"Low-toned" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... men caught him as if anticipating an attempt to run. Two or three, after a low-toned colloquy, took their rifles, and crept cautiously outside to reconnoitre the situation. Rick comprehended their suspicion with new quakings. They imagined that he was a spy, and had been sent among them to discover them plying ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... objects that have struck me, I believe it is this which has always given most contentment to myself."[128] This moderate conception of felicity, which was always so characteristic with him, as an even, durable, and rather low-toned state of the feelings, accounts for his prolonged acquiescence in a companion whom men with more elation in their ideal would assuredly have found hostile even to ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... as I have intimated, Clem was impressive. He was low-toned, easy of manner, with a flawless aplomb. As he served me those mornings in late summer, wearing a dress-coat of broadcloth, a choice relic of his splendid past, it was not difficult to see that he had been the ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... little the voice was silent, and Larry was beginning to fear it had fled and deserted him like all the rest; when it spoke again, in its low-toned murmur, like the breath of a breeze, ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... Once upon a time—but no matter. Bridges are peculiarly liable to change in troubled times. The Rue St. Gingolphe is situated between the Boulevard St. Germain and Quai Voltaire. One hears with equal facility the low-toned boom of the steamers' whistle upon the river, and the crack of whips in the boulevard. Once across the bridge, turn to the right, and go along the Quay, between the lime-trees and the bookstalls. You will probably go slowly because of the bookstalls. No one worth talking ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... had no thought of saying any other thing to her, because there was nothing left to say. She had said nothing to Dr. Redcliff; she had only sat listening to him and feeling her eyes widening as she tried to follow and understand what he was saying in such a grave, low-toned cautious way—as if he himself were almost afraid as he went on. What he said would once have been strange and wonderful, but now it was not, because wonder had gone out of the world. She only seemed ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... breathing space between the floor timbers, and had not yet overheard enough to give him the drift of the low-toned talk, when the bell of the private-line telephone rang in the room above. It was Flemister who ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... and as she approached a long bitter sigh broke from Isabel and, following it, low-toned entreaties that pierced her anew with the ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... low-toned word from the Herr Chief of the Secret Service the orderly saluted and quickly resumed his seat by the chauffeur. There was a short silence inside the limousine as the powerful car continued up the road. They were stopped ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... come," he was saying now to Templeton, speaking abruptly although his voice was as gentle and low-toned and pleasant as when he had spoken with the cashier, "three days ahead of time. It won't take me a minute to get through. And if you and the young lady will excuse me I'll say my little speech and drift, giving you a free swing ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... placed in the hands, and under the control, and at the will of, the Archbishop of Baltimore. For the rest, I name you sole executor. Have you finished? Let me sign it; then ask those gentlemen," he said, pointing to Father Fabian and Dr. Burrell, who had been engaged in a low-toned conversation at the window, ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... foot of the table sit the father and mother, and Alexander, Jean, and Donald, with the missionary and myself, make up the company. The children take their tea in silence but for a whispered request now and then, or a reply to some low-toned direction from the mother. They listen interested in their elders' talk, and hugely amused at the jokes. There is no pert interjection of smart sayings, so awful in ill-trained children of ill-bred parents. They have learned that ancient ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... was especially fond of Roderick Duncan, and both he and his wife were intimate friends of Beatrice. Duncan noticed, while talking with Sally, that Jack and Beatrice had drawn their chairs more closely together, toward a corner of the table, and were now whispering together with low-toned eagerness. He could hear no word of what Beatrice said, but an occasional exclamation of Gardner's came to him. He saw that Beatrice was talking rapidly, with intense earnestness, and that Gardner seemed ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... pleasure and dread were equally mingled; suffuse her face with a quick blush, and instantly replace it with a touch of pallor; render her manner with a suggestion of hauteur, softened by a gesture of timidity and doubt; listen to her voice, low-toned and infinitely calm yet vibrating in a minor chord of uncertainty and dread; feel the clasp of her hand, cold when it touches yours, yet instantly thrilling you with a glow induced by the contact, and—remain thoroughly master of yourself if you can. ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... slumber. To the soldier bending over him he seemed scarcely breathing. Presently they were joined by two of Arnold's party who had been searching out on the left flank. They, too, had seen, and the three were now in low-toned conference. Blakely for the moment ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... was out, but Miss Keating was "at home." She was scathingly polite to her delinquent admirer. Eddie's visits of late to the office had not been of a social character. He devoted much of his time to low-toned conversations with Rigby; few were the occasions when he lounged affably upon her ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... reflecting upon this new specimen of man in her experience. She was getting many new ideas in these days, the moral lines were not as clearly drawn as she had thought; it was impossible to ticket men off into good and bad. In Hollowell she had a glimpse of a world low-toned and vulgar; she had heard that he was absolutely unscrupulous, and she had supposed that he would appear to be a very wicked man. But he seemed to be good-hearted and tolerant and friendly. How fond he was of his family, and how charitable about Congress! And she wondered if the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to Love his name, his glance, his brow, His low-toned voice, his smile, Oh, soul be patient; I can sever them ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... mere impertinence to say 'thank you,'" he murmured with low-toned vehemence. But his eyes, that sought her own, shamed the futility of speech. "The sun was blinding me; and if ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... waiting witnesses looked with doubt and curiosity and suspicion at a new-comer, with an obvious disposition to hope and believe that others knew more of the matter than they, and thus were more liable to accusation. Occasionally, a low-toned, husky query would be met by a curt rejoinder suggesting a cautious reticence and a rising enmity, blockading all investigation save the obligatory inquisition of a coroner's jury. An object of ever-recurrent scrutiny was ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... mellow light the lake aslant, The pebbled margin's ripple-chant Attempered and low-toned, The tender ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... we heard them talking at the back of the machine, as the jack quickly lifted us and Worth went to it with Capehart to unbolt the rim; a low-toned steady stream from the wide man, punctuated now and then by a word ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... our King! pleasant will be the time with him!' And one smoothed his head and poured oil upon it; one brought him garments of gold and silk inwoven; one fetched him slippers like the sun's beam in brightness; others stood together in clusters, and with lutes and wood-instruments, low-toned, singing odes to him; and lo! one took a needle and threaded it, and gave the thread into the hands of Shibli Bagarag, and with the point of the needle she pricked certain letters on his right wrist, and afterwards pricked the same letters ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it. When, at my meals, it jumped on my knees, turned round, looked at me, and spoke in a coaxing and flattering way, it was asking for something to eat. When its mother came up with a mouse in her jaws, her muffled and low-toned mew informed the little one from a distance, and caused it to spring and run up to the game that was brought to it. The cry is always the same, but varied in the strength of the inflections and in its ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... way, it never does come except in the evening. In the sun-time, when the world is bounding forward full of life, we cannot stay to sigh and sulk. The roar of the working day drowns the voices of the elfin sprites that are ever singing their low-toned miserere in our ears. In the day we are angry, disappointed, or indignant, but never "in the blues" and never melancholy. When things go wrong at ten o'clock in the morning we—or rather you—swear and knock the furniture about; but if the misfortune comes at ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... further remark. Indeed she had drifted into a low-toned conversation with a young man on the fender. Elinor Vanderwall was neither pretty nor rich, and she was unmarried at thirty-four, her social importance being further lessened by the fact that she had five sisters, all unmarried, too, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... waiting for reply the low-toned, musical voice read on through that marvel of simplicity and grandeur, the 121st Psalm: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... which we go into our chambers and shut our doors about us, and hold communion with our Father in secret. Everything noble and great in the Christian life is fed by solitude, and everything poor and mean and hypocritical and low-toned is nourished by continual absence from the secret place of the Most High. There must be moments of solitary communion, if there are to be hours of strenuous service and a life of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of large towns, this court room at Cahors was small, but it was filled by a considerable and most select crowd. Quiet greetings and low-toned conversation were freely exchanged, but there was an air of melancholy about every person present, and it was obvious that they were drawn there by no mere curiosity or desire for horrid details, but by legitimate interest in the development ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... aft shortly, and while Marjorie, Trask, and Locke played cards at the cabin table, Jarrow and the mate had a long, low-toned conference, which ended by Jarrow's coming down and going ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... dawdler and a trifler and a do-nothing. He had been told by a stern old man who was a man that he was a disgrace to his name. He had never done anything but dance and smoke and drink and make pretty speeches which were polite lies and which were accepted as such. And now a minor note, as thin as a low-toned human voice heard faintly through the deep music of a cathedral organ, something seemed to call to him telling ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... a relief of mental tension, discovering with the latter the balance of line, of mass and of color, and that general simplicity so necessary to harmony, which suggests that the weakness of the older art lay in the last of the three essentials of painting; form, color and composition. The low-toned harmonies of time-mellowed color we would be loath to exchange for aught else, except for that element of disturbance so vague and so difficult of definition, namely, ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... who knows? Betimes The grandest songs depart, While the gentle, humble, and low-toned rhymes Will ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... does life deck out her tragedies! There is no prelude of low-toned plaintive orchestral music tuned to expectancy. There is no thunder barrel; or if there is a thunder barrel, you may know that the tragedy is theatrical and hollow in proportion to the size of its emptiness. And there is no graceful curtain-drop between it and real ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... service was at seven. The congregation, rustling in silks, was approaching the little temple from all directions. Inside, there was a low-toned buzz of conversation. The Brandeis' seat was well toward the rear, as befitted a less prosperous member of the rich little congregation. This enabled them to get a complete picture of the room in ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... sinister preoccupation and talked confidentially with my captain. I could catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one morning as I came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table Almayer checked himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's face was perfectly impenetrable. There was a moment of profound silence and then as if unable to contain himself Almayer burst out in a loud ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... footstep now. The door to the left, the one next to Nicky Viner's squalid, two-room apartment, was evidently partially open, and occasionally some one moved within; and the voices came from there too, and, low-toned to begin with, were naturally muffled into whispers by ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... suspicion, and includes several distinguished men. The civil service is managed on English principles, there being no elective offices; and nothing resembling what is called the "caucus system" seems to have grown up. There are in the Cape Legislature some few members supposed to be "low-toned" and open to influence by the prospect of material gain, but, though I heard of occasional jobbing, I heard of little or nothing amounting to corruption. Elections were said to be free from bribery, but as ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... rippled the child's happy low-toned monologue directed to her silent but sufficient playmate, and so far from disturbing the aunt, that more than one smile played on her lips at the quaint fancies, and at the well of gladness in the ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to watch such a flock feeding in the open. The male, resplendent in his vivid dress, shone like a piece of gold against the dull brown of the dry grass and industriously ran about among his trim little hens, rounding up the stragglers and directing his harem with a few low-toned "clucks" whenever he found some ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... of her raiment bespoke the bride, and it did not take Creed many moments to understand the situation, put out a thin white hand and, smiling, offer his congratulations. Wade received them with some low-toned, hesitating words of apology. ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... Morton had withdrawn to a tete-a-tete at some distance, where they were engaged in a low-toned conversation, punctuated by many head-shakings. The hostess had seated the new arrivals in chairs opposite Mrs. McMahon and Sadie. It was evident by their exclamations that Mrs. Flynn and Ruth were mystified and impressed by the Irishwoman's explanation. But Miss Johnson ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan |
