or quaver in his voice, he put ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... question carefully just as he had put it to father, but there was a quaver in his voice as ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... quaver in his voice, We all looked at him in silence. Uncle Eb drew out his wallet with trembling hands, his fine old face lit with a deep emotion. David looked up at him as he wondered what joke was coming, until he ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... deepening ranks his dexterous cypher-train; And counts, as wheel the decimating bands, 130 The dews of AEgypt, or Arabia's sands, And then the third on four concordant lines Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins; Marks the gay trill, the solemn pause inscribes, And parts with bars the undulating tribes. 135 Pleased round her cane-wove throne, the applauding crowd Clap'd their rude hands, their swarthy ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... Pete, without a quaver in his voice. "The varmints hev set fire to the building from ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... replied, with a little quaver in his voice, but looking steadily into her eyes, "because you are the living image of the woman who was once my wife. A little over thirty years ago—by the way, may I ask how old ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... pronounced naturally, without the alterations of dialect, are always in the same rhythm. The records taken in the studio of those five words, 'Can you hear me now?' are in the same general rhythm, but only the last three snakes show exact similarity, to each little quaver and turn. There was only the difference in shading: one was the voice of a women. The second of a man of perhaps forty, the third of an old man—all three taken at different times, and I thought from ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... brought home to Cornelia, never failed to affect her. If she had been planning the destruction of an enemy, she would have wept bitterly at the sight of that enemy's dead body; nay, even at a vivid account of his death. Sophie's words brought tears to her eyes at once, and a quaver ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the glow of the great camp-fire burning warmly through the shore-side trees. Some one was singing, a dull, old, droning sailor's song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had heard it on the voyage more than once, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
