"Vibration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paddle engines was made precisely at half-past one, when the great masses slowly rose and fell as noiselessly as the engines of a Greenwich boat, but exerting in their revolutions what seemed to be an almost irresistible power. There was no noise, no vibration, nor the slightest sign of heating. The tremendous frame of ironwork sprang at once into life and motion, with as much ease as if every rod and crank had been worked for the ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... was incarnated in the visible contagion amongst brutes of some impulse, that, radiating into their natures, had yet its centre and beginning in man. The sensibility of the horse, uttering itself in the maniac light of his eye, might be the last vibration of such a movement; the glory of Salamanca might be the first—but the intervening link that connected them, that spread the earthquake of the battle into the eyeball of the horse, was the heart of man—kindling in the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... jars the ear and especially the drum-head, which vibrates just as the head of a drum does when it is beaten with a drum-stick. When the drum-head vibrates it moves the bones of the ear, and these carry the vibration to the nerves of hearing in the inner chamber. We hear all sounds in the same way, only most sounds come to ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... years into the past. For, as Tommy pumped away, Miss Phoebe struck a low bass note on the organ and held it to test the volume of air that it contained. The church ceased to exist, so far as Father Abram was concerned. The deep, booming vibration that shook the little frame building was no note from an organ, but the humming of the mill machinery. He felt sure that the old overshot-wheel was turning; that he was back again, a dusty, merry miller in the old mountain mill. And now evening was come, and soon ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... observation. As the center approaches a ship she is assaulted by wind of a terrible force and a sea that is almost indescribable. The water no longer runs in waves of regular onward motion, but leaps up in pyramids and peaks. The wind swirls and strikes until wherever there is a chance for vibration or flutter, even in tightly furled sails, the fabric soon gives way. I once saw a brig go drifting past us in a West Indies cyclone with everything furled and closely lashed with sea gaskets. We were in company nearly at the height ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... very motion in the external air that produces in the mind the sensation of SOUND. For, striking on the drum of the ear, it causeth a vibration, which by the auditory nerves being communicated to the brain, the soul is thereupon affected with the sensation ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... of the vibrating string, and we shall illustrate the different degrees of emotion. It is only by sounding a note in exact unison with that to which the string is attuned that we get the full force of the sympathetic vibration, which is more or less distinct according as we approach or depart from the keynote, till we reach the semitone above or below, when it ceases altogether. Even so do our emotions increase in exact proportion as the exciting cause ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... chiefly of bygone days. Almost every speech began with "Do you remember?" Vixen was gayer than she had been for a long time, save once or twice, when a pang shot through her heart at the idea that Bullfinch was being shaken about in a railway-box, oscillating helplessly with every vibration of the train, and panic-stricken ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... a 'word-for-word' device," said he, pointing to a swiftly revolving dial within the box. "On one face of that dial are some ten thousand word-images, made by vibration, after the phonograph method. Directly opposite, on the other face, are the corresponding words in the other language. The disk is rotating at such an enormous speed that, for all practical purposes, any word which may chance to be spoken will be ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... roared beautifully and shook the car with the vibration. Casey heaved a sigh of weariness mingled with content that the way was smooth and he need not look for chuck holes for a few minutes, at any rate. He settled back, and his fingers relaxed on the wheel. I think he dozed, though ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... would require an exertion not in some measure to harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation, they are like a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,—it is impossible for them to strike a discord; their very nature urges them to bring into play faculties according in vibration with those which another is exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr to commence talking with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the family of President Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... vision which is beyond vision; the light of his eyes, the breath of his body were less plain to him than was the mystery of his soul. And the universal life, he saw—spirit and matter, fibre and impulse, vibration of atom and quiver of aspiration—was but an agonised working out into this consciousness of God. With the revelation his own life was changed as by a miracle of nature; right became no longer difficult, but easy; and not the day only, but his whole existence and the end to which it moved ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... large scale. The variety I am going to try is sometimes called 'bowed' Carolina, because it used to be cleaned by placing it upon a number of strings stretched very tight, which were struck with a sort of bow, and the vibration caused the seed to separate from the cotton. I have a drawing of one of these contrivances in a book up at the house, and when the time comes you fellows shall make me one. It will be work for us to do indoors when the weather is too ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... handle, and the latter only requires a certain spring to be touched, in order to set it off or to stop it. Their machinery consists of a barrel pricked with brass pins; when the barrel revolves, these ping lift a series of steel springs of different lengths and thicknesses, and the vibration of these springs when released, produces the ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... first reply. The remembrance of James's last letter flashed over her mind, and she felt the vibration of the frail child beside her, in whom every nerve was quivering. After a moment, she said,—"It does not become us to judge the spiritual state of any one. James's mind was in an unsettled way when he left; but who can say what wonders may have been effected ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... a warning vibration of the wires was perceived, followed by the click, click, click, of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... exercised, so that even in this isolated valley, gouged out of a mountainous coast, there was nothing disagreeable or improper to be seen. The night was very still, but the sea was moaning; the river rippled very gently as it brushed past the reeds; there was a hardly perceptible vibration in the atmosphere, which suggested falling water and quivering leaves; and the air was full of a heavy, drowsy fragrance, the breath of orange flowers, perhaps, and of the night-blowing Cereus, which had opened its ivory urn to the moon. I should have liked to stay out ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Others besides himself were working for the same end, and he knew that he would have to bear the test of determined and intelligent competition. He applied himself to his purpose with enthusiasm. He carefully studied the theory of atmospheric vibration and musical combination, as well as an application of the principles of mechanical philosophy to the construction of the instrument. He went deep into the science involved in his work, into the philosophy of melody. Passionately devoted to music, he ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... of rotary cutters having oblique blades for throwing away from the plants, and designed, also, to work on both sides of the rows, and closer to the plants than the plows, both sets of devices having vertical vibration. ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... Calico, both white and coloured, has also been used, but it is certainly not so effectual or pleasant. Upon the whole, we think that the main things to attend to are, firmness in its construction, so as to avoid vibration; ample size, so as to allow not only of room for the operator, but also for the arrangements of background, &c., and the sides to open so as to allow a free circulation of air; blinds to be applied at such spots only as shall be found ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... for the grand mass of the morrow,—Our Lady of the Snows. There was much talk and hot discussion as to the placing of the boards and the draperies, and the image of Our Lady seemed unmoved by words unsuited to her presence. We know that every vibration of air makes its own impression on the world of matter. So that the curses of the sacristans at their work, the prayers of penitents at the altar, the wailing of breaking hearts bowed on the pavement through many years, are all recorded mysteriously, in these rocky walls. This ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... sovereigns, and it looked as gay without as it seemed gloomy within. The people were dressed in their best, as if they came to a fair ; and such shouts and hallooings ensued, whenever the king appeared at a window, that the whole building rang again with the vibration. Nothing upon earth can be more gratifying than the sight of this dear and excellent king thus loved and received by all descriptions ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... himself of his coat that night, Captain Cai laid a hand on his upper arm and felt it timidly. Unless he mistook, the flesh beneath the shirt-sleeve yet kept some faint vibration of Mrs Bosenna's hand, resting upon it, ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... intimation Kwaiba had of Isuke's views as to his role of physician. In those days the doctor usually had the pleasure of performance, not of payment. Moreover with the great—like Kwaiba—performance was carried out at a distance; the pulse felt by the vibration of a string attached to the wrist, or at best by passing the hand under the coverlet. For a time Kwaiba's strange medical attendant devoted himself to his more prosaic duties of chu[u]gen. Within ten days his master ransomed him from a resort in Shinagawa; price, ten ryo[u]. A few weeks ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... happy before! But I am happier and richer now. My love—no words could serve here, but there is life before us, and to the end of it the vibration now struck will extend—I will live and die with your beautiful ring, your beloved hair—comforting ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... these webs of darkness, fear, hitherto unknown, took possession of her soul. She listened to the howling of the wind—to the vibration of the rafters—to the thunder's roar, and to the hissing rain—till she, who never trembled at the thought of danger, became filled with vague uneasiness. Lights were ordered; and when her old attendant returned. Lady Rookwood fixed a look so wistful upon her, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Ophelia might be married before Parker and the Quarter Circle KT cowboys returned to the ranch from the beef hunt, he did not know it, but the words he spoke in jest voiced the very thought at the same instant in the mind of Old Heck—miles away though he was. Perhaps it was mental telepathy, thought vibration, subconscious soul communication—or a mere coincident, that caused Chuck, far out on the open range, to speak the thing Old Heck, sitting at supper with Carolyn June, Ophelia and Skinny, at the Quarter ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... charm. "In his hands the flute," to quote from the tribute paid him by his director, "no longer remained a mere material instrument, but was transformed into a voice that set heavenly harmonies into vibration. Its tones developed colors, warmth, and a low sweetness of unspeakable poetry; they were not only true and pure, but poetic, allegoric as it were, suggestive of the depths and heights of being and of the delights which the earthly ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... which overspread a noisy vibration of wheels and the rumble of horses' hoofs was coming near and getting bigger in the approach to the station ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... of light. The tones of nature appear to us therefore different, like those of the spectrum, and for the same reason. The colours vary with the intensity of light. There is no colour peculiar to any object, but only more or less rapid vibration of light upon its surface. The speed depends, as is demonstrated by optics, on the degree of the inclination of the rays which, according to their vertical or oblique direction, give different ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... Patrick leaned Upon his crosier, pale as the ashes wan Left by a burned out city. Long he stood Silent, till, sudden, fiercelier soared the flame Reddening the edges of a cloud low hung; And, after pause, vibration slow and stern Troubling the burthened bosom of the air, Upon a long surge of the northern wind Came up—a murmur as of wintry seas Far borne at night. All heard that sound; all felt it; One only know its import. Patrick turned; "The deed is done: ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... the corner of the room began to toll the hour of twelve. Mechanically I counted, under my breath, the strokes: "One, two, three," on through "twelve," and the silent room echoed with the low vibration of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... very different music from that thin wheedling of April. It was now a soft steady vibration, the incessant drone and throb of locust and cricket, and sometimes the sudden rasp, dry and hard, of katydids. Gissing, in spite of his weariness, was all fidgets. He would walk round and round the house in the dark, unable to settle down to anything; tired, but incapable ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... must fulfil is, apparently, inconsistent with its being a single hard body. We know from those spectroscopic researches which have thrown so much light on different branches of science, that a molecule can be set into a state of internal vibration, in which it gives off to the surrounding medium light of definite refrangibility—light, that is, of definite wave-length and definite period of vibration. The fact that all the molecules (say, of hydrogen) which we can procure for our experiments, when agitated by heat or ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... he seemed again charming. Perhaps it was because he, too, adored her mother. That wasn't the reason. The familiar rare joy lingered. It seemed now as though she were to capture and understand it ... there was the vibration of music; and then, as always, she felt at once sad and brave. But, in spite of her old effort to the contrary, the feeling died away. Some day it would be clear to her; in the meanwhile Mr. Moses Feldt became once ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to face the music, whatever tune it might play. So susceptible is the foolish spirit of mortal to those subtle, impalpable influences of atmosphere that we try to describe, in terms of inexact science, as personality, vibration, aura, magnetism. ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... Matter, in fact it is Matter in its ultimate or fundamental form, the different forms of what we call Matter being but manifestations of this Akasa or Ether, the apparent difference resulting from different rates of vibration, etc. We mention this fact here merely to bring clearly before your mind the fact of the Universality of Matter, to the end that you may realize that each and every particle of your physical body is but a portion of this great principle of the Universe, fresh from the great store-house, and ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... walk of the muses entirely new to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were on the most anxious alarm for his success in the attempt; to have that poem so much applauded by one of the first judges, was the most delicious vibration that ever thrilled along the heart-strings of a poor poet. However, Providence, to keep up the proper proportion of evil with the good, which it seems is necessary in this sublunary state, thought proper to check my exultation by ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... fleeting couplet in the visionary vault below? At least there can be no doubt that metre, by its systematic and regular occurrence, gradually subjugates and tunes the senses of the hearer, as the wood of the violin arranges itself in sympathy with the vibration of the strings, and thus that predisposition to the proper emotion is accomplished which is essential to the purpose of the pest. You must not only expect, but you must expect in the right way; you must be magnetized beforehand in every fibre by your own sensibility in order that you may feel what ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... too. They saw a man and woman and several children out front, staring at the automobile as it raced down the road. Perhaps they had been called from the house by the vibration ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... was near at hand. He must be in a position to use force before playing his last card, and he had not as yet heard from "Specs." Although he knew that their instruments were perfectly attuned, he had not, up to twelve o'clock of the day before, received a single vibration. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... temperature, borrowing a grandiose beauty from the silence, the repose of that noonday hour, the only hour in the day when one did not hear carriages rumbling under the arches, the great doors of the reception-room opening and closing, and the constant vibration in the ivy on the walls caused by the pulling of bells to announce somebody's coming in or going out, like the feverish throbbing of life in the house of a leader of society. It was well known that until three ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... gathered way Up through the point, giving it that vibration The tongue had given them ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... to the charm of harmonious tonal vibration; witness the performance of the Hindu snake charmer, who, while handling that deadly poisonous creature, the cobra-de-capello, plays continuously on flageolets, fifes, or other musical instruments.[65] ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... little externally to show how loudly the heart of Paris is beating. A traveller may be passing through quiet landscapes, unconscious that a great battle is going on some miles off, but if he will stop and put his ear to the ground he will recognise by a certain indescribable vibration, the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the object which it names. But if the object is not itself seen, but only its name heard, the mind of the hearer receives an abstract impression only, that is to say as of the object dematerialized, and a corresponding vibration is immediately set up in ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... very pattern and measure of all he was to demand: just to be somewhere—almost anywhere would do—and somehow receive an impression or an accession, feel a relation or a vibration. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... hear you make that admission. Science has reduced everything nowadays to vibration. Light, sound, sensation—all the mysteries of nature are either vibrations or interference of vibrations. There," she said, throwing another pair of pebbles in, and pointing to the two sets of widening rings as they overlapped ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... clatter of the motor drowned all other sounds. Throughout the roar of the exhaust the sharp ears of the two boys could discover a strange vibration ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of a wine-glass when its rim is rubbed by a moistened finger. It was not one sustained note, but a multitude of tiny, sounds, each clear and distinct in itself; the sweetest treble mingling with the lowest bass. On applying the ear to the woodwork of the boat, the vibration was greatly increased in volume. The sounds varied considerably at different points, as we moved across the lake, as if the number of the animals from which they proceeded was greatest in particular spots; ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... person fearless may be seen, There is some danger in my graceful mien: For, as some vessel tossed by wind and tide, Bounds o'er the waves and rocks from side to side; In just vibration thus I always move: This who can view and not be ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... his advice. As the boat clove her way through the water she seemed to be gliding over a surface of gold, overlaid by some dark sand which was parted as she went by. When we got on board, we found that our shipmates had felt the shock, the vibration of which must have come up as they supposed by the chain cable. For a long time we walked the deck, expecting another shock, but the night passed off quietly, and when morning returned there was nothing to indicate that an earthquake had taken place. I ought ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... you catch the vibration of big momentums in a nation's progress. Voices now and then arise in speech that reflect some greatness of vision. More often the actors are sitting indolently, hearing the clack of worn-out principals whose struts and grimaces and cadences are those of men whose cues should lead them to ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... ceiling, while some one—usually an unwilling child—occasionally turned the roast around. Sometimes the sole turnspit was the housewife, who, every time she basted the roast, gave the string a good twist, and thereafter it would untwist, and then twist a little again, and so on until the vibration ceased, when she again basted and started it. As the juices sometimes ran down in the roast and left the upper part too dry, a "double string-roaster" was invented, by which the equilibrium of the joint could be shifted. A jack was a convenient ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... the Swallow and the stateliness of the birds of prey, the whole range of bird-motion seems included. The long wave of a Hawk's wings seems almost to send a slow vibration through the atmosphere, tolling upon the eye as yon distant bell upon the ear. I never was more impressed with the superior dignity of these soarings than in observing a bloodless contest in the air, last April. Standing beside a little grove, on a rocky hill-side, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... a humming noise with the vibration of its wings. It is found from March till September, hovering over geraniums, and constantly appears at two o'clock ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... other stimulants, or when loaded with an extremely slight weight, or when struck several times with a needle, the pedicel bends near its base in under one minute. These varied stimulants are conveyed down the pedicel by some means; it cannot be vibration, for drops of fluid put on quite quietly cause the movement; it cannot be absorption of the fluid from cell to cell, for I can see the rate of absorption, which though quick, is far slower, and in Dionaea the transmission is instantaneous; analogy from animals would ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... quiet streets, was reflected from the black surface of the river, and surrounded the tall peaked gables of the narrow houses with a silvery lustre. The rapid tramp of the soldiers was echoed loudly back from the houses through the silence of the night, and the vibration of the air, shaken by the beating of the drums, made ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... people emerged from the schoolmanse and took their way over the bridge to the school side of the velvet-bottomed moat; but it did not terminate in three-times-three and a tiger. It was, in fact shut off like the vibration of a bell dipped in water by the sudden rush of the shouters into the big assembly-room, now filled with tables for the banquet—and here the domestic economy classes, with their mothers, sisters, ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... say that. It is what the professor promised. Something concrete for our senses. If the occult is, it can certainly be proven. The professor was right. It is energy, force, vibration. It has a law. The old doctor was caught somehow. We must watch our step and see that we aren't swallowed up also. Perhaps we shall ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... as distinct and separate things—incestuous and eager lovers instead of alien rivals and natural foes—conspirators rather than competitors—would be simply amusing were it less offensive and more in accordant vibration with the pulsations of common sense amongst a people not wholly fools. That it was thought possible to foster the idea and expand it into a belief, that Stanford, Huntington, the Crockers and Hopkins—Janus faced—looking ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... you," she said. "And you, too, Louis; it is very amusing of you to come. Jose Querida has just departed. He gave us such a delightful five-minute talk on modernity. Quoting Huneker, he spoke of it as a 'quality'—and 'that nervous, naked vibration'—" ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... had rolled near and loud, from Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night, Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration played on the town's heart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew old and the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One could not stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... fence; and in this process it caught the bar of its snaffle-bit, and immediately pulled back: this made all the wires jingle. Helen instantly took alarm, and pulled back too: fresh and increased vibration, extending up the hill-side and echoing back an appalling sound, was the result of this movement. In an instant there were both the horses pulling with all their force against the fence, terrified ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... good point, and placing the point in the center, maintain it in position by pressing upon the head, and while revolving the lathe slowly proceed to examine by means of your glass. If the center is a good one there will be no perceptible vibration of ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... different from that of prose, that from the first verses the attention is commanded by the expressions themselves, which, if I may so express it, place the poet at a distance from his auditors. It is not only to the softness of the Italian language, but much more to its strong and pronounced vibration of sonorous syllables, that we must attribute the empire of poetry amongst us. There is a kind of musical charm in Italian, by which the bare sound of words, almost independently of the ideas, produces pleasure; besides, these words have almost all something picturesque in them; they paint ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... oscillation is a point in a pendulum or any swinging body, such, that if all the matter of the body were to be collected into that point, the velocity of its vibration would remain unaffected. It is in fact the mean distance from the centre of suspension of every atom, in a ratio which happens not to be an arithmetical one. The centre of oscillation is always in a line passing through the centre of suspension ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... mar, rather than perfect, the harmony of existence. Contraversely, their absence adds a deeper luster, strikes the tuning-fork that hums with the true note of life. Sorry the man who does not feel a sympathetic vibration! A woman is not exactly at her best when bathing her face above a porcelain bowl, and to be the constant, daily witness of such ablutions would, in my limited experience, engender a slight unrest among the tuneful Nine. Yet let her gracefully lean above a ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... it visible I do not know. But it doesn't matter, and may be only a blind! You'll note that when the black streak, or the golden ray, strikes anything that thing instantly disintegrates. A certain pitch of resonance will break a pane of glass. It's a matter of vibration, solely, wherein the molecules composing any object animate or inanimate, are ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... a deaf person's being roused easily. I know the case of a deaf chap who'd start up at a step or movement in the house when no one else could hear or feel it; keen sense of vibration, I reckon. Well, just at daybreak (to shorten the yarn) the banker woke suddenly, he said, and heard a crack like a shot in the house. There was a loose flooring-board in the passage that went off like a pistol-shot sometimes when you trod on it; and I guess ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... dans l'esprit de l'homme ou tout vacille et fuit, Ou le verbe n'a pas un mot qui ne begaie, Ou l'aurore apparait, helas! comme une plaie, Dans cet esprit, tremblant des qu'il ose augurer, Oh! comment concevoir, comment se figurer Cette vibration communiquee aux tombes, Cette sommation aux blemes catacombes Du ciel ouvrant sa porte et du gouffre ayant faim, Le prodigieux ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... of the conning-tower. From the very slow submergence of the boat I knew that Benson was doing the entire trick alone—that he was merely permitting the diving-tanks to fill and that the diving-rudders were not in use. The throbbing of the engines ceased, and in its stead came the steady vibration of the electric motors. The water was halfway up the conning-tower! I had perhaps five minutes longer on the deck. I tried to decide what I should do after I was washed away. Should I swim until exhaustion claimed me, or should I give up and end the ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... first observed when a boy (having, probably, suffered his thoughts to wander from the service) that the height of the vaulted roof of a church might be measured by the time of the vibration of the chandeliers suspended at different altitudes, could hardly have anticipated that the pendulum would one day be carried from pole to pole, in order to determine the form of the Earth, or, rather, that the unequal density of the strata of the Earth affects the length ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... the fish are very fond of resorting, probably to feed upon the insects that are found upon the tender leaves; in moving about from one place to another they strike against the reeds, and produce a vibration in the tops above the water; this indicates to the native, who is sailing stealthily along in his canoe, the exact place where they are passing, and suddenly raising his arm with great energy he strikes forcibly among the reeds with his spear, without ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... wall. As he stood there he was the embodiment of his race, of its history, its fanaticisms, its "great refusals" at once of all mean joys and all new freedoms. To a few chosen notes in the universe, tender response and exquisite vibration—to all others, deaf, hard, insensitive, as the stone of ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The vibration of such ladders of fancy, if ever we put our foot upon them, may render our brains dizzy for ever. Intending to scale Olympus, we reach Bedlam; any distinct feeling of actual desire would have terrified him. He entertained none of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... composers whom to neglect argues oneself ignorant, yet who composed no love affair of immortal charm. There are composers of whom few ever heard, whose magnum opus was some romance that still makes the heart-strings tingle by the acoustic law of sympathetic vibration. For example, there ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... to the north Shady lay curled up with Breed. She suddenly raised her head. Breed too opened his eyes and cocked one ear to listen. Shady was conscious of no actual sound. Some faint vibration reached her ears and seemed to play upon some chord deep within; the impressions were hazy and indistinct, yet she was aware of a vague sense of loss, a wave of something akin to homesickness, and she whimpered softly, then closed ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... regular succession. With the increased pressure of the wind, the dissonances of the 11th and 13th overtones are heard in shrill discords, only to give place to beautiful harmonies as the force of the wind abates. The principle of the natural vibration of strings by the pressure of the wind was recognized in ancient times; King David, we hear from the Rabbinic records, used to hang his kinnor (kithara) over his bed at night, when it sounded in the midnight breeze. The same is related of St Dunstan of Canterbury, who was in consequence charged with ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sleeping room; the light of dawn. Jaime experienced a sensation of chill. The covers were being withdrawn from his body; agile hands were touching the bandages of his wounds. The flesh, numb a few hours before, now flinched at the lightest touch with the excruciating vibration of the pain, arousing ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... trifle. "Exactly. There wasn't any. I'm rather used to the vibration of jets, and these new jobs float along at a hundred thousand feet in the deadest silence you ever heard—if you'll pardon the oxymoron. Everybody chattered like a flight of starlings, just to keep the air ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... turnings, the strident vibrations, of selfishness, lust and hate are to be stilled by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal love, and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... cold physiological names and surgical technicalities, and the monk's talk suggested to me something of this kind. Fancy a surgeon, with his nippers lifting tendons, muscles and such things into view, out of the complex machinery of a corpse, and observing, "Now this little nerve quivers—the vibration is imparted to this muscle—from here it is passed to this fibrous substance; here its ingredients are separated by the chemical action of the blood—one part goes to the heart and thrills it with what is popularly termed emotion, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and Fielding was conscious of something new in the tone of it, a deeper vibration, a sincerity different in kind from that surface frankness which he had always known in her. He wondered whether she had struck down from her pinchbeck sentimentality into something that rang solid in the depths of her nature. He looked at ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Student' cried the Lady, and her glance was stern and high, Hast thou felt the soft vibration of a summer sunset sky? Art thou soulful? Art thou tuneful? Cans't thou weep o'er nature's woes? Art thou redolent of Ruskin? Dost thou love ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... said Tom. "With vibrations of a certain length and rapidity we get sound—the faster the vibration per second the higher the sound note. Now, then, we have sound waves, or vibrations, traveling at the rate of a mile in a little less than five seconds; that is, with the air at a temperature of sixty degrees. With each increase of a degree ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... struck one; how long the dull vibration seemed to endure. She was conscious of it, though lying with all but palsied faculties. It was the first of the divisions which marked her long vigil; the hours succeeded each other quickly; between voice ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... The Viscount returned home to wait for them. His agitation, appeased, for a moment, grew now from minute to minute. He felt along his arms, his legs, and in his breast a kind of trembling, of continued vibration; he could not keep still, either sitting or standing. There was no longer an appearance of saliva in his mouth, and each instant he made a noisy movement with his tongue, as if to unglue it from the roof ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... the ground during a vibration of the simplest character (known as simple harmonic motion) is represented in Fig. 1. The pointer of the recording seismograph is here supposed to oscillate along a line at right angles to AB, and the smoked paper or ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... pleases me above everything else is, that Geierfels, by its position, is a kind of acoustic focus to which all the noises of the valley incessantly ascend. This afternoon, the dull murmuring of the river, the panting respiration of the tug-boat, the vibration of a bell in a distant church tower, the song of a peasant girl washing her linen in a spring, the bleating of sheep, the tic tac of the mills, the tinkling bells of a long train of mules drawing a barge by a rope, the reverberating clamors of boatmen stowing casks in their boats—all these various ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... appeared transfixed with pain, thus, through not at first having way or outlet from the fire, the disconsolate words were converted into its language. But when they had taken their course up through the point, giving it that vibration which the tongue had given in their passage, we heard say, "O thou, to whom I direct my voice, thou that wast just speaking Lombard,[2] saying, 'Now go thy way, no more I urge thee,' although I may have arrived perchance somewhat ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... comes before a fall! We had not gone far when—whir, whir, whir—a fearful racket! bits of broken steel springs whizzed past my ears, and the whole machine came to a dead stop. It was not to be moved either forward or backward. The vibration of the one-bladed propeller had brought the lead line little by little within the range of the fly-wheel, and all at once the whole line was drawn into the machinery, and got so dreadfully entangled in it that we had to take the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... sharply with one hand, listen a moment, and then, apparently satisfied, walk on. Those who pressed him for an explanation of this merely received the vague and unilluminating reply that he could feel the earth that way and tell from the sound of it, probably meaning the vibration, just where he was. ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... booming sound. It was infinitely low-pitched. It was long-continued. It was so low in frequency that it seemed more a vibration of the air ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... The speed of the pendulum is measured by attaching a tuning-fork of known vibration-rate to the pendulum, and letting it write on smoked paper as the pendulum swings ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... been dawdling over the dishes, and their eyes had frequently met. Carrie could not help but feel the vibration of force which followed, which, indeed, was his gaze. He had a way of touching her hand in explanation, as if to impress a fact upon her. He touched it now as he spoke ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... 9 On the Vibration of a Free Pendulum in an R. Astr. Soc. Oval differing little from ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... husht beauty of the night, But sees too deep for laughter; Her touch is a vibration and a light From worlds ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Imaus, perhaps, to Mount Atlas. According to the religious philosophy of the Mahometans, the basis of Mount Caf is an emerald, whose reflection produces the azure of the sky. The mountain is endowed with a sensitive action in its roots or nerves; and their vibration, at the command of God, is the cause of earthquakes. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... A faint vibration became noticeable; they suddenly felt very heavy; and to the accompaniment of a low but rising hum they saw one wall of their room begin to glow with a beautiful cherry color. Although they had been too ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... in rendering this spiritual shock, disturbing the very seat of life, that Hawthorne best succeeds in the moral part of his subject; and it is by awakening some answering vibration in his readers that he imparts to the romance that universal interest which makes it rank so high as it does in the literature of the soul's life. He was not, however, very apt in the mechanics of his art, and in lieu of structure such as a man of far less faculty might be an adept in, he ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... by the characteristic vibration which is interpreted by tactile sense. It is possible to recognize fracture by the use of other methods—auscultation, tuning fork tests, etc., but in ordinary veterinary practice one must rely upon the sense of touch for ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... extraordinary quivering, which increased in force for two or three seconds, and then decreased for two or three seconds; just as the quivering was about to cease, there was a distinct lurch or heave, after which the vibration was much more severe than before and lasted several seconds longer than the first part of the shock. Dalarossie lies about fourteen miles south-east of Inverness, and here the first indication was a loud sound, as of an express train, ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... of poetry a thought is the representative of many feelings, and a word is the representative of many thoughts. A single word may thus set in motion in us the vibration of a feeling first consigned to letters 3000 years ago. For oratory words should be winged, that they may do their work of persuasion. For poetry words should be freighted, with associations of feeling, that they may awaken sympathy. It is the suggestive power of words that the poet ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... surrounded by high mountains. The market is small, and in its midst is a spring fountain, the waters from which pours into a great metallic basin. When an alarm of fire is raised, they strike several times on this cup-formed basin, which gives out a very loud vibration. Nothing is known of the origin of this work. Some say that the devil placed it once during the night on the spot where it stands. In those days people were as yet fools, nor was the devil any wiser, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... see you at three fifteen," McLean reassured her, and she repeated "Three fifteen," with an odd vibration in her voice. ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Steerforth should find me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe that Littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose anything of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising, I felt myself the greenest and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... was one solid block of blackness, there was no ray of light anywhere. I could see and hear nothing for a moment, though I was certain another living thing had entered the room. Then at the same instant there was a violent vibration of the bed beneath me and a piercing scream from Suzee, a blind, wild cry ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... pore."[230] To Lavater on the following day he writes that he has been riding with Lili, and adds these words with an N.B.: "For some time I have been pious again; my desire is for the Lord, and I sing psalms to him, a vibration of which shall soon reach you. Adieu. I am in a sore state of strain; I might say over-strain. Yet I wish you were with me, for then it goes well in my surroundings."[231] A letter addressed to Merck later in the same month would seem to show that he had at least no intention of seeking ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... to where the blue fans were numerous. Upon the glistening piano stood a pot filled with white azaleas; and, in the pauses of the conversation, one heard the glass of the chandeliers tinkling gently to the vibration of ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... A perceptible vibration ran through the monster ship. Her propellers began to churn the water white. A small fleet of tugs helped to swing her against the tide as she slowly backed into the stream. Majestically her monster bulk swung round, her bow pointing seaward. Her ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... there is a vibration on both sides of the edges of the tongue, which is bent to a half-cylinder with the ridge upward. In this way the child produces three kinds of r-sounds—the labial, the ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... decrees protect, but a necessary note of an infinite harmony? To fancy that the law of life is the same in the immensity of space and irradiates worlds as it irradiates cities and as it irradiates ant-hills. To fancy that each vibration in ourselves is the echo of another vibration. To fancy a sole principle, a primordial axiom, to think the universe envelops us as a mother clasps her child in her two arms; and say to one's self, "I belong ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... natural,—so natural that it could not exist in Western civilization. The relative mobility of a European population and the Japanese population might be expressed by a comparison between certain high velocities of vibration and certain low ones. But the high velocities would represent, in such a comparison, the consequence of artificial force applied; the slower vibrations would not. And this difference of kind would mean more than surface indications could announce. In one sense, Americans may be right in thinking ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... cuddy, restlessness began to grow amongst us. Rumor succeeded rumor, each story wilder and more incredible than the rest. Then just as the tension had mounted to fever pitch, there came the sickening lurch and grinding vibration ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi
... guidance of the state (1742). But the fall of an unpopular minister was not succeeded, according to general expectation, by a millennium of happiness and virtue: some courtiers lost their places, some patriots lost their characters, Lord Orford's offences vanished with his power; and after a short vibration, the Pelham government was fixed on the old basis of the Whig aristocracy. In the year 1745, the throne and the constitution were attacked by a rebellion, which does not reflect much honour on the national spirit; since the English friends of the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... broad Campagna was settling a prismatic robe of mist, changing from rose to violet. Earth seemed to be writing, in colored notes, with tenderest modulations, her farewell hymn to the departing God of Light. And the visible music soon took voice in the vibration of vesper-bells, in the midst of which they entered Rome. Flora, who was sobered by the solemn sounds and the darkening landscape, scarcely spoke, except to remind Mrs. Delano of the tambourine as they drove through the crowded Corso; ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... whereas what we call beauty is only an emotional experience of our own minds, just as light and heat are sensations of our bodies. There is no light where there is no eye, and no sound where there is no ear. One is a vibration in the ether, and the other a vibration in the air. The vibrations are positive. We do not all see beauty in the same things. One man is unmoved where another is thrilled. We say the world is full of beauty, when ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... bright, and clusters of rubies leap in the bohemian glasses on the etagere. Her hands are restless, but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will it never cease to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the etagere. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A door creaks. ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... fell under the throb produced by the sun, just as truly as tides produced in an ordinary ocean. But now note the significant coincidence between the period of the throb produced by the sun-raised tides, and that natural period of vibration which belonged to our earth as a mass of molten material. It therefore follows, that the impulse given to the earth by the sun harmonized in time with that period in which the earth itself was disposed to oscillate. A well-known dynamical principle here comes ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... with us. The clamp caught, and the string hung dangling downwards. Mounting again upon my comrade's shoulders, I grasped the thong high up to test its hold. It was secure; and, cautioning Raoul to hold fast lest the hook might be detached by my vibration, I climbed up and seized hold of the beam. By this I was enabled to squeeze myself through ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... gave one, somehow, much the same sense of remote, unbounded spaces and of a beauty that was a little sinister. At times whippoorwills called to one another, eerie and shrill; and the distant dance-music was a vibration in the air, which was heavy with the scent of bruised growing things and was filled with the cool, healing magic of ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... urge, however, that, in all cases of submerged structures only partially buried in solid material, excess weighting be used to cover the contingencies of vibration, oscillation, etc., to which such structures may be subjected and which may ultimately allow leads of water to work ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... he bent reverently over the unlucky Chilean's body, the deafening vibration of the fog-horn ceased, and he heard Elsie's ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... joy. When suddenly the great bell in the palace-tower rang out a mighty peal: not the hammer-sound of alarm, but an agitated peal of triumph; and one after another every other bell in every other tower seemed to catch the vibration and join the chorus. And, as the chorus swelled and swelled till the air seemed made of sound—little flames, vibrating too, as if the sound had caught fire, burst out between the turrets of the palace ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... carefully balanced to enable it to run at the very high speed of 500 revolutions per minute. The cranks are opposite each other, and the moving parts connected with the two pistons are of the same weight. The result is complete absence of vibration, and exceedingly quiet running. Very liberal lubricating arrangements are fitted to provide for long runs, while uniformity of speed is provided for by a Pickering governor. The high pressure cylinder is 4 in. in diameter, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... to another by a vibration of the conversation flaps. Either the air waves, or substantial emissions, excite the sensitive face of the listener so that the thought intended can ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... travelling paper. Essentially it is the inverse of the mirror instrument, and consists of a light coil of wire S suspended in the field between the poles of a strong magnet M. The coil is attached to a fine siphon (T5) filled with ink, and sometimes kept in vibration by an induction coil so as to shake the ink in fine drops upon a slip of moving paper. The coil is connected between the cable and the earth, and, as the signal current passes through, it swings to one side or the other, pulling the siphon ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... had sometimes—one can count such emotions in one's life—a complete ecstasy of heart, mind and senses. He knew enough about them to be one of the poets of love. Nothing else is necessary for the instrument of our vibration. The continual wind ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... me to say, sir," said Tom after a moment's hesitation. "In all my experience, I have never seen one of those bolts work loose of its own accord or because of heat or vibration on the power deck." He glanced at Astro, who was hunched forward, ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... the rate of molecular vibration which goes on in nerve-centres. But the rate of such vibration which goes on in sensory and motor nerves may be very much more rapid. For while a nerve-centre is only able to originate a vibration at the rate of about nine beats per second, a motor-nerve, ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... excited negative pole supplies the force majeure, which entirely, or partially, changes into a rectilinear action the irregular vibration in all directions."—Proc. Roy. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... cylinder several times, and found that it was composed of some very hard and resonant metal, entirely unlike any thing that I had ever seen before. It was of a bright vermilion color, highly polished in certain places, and somewhat rough and honey-combed in others. From the vibration that came when I struck it with my knife, I inferred that it must be hollow. I only needed to try one further experiment, in order to be satisfied that my suspicions and hopes as to the nature of this cylinder, and the cause of the peculiar sound that I had heard, and ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... dim and shadowy in the creeping dusk when Winston sat on a redwood stringer near the head of his partly-finished bridge. There was no sound from the hollow behind him but the faint gurgle of the creek, and the almost imperceptible vibration of countless minute wings. The birches which climbed the slope to it wound away sinuously, a black wall on either hand, and the prairie lying gray and still stretched back into the silence in front of him. Here and there ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... movement. The empty one is first introduced into the vagina in contact with the uterus, then the other; the slightest movement of the pelvis or thighs, or even spontaneous movement of the organs, causes the metal ball (or the quicksilver) to roll, and the resulting vibration produces a prolonged voluptuous titillation, a gentle shock as from a weak electric inductive apparatus; the balls are called rin-no-tama, and are held in the vagina by a paper tampon. The women who use these balls delight to swing ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... mop to have come untied, and to be in danger of falling into the water through the vibration. Upon that I tried to secure it, and failed, for it slipped from my hands as I ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... you sleep you are being borne away through darkness into distance—that, surely, is to go two better than Endymion. Surely, nothing is more mysteriously delightful than this joint consciousness of sleep and movement. Pitiable they to whom it is denied. All through the night the vibration of the train keeps one-third of me awake, while the other two parts of me profoundly slumber. Whenever the train stops, and the vibration ceases, then the one-third of me falls asleep, and the other two parts stir. I am awake just enough to hear the hollow-echoing cry of 'Crewe' ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... equal sanctity for the Protective System. Discussion is the very life of free institutions, the fruitful mother of all political and moral enlightenment, and yet the question of all questions must be tabooed. The Swiss guide enjoins silence in the region of avalanches, lest the mere vibration of the voice should dislodge the ruin clinging by frail roots of snow. But where is our avalanche to fall? It is to overwhelm the Union, we are told. The real danger to the Union will come when the encroachments ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... (which his references in almost any connection were wont to be) as of the person or the occasion evoked. I had reached my sixteenth year when she died, and as my only remembered grandparent she touches the chord of attachment to a particular vibration. She represented for us in our generation the only English blood—that of both her own parents—flowing in our veins; I confess that out of that association, for reasons and reasons, I feel her image most beneficently ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Opposite to the sun, the prevailing hue is a silvery white, perceptibly flashing. Now, towards the south, east, and west, it appears to radiate a soft, grey-tinted light, with a quivering motion. Should the day be calm, the hum produced by the vibration of so many millions of wings is quite indescribable, and more resembles the noise popularly termed "a ringing in one's ears," than any other sound. The aspect of the heavens during the period that the greatest flight is passing by is singularly striking. It produces a feeling of uneasiness, amazement, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... things that spoke to him of so many happy years. His house to-night would be full of charming people, who liked and admired him. Yet all the time, underneath his pleasure and hopefulness and satisfaction, he was conscious of the vibration of an unnatural excitement. Amid this light and warmth and friendliness, he sometimes started and shuddered, as if some one had stepped on his grave. Something had broken loose in him of which he knew nothing except that it ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... in the crackers, he was able to figure that the ego which saw those parts of the crackers was about one thousandth of an inch large. "The fact of seeing in dreams is due to vital force, the peculiar low speed to the high vibration force of living albuminoids emitted from every tendril of bioplasm and perceived by the eye of the ego-bion during its visit." "Within the ego-bion is the ego itself, which is much simpler looking, about ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... inequalities; and surely the incubations of genius, in its delicate and shadowy combinations, are not less sensible in their operation than the composition of sonorous bodies, where, while the warm metal is settling in the mould, even an unusual vibration of the air during the moment of fusion will ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... and duties which men call drudgery are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of Time, giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the pendulum no longer sways, the hands no longer ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... The vibration of sentiment, never amounting to actual passion, the mingled anguish and delight of the longing which can never be satisfied, are expressed with a power of beauty raising them out of the domain of mere sensuality. Very remarkable is the simplicity of the means by which this extraordinary ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... membranes of which the wing covers are made into vibration, and the result is the cheery call ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... bluffs there poured a broad surge of cavalry, in perfect order, riding like the wind, the swift, steady hoof-beats of their horses marking a rhythmic measure that trembled along the ground in musical vibration, while overhead—oh, the grandeur of God's gracious dawn fell never on a thing more beautiful—swept out by the free winds of heaven to its full length, and gleaming in the sunlight, Old Glory rose and fell in ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... and physician; wrote "Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations"; ascribed sensation to vibration in the nerves, and applied the doctrine of the association of ideas ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... is entirely lost before reaching us. That there could be any loss of light in passing through an absolute vacuum of any extent cannot be admitted by the physicist of to-day without impairing what he considers the fundamental principles of the vibration of light. But the possibility that the celestial spaces are pervaded by matter which might obstruct the passage of light is to be considered. We know that minute meteoric particles are flying through our system in such numbers ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... other men had so stood, as he was standing now, face to face with the great uncertainty, the crisis, the turning-point—the pivot on which life itself revolved. The pendulum of the mighty clock swings solemnly to and fro; with every vibration a moment; with every moment each man's shrouded fates move another step in their inexorable progress. And the end? What was the goal towards which those ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... easterly swell running, just enough to impart motion to the ship and let us know that we were afloat, and we were slipping along at a fine rate upon the last of the ebb tide, and as smoothly and as free from vibration as though ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... Walcot had squeezed Sophia's parasol so hard, during the crisis, as to break its ivory ring. The accident, mortifying as it was to him, did not prevent his exclaiming in a fervour of gratitude, when the vibration of the boat was over, and they were ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau |
