"Pedal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to close the door. I just tromped on the go-pedal and the car leaped forward with a jerk that slammed the door for me. I roared forward and left her just as she was ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... do you mean? Are you one of those people who can't keep a tune, and step on the pedal ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... net-work of wires, all over the earth, penetrating everywhere, and at every point touching the most deadly explosives of human passions and hates; and that it needs but the pressure of your finger upon the pedal to blow up the world. The folly of centuries has culminated in the most terrible organization that ever grew out of the wretchedness of mankind. But oh, my friend—you have a broad mind and a benevolent soul—tell me, is there no remedy? Cannot the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... to the side of the deep gully, across the road that was slippery with snow, slid Mr. Brown's automobile. Bunny and Sue's father's hands held tightly to the steering wheel, and he pressed his foot down hard on the brake pedal. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... and also permitted of their adjustment to various angles. The inventor's idea was to stand upright in the body of the contrivance, working the levers and cords with his hands, and with his feet on a pedal by means of which the steering tail was to be worked. He anticipated that, given a strong wind, he could rise into the air after the manner of an albatross, without any need for flapping his wings, and the account of his first experiment ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... for comparing the pedal joint with the pastern on the basis that it may also be completely and securely bandaged. Open navicular joint does not occur, as a rule, except by way of the solar surface of the foot, and the introduction of active and virulent contagium ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... the explosion chamber, the magnet flashes its sparks to ignite it, the cooling water bathes the hot walls of the cylinders—a thing of nerves, and ganglions, and tireless muscles is panting eagerly at your service. You move this lever, you press your foot lightly on this pedal; the engine transfers its power to the wheels; you move. The carriage with you and your friends is borne at railway speed across continents. You can hurl yourself at sixty miles an hour along ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... stragglers, lying at the roadside, raised a cheer as they recognized the small American flag that fluttered from our taxi's door; and once we gave a lift to a Belgian bicycle courier, who had grown too leg-weary to pedal his machine another inch. He was the color of the dust through which he had ridden, and his face under its dirt mask was thin and drawn with fatigue; but his racial enthusiasm endured, and when we dropped him he insisted on shaking hands ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... room adjoining, under whisper of a very soft pedal, some one, probably a waiting pupil, was playing the indomitable pianoforte composition, "Melody in F." Staring at her daughter, an old conceit of Lilly's girlhood came flowing back. It seemed to her that a proscenium arch of music was forming over Zoe and that her ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... dominant figure in the corn-straw dress that the glare of light fell shimmering on. The sweet voice was still rising, and she longed that the accompanist would force the tone to cover it a little, and put the loud pedal on. He, however, was gazing at his music, and played on quietly until, with startling ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... inequalities, upon the feet of the men; hence in every well-commanded Battalion frequent feet inspections are held—in many instances daily. This simple preventive, coupled with a copious supply of socks sent out by the people at home, has helped the great majority of 'Tommies' to keep their pedal ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... arms, depending entirely upon his narrow feminine hands and slender fingers. The wide arpeggios in the left hand, maintained in a continuous stream of tone by the strict legato and fine and constant use of the damper-pedal, formed an harmonious substructure for a wonderfully poetic cantabile. His delicate pianissimo, the ever-changing modifications of tone and time (tempo rubato) were of indescribable effect. Even in energetic passages he scarcely ever exceeded an ordinary mezzoforte. His playing as a whole ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... make his first essay with the Brogue. They did not get as far as the pigs at Lockyer's farm; the rectory gate was painted a dull unobtrusive green, but it had been white a year or two ago, and the Brogue never forgot that he had been in the habit of making a violent curtsey, a back-pedal and a swerve at this particular point of the road. Subsequently, there being apparently no further call on his services, he broke his way into the rectory orchard, where he found a hen turkey in a coop; later visitors to ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... but which seemed to Tom, to tremble somewhat. The young inventor was so surprised that he did not open the gasolene throttle, nor switch on his spark. As a consequence his motor-cycle lost momentum, and he had to take one foot from the pedal and touch the ground, to ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... and sighs, and the notings down of the titles of books that conducted the pilgrim on the Way. Perhaps as they softly assembled for departure, a little music would be suggested to round off the evening, and she saw herself putting down the soft pedal as people rustled into their places, for the first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata." Then at the end there would be silence, and she would get up with a sigh, and someone would say "Lucia mia"! ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... Swell, Solo, and Pedal Organ (except the two stops Bourdon and Bass Flute of the last) are placed in four bays of the north triforium of the nave; the choir organ and the two Pedal stops are in the first bay of the north aisle, and the Console in the second bay behind the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... panting, fighting back his weakness; then he thrust forward his control lever and the car began to move. The motion, the kindly touch of the cool night air against his head, stimulated him; he stepped on the gas pedal and the car leaped forward as though ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Mind. This gift of his was naturally very much a matter of temperament, and accordingly by far the greater part of his finer product belongs to the period of his prime, ere Time had set his lumpish foot on the pedal that deadens the nerves of animal sensibility.[355] He did not grow as those poets do in whom the artistic sense is predominant. One of the most delightful fancies of the Genevese humorist, Toepffer, is the poet Albert, who, having had his portrait drawn by ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... pirarbo. Pearl perlo. Pearl, mother of perlamoto. Peasant vilagxano, kamparano. Peat torfo. Pebble marsxtono, sxtoneto. Peccadillo peketo. Peculiar stranga. Pecuniary mona. Pedagogue pedagogo. Pedagogy pedagogio. Pedal pedalo. Pedant pedanto. Peddler kolportisto. Peddle kolporti. Pedestal piedestalo. Pedestrian piediranto. Pedigree deveno, genealogio. Pediment fruntajxo. Peel (fruit, etc.) sxelo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... special receptacle, placed upon the floor of the aeroplane, preferably near the foot of the pilot or observer. This receptacle is fitted with a bottom moving in the manner of a trap-door, and is opened by pressing a lever. The aviator has merely to depress this pedal with his foot, when the box is opened and the whole of the contents are released. The fall at first is somewhat erratic, but this is an advantage, as it enables the darts to scatter and to cover a wide area. As the rotary motion of the arrows increases during the fall, the direct line of flight ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... when Monday morning came. The campus dripped with sadness. The Faculty oozed regret at every pore. We loyal friends of Hogboom were looked on as the chief mourners and it was up to us to fill the part. We did our best. We talked with the soft pedal on. We went without cigarettes. We wiped our eyes whenever we got an audience. Time after time we told the sad story and exhibited the telegram. By noon more particulars began to come in. Prexy got an answer to his telegram of condolence. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... all this with fixed, staring eyes and teeth set, but did not move or speak. He scrambled off the bench, and crawled, in his queer tri-pedal fashion, to the cot, crept into it, and with hands clasped, sat bolt upright on the pillow. He set his back against the wall, and, facing the door, waited for the end. He wished that some of the bullets that were fired might pierce his heart. He even prayed that his doom might ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... at him as he started to speak, and Jack's finger shot out to the forbidden wheel on the instant. Elizabeth saw it at a point when she could not control the pedal with her foot. Mother love brought a scream to her lips, and to save the child she gave him a shove with her hand. Jack fell on the floor in a heap, striking his head on the bedpost as he ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... pritty loud, ez if he'd been hittin' up ther tangle juice, an' ther other feller wuz tryin' ter make him put on ther soft pedal, what Clay calls talkin' pianissimo. But when the booze is in ther wit is out, an' ther feller would shut it down some fer a while, then he'd get a good lungful o' ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... replied Mr. Goyte. He spoke very slowly and deliberately, quietly, as if the soft pedal were always down in his voice. He looked at his daughter-in-law as she crouched, flushed and dark, before the peacock, which would lay its long blue neck for a moment along her lap. In spite of his grey moustache and thin grey hair, the elderly man ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... He invented wonderful combinations which allow the organist to change his combinations and to vary the tone, without the aid of an assistant and without leaving the keyboard. Even before his day a scheme had been devised of enclosing certain stops in a box protected by shutters which a pedal opened and closed at will; this permitted the finest shadings. By different processes the touch of the organ was made as delicate ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... than usual in the parlor. The young woman from the notion counter had company; and one of her guests was playing "He sut'nly was Good to Me" on the pianola with loud and steady tread of pedal. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pattern : modelo, desegno. pause : halteti, pauxzi. pave : pavimi. paw : piedego. pawn : garantie doni; (chess) soldato. pay : pagi; salajro. pea : pizo. peace : paco. peach : persiko. peacock : pavo. peak : pinto. pear : piro. pearl : perlo. pedal : pedalo. pedestal : piedestalo. peel : sxelo, sensxeligi. pen : plumo, skribilo. pencil : krajono, ("slate"—) grifelo; ("hair"—) peniko. pendulum : pendolo. penetrate : penetri peninsula : duoninsulo. pension : pensio. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... although naturally the decreasing amplitude of the vibration may in itself tend to create a diminuendo, yet it is possible to make up for this in some degree by causing the air-blast to increase in force, through the use of any suitable means, modified by an extra pedal as ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... of shoe-boxes, the seat of thin wood perforated in rosettes, the display of shoe-trees and tin boxes of blacking, the lithograph of a smirking young woman with cherry cheeks who proclaimed in the exalted poetry of advertising, "My tootsies never got hep to what pedal perfection was till I got a pair of clever ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... during an evening call he interned him in the vitals of a tuneless Baby Grand, and for three hours played on him CHOPIN'S polonaise in A flat major, with the loud pedal down. On his release Feodor had lost his reason and rushed to the nearest police-station to ask to be sent to the Front immediately. His object, he explained, was to end the War. The Bulgar authorities thought the plan worth trying and sent him off as a comitadjus; and to these circumstances ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... ever-sagacious Tomlinson tossed off his bumper; and the pair, having kindly rolled by pedal applications the body of Long Ned into a safe and quiet corner of the room, mounted the stairs, arm-in-arm, in search of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Weaver at his loom is sitting, Throws his shuttle to and fro; Foot and treadle, Hand and pedal, Upward, downward, Hither, thither, How the weaver makes them go! As the weaver wills they go. Up and down the web is plying, And across the woof is flying; What a rattling! What a battling! What a shuffling! What a scuffling! ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... ventured a platitude about the beautiful Indian summer weather and labored out a ponderous joke or two about such a bad-tempered man having such a good-looking wife—for which I despised them all. But I could see that even if my intrusion had put the soft pedal on their talk it had also left everything uncomfortably tentative and non-committal. For some reason or other this was a man's fight, one which had to be settled in a man's way. So I decided to retire with outward dignity even if with inward embarrassment. But I resented ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... hush of expectation. A few quiet worshippers assemble; the western light grows low, and lights spring to life, one after another, in the misty choir. Then murmurs a voice, an Amen rises in full concord, and as it dies away the slumberous thunder of a pedal note rolls on the air; the casements whirr, the organ speaks. That fills, as it were, to the brim, as with some sweet and fragrant potion, the cup of beauty; and the dreaming, inquiring spirit sinks content into the flowing, the aspiring tide, satisfied as with ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in a blockade, while the motor shuddered; then they dodged through an opening where the mud-guards missed by an inch and were whirling west toward Broadway. At 109th Street a bicycle officer stared in amazement at the dwindling number beneath the rear axle, then ducked his head and began to pedal. He overhauled the speeding machine as it throbbed before the doors of Mercy Hospital, to be greeted by a grinning chauffeur who waved him toward the building and told ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... if recollecting himself, he suddenly stammered out something about the necessity of changing his boots, and limped off accordingly for that purpose. He was not gone more than five minutes, but in that time had contrived not only to supply his pedal deficiency, but also to take a drink by way of calming himself; and after the drink he took a turn with Miss Friskin, and whirled her about the room, till he knocked over two or three innocent bystanders, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... brother waited to hear no more, but leaped boldly into the room and, seizing Mr. Giles Peram by the collar of his coat and the waistband of his costly knee-breeches, held him at arm's length, and began applying first one and then another pedal extremity to his anatomy. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... found an argument which makes me pause, if it does not convince me. No! I can't answer it. I—I don't want to answer it. I simply surrender. He shall have his way with you—and with me. Only," he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr Powell as if a pedal had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said I could never let you go, I shall ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... across the temple, silhouetted duskily, in the cool, shadowy room, against the open window; the slender figure, one arm curving between you and the strings, the other gleaming behind them; the delicate little sandal stealing from the white froth of silk and lace to caress the pedal; the nimble hands fluttering across the long strands, "Like white blossoms borne on slanting lines of rain;" and the great gold harp rising to catch a javelin of sunshine that pierced the vines at the window where the honeysuckles swung their skirts to the refrain—it ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... pedal away, shaking his head. Later on the handyman would come around to swap sanitary tanks under the trailers and Joey would ask him the same question. Once a month the power company sent out a man to read the electric meters and he was ...
— To Remember Charlie By • Roger Dee
... a position differing from that of most others in England, although not unusual in Continental Cathedrals. The pedal and swell organs have been placed in the triforium on the north side, and the great organ, with the choir organ beneath it, project in front of the third bay, resting upon an over-hanging chamber behind the stalls. The organ was reconstructed, with great additions, by Messrs. Hill ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... the wheels were: ten rims broken, seven tires punctured, twenty spokes, two bearings, a handle-bar, and a pedal broken. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 41, August 19, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... down hill lean back as far as possible, and keep your machine under control. A little practice in back-pedalling, or pushing against the pedal as it comes up rather than as it goes down, will enable you to take your machine down very steep hills at ordinary walking pace. If your machine does escape from your control, throw your legs over the handles, and "coast," as you are less ...
— Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... steam risen from the bath, when Mackay once more gripped the hoe, and moving to his grindstone placed his foot on the pedal and set the edge of the hoe against the whirling stone. The sparks flew high. A murmur came from the Uganda chiefs who ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... sensitive to music, knew about it intelligently, and had even ventured, unknown to his friends, upon the composition of quiet melodies with low-running chords which he played to himself with the soft pedal when no one was about. And this music floating up through the trees from an invisible and doubtless very picturesque band of the townspeople wholly charmed him. He recognised nothing that they played, and it sounded as though they were simply ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to pedal. "Oh, dear, yes. It is quite, quite easy. I shall get there all right—if the Matabele don't ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... buildings may be here mentioned. The County Court occupies what was then a tinker's shop and a farm-yard behind; the pedal stone of the ancient Cross, now in the Institute garden, was then at the back entrance to the Bull Yard, near Mr. Innes' shop, having been removed from the Cross a few years before; the market place could only be approached from the High Street, through the inn yards. Of the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... hung on the chimneypiece; an easy chair covered in black leather on the hearth; a neat stool and bench, with vice, tools, and a mortar and pestle in the corner to the right. Near this bench stands a slender machine like a whip provided with a stand, a pedal, and an exaggerated winch. Recognising this as a dental drill, you shudder and look away to your left, where you can see another window, underneath which stands a writing table, with a blotter and a diary on it, and a chair. Next the writing table, towards ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... and was being made the butt of a good-humoured jest. And beneath the high, laughing tones, the perpetual hum of a thousand talking voices neither rose nor fell, but droned unceasingly like the long pedal in a fugue, whose full deep note stands still amidst the strife of moving sounds, as the sun stood while the battle was fought out in Ajalon. The very life of the multitude seemed to produce a sound of its own, in the breathing of a thousand pairs of strong young lungs, in the ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... think you're in the same jam, Judge," I said. "You'll look great running for office, with your opposition telling the public how a Psi foozled your vision. They'll stomp on the loud pedal about how you let her get away with it and wangle a 'Not Guilty' verdict when she was guilty ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Bob's dog that bothered you the other day," she told him as he stood ready to mount, his foot on the pedal; "Bob hasn't ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... protege. It was Mr. Chester who assumed responsibility not only for his musical and literary tastes but for his neckties and hosiery as well. Mr. Chester, in fact, being too negative and conservative, acted as a much-needed soft pedal on Quin's noisy aggressiveness. "Not so loud, Quinby," or, "A little more gently, my boy," he would often say. And Quin would acquiesce good-naturedly and even gratefully. "That's right, call me down," he would say; "I guess I'll ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... are attached to the posterior angles of the pedal bone. They are flattened from side to side, and the portion that projects above the coronary cushion may be felt by pressing on the skin that covers it. The plantar cushion is a wedge-shaped piece of tissue formed by interlacing ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... have bicycles, so we don't want to drive. He has his own, a capital machine, and I borrowed Doyle's this morning, which is quite sound except for the left pedal. It's a bit groggy, and came off ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... mother's footsteps, we have been routed night after night from our warm quarters, in the dead of winter, to kindle fires and fill frosty kettles from water-pails thickly crusted with ice, that we might get the writhing pedal extremities of our little heir into a tub of water as quickly as possible. But lately we have learned that all this work and exposure is needless. We simply wring a towel from salted water—a bowl of it standing ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... of an evening which would inevitably run into the small hours, Joan went over to the piano and, with what was a quite unconscious touch of irony, played one of Heller's inimitable "Sleepless Nights," with the soft pedal down. The large imposing room, a chaotic mixture of French and Italian furniture with Flemish tapestries and Persian rugs, which accurately typified the ubiquitous mind of the hostess, was discreetly lighted. The numerous screened windows were open and the soft warm air came in tinged with the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... he cut one of your feet off?" asked Grant, soberly looking down at the pedal extremities of the ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... worthless fellow he had been to give vent as he had done to an animal passion for a woman, and allow it to lead to such disastrous consequences; then to think of putting an end to himself; then to go recklessly and get drunk. The great waves of pedal music tumbled round the choir, and, nursed on the supernatural as he had been, it is not wonderful that he could hardly believe that the psalm was not specially set by some regardful Providence for this moment of his first entry into the solemn building. And yet ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... manuals, or hand key-boards, and two pedals, or foot key-boards, command these several systems,—the solo organ, the choir organ, the swell organ, and the great organ, and the piano and forte pedal-organ. Twelve pairs of bellows, which it is intended to move by water-power, derived from the Cochituate reservoirs, furnish the breath which pours itself forth in music. Those beautiful effects, for which the organ is incomparable, the crescendo and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... 6/4 chord, now become so hackneyed from its perpetual and wearisome repetition in popular church music, seems to be especially disliked by Mr. Paine, as it occurs but once or twice in the course of the work. In the great choruses the cadence is usually reached either by a pedal on the tonic, as in the chorus, "Awake, thou that sleepest," or by a pedal on the dominant culminating in a chord of the major ninth, as in the final chorus; or there is a plagal cadence, as in the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... me we don't drift the way we ought to," said Harry, pressing on his clutch pedal and trying ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... early this morning, and, as the road out there seemed so hard and firm, the snow being packed down solid, I just jumped on my wheel, and took a little run up in that direction. It wasn't so easy, once I struck in on that side road, but I managed to pedal along somehow." ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... cloth. She had a loom. Hit wuz a high thing and th thread would go ovah th top and come down jes so in what we call shickle. She'd have a bench so high. The loom was high as dis door and my ma would set on the bench and her foots wuz on somethin like a bicycle and when she put her foots on de pedal dat shickle would come open and make a blum blum an that would make a yard of cloth, an she'd mash the pedal agin and another yard of cloth. Jes so we'd make eight and ten yards of cloth in one day. An when hit wuz made we would carry hit to de white fokes. Dey would ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... sing with Colour. This desideratum of varied tone-colour is sought even by instrumentalists. Nay, the instrument itself is sometimes constructed with this object in view. Witness the invention of the "soft" pedal, which is intended not solely to reduce the intensity of tone in the pianoforte—that may be accomplished by a modification of force in striking the note—but to give the tones a darker, more sombre quality, or colour. To vary the tone-colour, a violinist or 'cellist draws ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... light swept chaos, this peaceful fancy was disrupted,—her heart ravished from its rest, its calm torn from it. Down went the pedal which forced the whole first organ out at once, and as if shouted by hosts of men and by myriad angels echoed, pealed the great Hosanna. The mighty rapture of the princess won her instantly from regret; no peace could be so glorious as that praise; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... pedal energetically. Current from the storage batteries flowed through the motor, saturating it almost instantly. Ned's foot was pressed upon the cut-out lever, and the resultant roar from the engines precluded absolutely ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... discover her imprisonment. Sounds of strange music attract my attention to a part of the castle which I have not before frequented. There I shall distinctly hear a female voice chaunting the 'Bridesmaids' Chorus,' with Erard's double pedal accompaniment. By the aid of the confessors of the two families, two drinking, rattling, impertinent, most corrupt, and most amusing friars, to ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... said. "Good night. Keep hold of Bobby Burns's collar, till I'm well on my way. He may try to follow me. Good-by, old chap," he added, bending down and taking the collie's silken head affectionately between his hands. "You're a good dog, and a good pal. But put the soft pedal on the temperamental stuff, when you're near Simon Cameron. That's the best recipe for avoiding a scratched nose. By the way, Miss Standish, don't encourage him to roam around in the palmetto scrub, on your outings with him. The rattlesnakes have gotten ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... that a woman sobbed, but his eyes, used by now to the obscurity, told him that it was neither Mrs. Bruce nor Barbara. The piano burst into a storm of sound, under cover of which Rose, still at her post, torn with jealousy, continued to pedal at the direction of her lord and master, and sobbed as if her heart would break. Devils filled the room, whirling in mad dances; they screamed and yelled; the souls of the damned screeched in torment; and the face of him who invoked the inferno, swollen, streaming with sweat, the ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... hit out a tune or two with the soft pedal on?' I asks Marilla. 'Uncle Cal has begged you so often. It would please him a good deal to hear you touch up the piano he's bought for you. Don't you ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... fat leg over the backbone and put a ponderous foot on one pedal, while the drops of perspiration began to stand ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... Tom pressed the control pedal at his foot and the small ship shot out into the black void of space. Ahead of them, thousands of yards away, he could see the ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... the opening. It is to fill the recess behind the spacious platform, and is described as containing pneumatic wind-chests throughout, and having an AEolian attachment. It is of three-manual compass, C.C.C. to C.4, 61 notes; and pedal compass, C.C.C. to F.30. The great organ has double open diapason (stopped bass), open diapason, dulciana, viola di gamba, doppel flute, hohl flute, octave, octave quint, superoctave, and trumpet,—61 pipes each. The swell ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... words of "Home, Sweet Home," and decided on that. Nothing could have been worse. I attacked the squeaky melodion, pushed down a pedal, pulled out the "vox humana" stop—the most harmless one of the melodion, but which gave out a supernaturally hoarse sound—I struck the chord, and standing up I began. These poor, homeless creatures must have thought my one purpose was to harass them to the last limit, and I only realized ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... heresy made an impression upon his tender cortex, and he never forgot about John, in Browning's poem, scorning ale. But many years afterward, reading Browning, he found that the words really were: "John's corns ail," meaning apparently that John was troubled by pedal callouses.) Peter, we repeat, and to avoid any further misunderstanding and press diligently toward our theme, having mentioned his garden, who should come up to us but Pete Corcoran, also of the composing room force, and a waggish friend of ours, and gazing ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... an automobile has nothing to do but watch his steering-wheel, and be ready to touch a pedal when he wishes to slow up or go faster or stop. If he makes a curve he does not have to bank his machine owing to his comparatively slow speed; but the aviator, traveling much faster through the air, must do this, bringing his ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... odour of poudre de riz, and the many acidities of evaporating perfume; the sugary sweetness of the blondes, the salt flavours of the brunettes, and this allegro movement of odours was interrupted suddenly by the garlicky andante, deep as the pedal notes of an organ, that the perspiring armpits of a ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... himself of his jacket, waistcoat, trousers, and boots, not forgetting his stockings; and then deliberately planting his chair in the open entry of the door, and gathering up one foot on the seat thereof, was amusing himself by cutting and picking the horny excrescences of his pedal digits, for the benefit of the passengers in the gentlemen's saloon; and, unfortunately, you could not be sure that his hands would be washed before he sat next to you at breakfast in the morning,—for I can testify that I have, over and over again, sat next to people, on these ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Dick dismounted, and Mark climbed into the saddle. He began to pedal, and then threw in the gasolene and spark. ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... to say," groaned Jennie. "There ain't any such an animal! You know that in this day and generation shoe makers have ceased to make sensible shoes. I look at 'em in the shop windows," pursued the aching girl, "and I wonder what sort of foot the human pedal extremity will become in a generation or ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... itself to this conception. It was ready in every detail; only I was to blame for the failures. The excitement and exultation is difficult to tell, as I entered deeper and deeper into the genius of the machine. It answered, not in tempo and volume alone, but in the pedal relaxations and throbs of force. I thought of the young musicians who had laboured half their lives to bring to concert pitch the Waldstein or the Emperor, and that I had now merely to punctuate and read forth with love ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... Joe. "But when it's that kind of opinion he ought to put on the soft pedal. Any one has a right to have a club foot or a hunched back or cross eyes, but he doesn't usually go ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... soft pedal upon all branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual, and even the original Puritans, for all their fire, felt its throttling caress. I think it is Bill Nye who has humorously pictured their arduous life: how they had to dig clams ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Billy was about to shout aloud in actual terror at the disaster that seemed unavoidable, there was a sharp "click" as Frank closed the circuit with his emergency foot pedal and the engine began to ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... times even this maintains an archaic simplicity. Thus in the coda of the vivace of the Seventh Symphony, a simple melody is reiterated eleven times in succession, with no other orchestration than the pedal-point on E by the rest ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... way in a clump of bushes, he drew out a bicycle and prepared to mount. He was in the act of driving the gear around with his foot for the purpose of getting the opposite pedal in position, when he heard the thud of a heavy body that landed lightly and evidently on its feet. He did not wait for more, but ran, with hands on the handles of his bicycle, until he was able to vault astride the saddle, ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... should not be absolutely erect, but leaning slightly forward, so as to allow the weight to be distributed between the handle-bars, the pedal, and the saddle. This slightly inclined attitude also maintains the proper and harmonious relation of the internal organs, so that the bowels do not crowd ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... Paul discovered a most unique and lazy style of angling. Happening to look up at the bank, he saw two pair of bare feet of heroic size, from which two fishing lines hung, the corks bobbing on the surface a few yards from the shore. The broad bottoms of their pedal extremities turned to the river, the line passing between the great and second toes to the water, and there they lay enjoying delicious sleep, waiting for a fish to swallow the bait, when the pull on the line would be felt between their toes and awaken them to attend to business. Paul took ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... cries father, pressing his foot on the self-starting pedal. Thirty minutes later you roll away from the curb and the picnic has begun. The intervening time has, of course, been profitably spent by you in walking to the nearest garage for ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... are rendered possible by being taken on a drone or pedal of cant, common form and conventionality. This drone is, as it were, the flour and suet ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... argument which makes me pause, if it does not convince me. No! I can't answer it. I—I don't want to answer it. I simply surrender. He shall have his way with you—and with me. Only," he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr. Powell as if a pedal had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said I could never let you go, I ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... embroideries, divans and prayer rugs, on which nobody ever prayed. Lord Reggie and Mr. Amarinth both played the piano in an easy, tentative sort of way, making excess of expression do duty for deficiencies of execution, and covering occasional mistakes with the soft rather than with the loud pedal. Lord Reggie played a hymn of his own, which he frankly acknowledged was very beautiful. He described it as a hymn without words, which, he said softly, all hymns should be. There was archaic simplicity, not to say baldness, about it which sent Mrs. Windsor into exotic raptures, and, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... possessed of great mobility of facial expression; anteroposterior sway marked and occasionally anterosinistral, and greatly augmented so as to approach Romberg symptom on closure of eyes, but no ataxic evidences in locomotion. Taking the external malleolus as the datum, the vertical and lateral pedal oscillation——" ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... before we can tell it,—that what we wanted was two crescendos meeting somewhere near the middle; a crescendo passing into a diminuendo from whichever end you moved to the other—a swell. We saw that our loud-pedal effect should come upon "Middle Hall." So there, on its lucky bit of Greek porch, we bestowed the purple wistaria for spring, and for late summer that fragrant snowdrift, the clematis paniculata, ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... any note loud or soft at pleasure; hence the name piano-forte. But the pianoforte itself required many years before all its possibilities of tone-production were discovered. The instruments used by Mozart still had a thin short tone, and there was no pedal for prolonging it, except a clumsy one worked with the knee—a circumstance which greatly influenced Mozart's style, and is largely responsible for the fact that his pianoforte works are hardly ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... very soft from recent rains, and the mud was something terrible. If one has never encountered Virginia mud, he can have no adequate idea of the meaning of the word. It gets a grip on your feet and just won't let go. Every rise of your pedal extremities requires a mighty tug, as if you were lifting the earth, as indeed you are—a much larger share of it than ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... were making a bicycle,—in which of the following places would you want to increase the friction, and in which would you want to decrease it? Handle grips, axles, pedals, tires, pedal cranks, the sockets in which the handle bar turns, the nuts ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... preacher run the sewing machine and Doctor Shaw preach the gospel of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. If God fitted Anna Shaw's brain and tongue for the platform, it would be unwomanly in her to make herself the pedal power of a sewing machine. We want successful, useful men and women; and in fields for which God has fitted woman, don't be afraid to give her the freest, broadest liberty, or be uneasy about her unsexing herself. She has entered two hundred fields in the last one hundred years. Yes, I guess ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... jerkily then, but very clearly, very concisely, the Senior Surgeon called out to the White Linen Nurse just how every lever, every pedal should be manipulated ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of organ music. We have come to the conclusion that perhaps organ music is inferior because it has been largely composed by organists, by men who sit at organ machines many hours a day, and who have let their organ machines with all their stops and pedals, and with all their stop-and-pedal-mindedness, select out of their minds the tones that organs can do best—the ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... pressed a pedal. A panel, and this time a different panel from the first, slid back, ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... vibrations, and we know no better than to make the whole series leading up to them. It is as though, in order to sound some little shrill octave of pipes in an organ, we are obliged to depress every key and every pedal, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and others have gone farther still in the same direction, but he showed the way, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... years have moved slowly and painfully from one place to another go "crazy" over the prospect of rolling rapidly and easily over hill and dale. Then a clever mechanic makes the first automobile. No longer is it necessary to pedal and pedal and pedal. You just sit and let little drops of gasoline do the work for you. Then everybody wants an automobile. Everybody talks about Rolls-Royces and Flivvers and carburetors and mileage and oil. Explorers ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... the form so often represented on Greek vases of a turtle shell with side pieces like horns, an instrument having but little effective resonance. The later form was the so-called cithara, the most common shape of which is that made familiar to all by the pedal piece of the square pianoforte. This instrument rarely had more than six strings, and as it had no finger board it could have had no more notes than strings. Chappell, the English historian, attempts to demonstrate that certain ones of these instruments had a bridge dividing the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... and well made. The so-called "Alberti" bass should be played in such a manner as to minimize the motion of the sixteenths, and to intensify the chord feeling. This will be done by playing softly with the left hand, bearing down a little, and using the pedal with every chord, except where it will ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... the natural man a pedal impulse—in plain language, he wants to kick something. Rage flows from the toes as freely as gunpowder ran out of the great Panjandrum's boots when he played "Catch who catch can" on the immortal occasion of the gardener's wife marrying the barber. Now, Stephen French ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... the Shakesperian pedal so hard that some of his hearers expressed a desire to know more about the distinguished poet. Finally, when he became too deep for them, a man with a strong clear voice shouted a single word—the name of a little animal whose departure from a sinking ship makes sailors seek the shore—and Cowels ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... he did not like on paper seemed in place when the work was sung, and some of it "moved me much." Some time afterwards he played some of his music to Wagner, who found it muddled, as if the sustaining pedal was held down all the time—and I have no doubt it was. Another gentleman who saw the score was Hanslick, then a young man looking around for some one to attach himself to—a peripatetic barnacle. Later, he ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... in motion. Rick dropped into the seat next to Scotty and his pal pushed the gas pedal all the way. The nose lifted and the ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... White House, with Evergreen Trees and whitewashed Dornicks in front of it, and a Wind-Pump at the rear. Father was a good deal the same kind of a Man as David Harum, except that he didn't let go of any Christmas Presents, or work the Soft Pedal when he had a chance to apply a Crimp to some Widow who had seen Better Days. In fact, Daughter was the only one on Earth who could induce him to ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ, which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... your feet. If one end of you gets tangled, so does the other. That's why beer and cigarettes don't hurt piano players and picture painters. But you've got to cut 'em out if you want to do mental or pedal work. Now, have a cracker, and then ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... settle it now. You began it, and I want it finished now," I added, cracking the whip once more in the neighborhood of his pedal extremities. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... under General von Beseler. I happened to perform the clog dancing at a critical moment during a trip on a Scheldt River barge, thus diverting the attention of the river sentries from my lack of proper papers. While the pedal acrobatics were in progress my temporary friend, Mons. le Conducteur, reinforced the already genial pickets with many glasses of ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... from the street below seemed to float up lazily to the little group in the open window, as the smoke of their pipes and cigars floated up lazily to the ceiling above. The gentle hum of the traffic made a pleasant accompaniment to their conversation, as the holding down of a soft pedal fills in and supports dreamy organ music. But for the six young men in the bow window the room was untenanted, save for a waiter who had just brought some fresh drinks, and who was now clearing away empty ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... above his head. I turned to look up the hill also. I saw the corporal at the gate repeat the gesture; then a big bicycle corps, four abreast, guns on their backs, slid round the corner and came gliding down the hill. There was not a sound, not the rattle of a chain or a pedal. ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... groove the colonists had bulldozed out for it years before, the first year they had arrived on Baron IV. Slowly Pete turned Mario's words over in his mind, allowing himself to worry a little. There had been rumors of trouble back on Earth, persistent rumors he had taken care to soft-pedal, as mayor of the colony. There were other things, too, like the old newspapers and magazines that had been brought in by the lad from Baron II, and the rare radio message they could pick up through their atmospheric disturbance. Maybe ...
— Image of the Gods • Alan Edward Nourse
... North shrewdly conjectured that the "rude and gross" Gothic Fiddle "used to stir up the vulgar to dancing, or perhaps to solemnise their idolatrous sacrifices." In the Dark Ages dancing may have been regarded as bi-pedal trembling. I have remarked in another place,[19] "In the early ages of mankind dancing or jigging must have been done to the sound of the voice, next to that of the pipe, and, when the bow was discovered, to that of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... and it was rendered by the composer in such a manner as to excite the audience to enthusiasm. Beethoven's powers of playing were never shown to greater advantage than in his andante movements. His execution of the quicker parts was apt to be confused by his frequent use of the pedal, but nothing occurred to mar or obscure the clearness and depth of expression with which he rendered the slower movements, and it was in these that his playing was ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... shape the improvements can possibly take. Out of Lancashire into Cheshire we wheel, and my escort, after wishing me all manner of good fortune in hearty Lancashire style, wheel about and hie themselves back toward the rumble and roar of the world's greatest sea-port, leaving me to pedal pleasantly southward along the green lanes and amid the quiet rural scenery of Staffordshire to Stone, where I remain Sunday night. The country is favored with another drenching down-pour of rain during the night, and moisture relentlessly descends at ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... with his foot on the soft pedal and played the old love song, and as he played his mother wandered over hills he had never seen, through fields he had never known, and heard a voice in the song he might never hear, even in his dreams. When he finished, she stood beside him and cried ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... forward in the middle of the road. He was too gentle and considerate to quote Voltaire and Rousseau at inopportune times, and she sustained and encouraged his mental independence. All of which is here voiced with one foot on the soft pedal, and with no thought of putting forth an argument to the effect that young gentlemen with liberal views should marry ladies who belong ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... also the Schumann Opus (Kreisleriana, etc.) published by yourself and Mechetti, together with Bach's six Pedal Fugues, in which I wish to steep myself more fully. If the three Sonnets (both voice and pianoforte editions) are already re-corrected, kindly send me ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated |
