"Staccato" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the beach we saw a figure pacing it. I knew that free stride. It was Dugald Shaw. And quite unexpectedly my heart began to beat with staccato quickness. Dugald Shaw, who didn't like me and never looked at me—except just sometimes, when he was perfectly sure I didn't know it. Dugald Shaw, the silent, unboastful man who had striven and starved and frozen on the ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Now, I say cauliflower exactly as it is spelled but that isn't right. It is "Culliefleur," said staccato. And honey—one day I wanted honey and after I had sung "Hunnie, hunnie" in high C, and he didn't understand, I went around and picked out a jar of it. "Oh," he said reproachfully, "you ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... to their seats, Joe ran his engine a bit, to satisfy himself that she was producing just the right music. The other five triplanes had been waiting. When Joe had satisfied himself that his machine was in perfect condition the word was given for the start. A series of staccato pops announced that the whole fleet was getting under way and they were soon circling the hangars and climbing off in the direction of the trenches. The long journey ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... I am no lover of mere difficulties. He plays difficult music, but it does not appear to be so; indeed, it seems as if one could easily do the same, and this is real talent. He has a very fine round tone, not a note wanting, and everything distinct and well accentuated. He has also a beautiful staccato in bowing, both up and down, and I never heard such a double shake as his. In short, though in my opinion no WIZARD, he is a very solid violin-player.—I do wish I could conquer my ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... into the sick-room and found Tommy sitting up in bed, holding his violin in the position for playing, and scolding in a sharp staccato voice because ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... the enthusiastic applause of the audience, and performed his solo. Then Blind Tom sat down and played it after him so accurately, with the same staccato, old-fashioned touch of Auber, that no one could have told whether Auber was still at the piano. Auber returned and bowed to the wildly excited public and to us. He said, "This is my first appearance as a pianist, and ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Staccato, hurried, nervous, brisk, Cascading, intermittent, choppy, The brittle voice of Mrs. Fiske Shall serve me now as copy. Assist me, O my Muse, what time I pen a bit of ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... head, and parting her lips gave voice to a long- drawn note of ecstasy, ending in a little staccato trill and the ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... he had bespoken. Polly Sparkes throughout her leisurely toilet was moved to irritation and curiosity by the sound of frequent laughter on the other side of the party wall—uproarious peals, long chucklings in a falsetto key, staccato ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... upright while Blake vaulted to the forward saddle and began to work the pedals to start the motor. The cylinders were still hot from the recent run, and at the first revolution the staccato explosions began. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... in 1592 had preceded him; but he was the first to give the name popularity in England, and to lift the kind as Ronsard had lifted it in France; and till the time of Cowper no other English poet showed mastery of the short, staccato measure of the Anacreontic as distinct from the Pindaric Ode. In the Odes Drayton shows to the fullest extent his metrical versatility: he touches the Skeltonic metre, the long ten-syllabled line of the Sacrifice to Apollo; and ascends from the smooth and melodious rhythms of the New ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... leaned back, half closed his eyes; again pain, fatigue seemed creeping over him. Outside sounded the clicking and clinking of glasses, a staccato of guffaws, tones vivace. "The harm's been done so far as you are concerned; you, as a factor, have disappeared ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... aside with a curved hand and gracefully separated fingers; it was a staccato movement and her body followed it after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, eyes inquiring and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who was there. You would have been aware at ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... midnight, Sidney roused with a start. She realized that neither of them had spoken, and that K.'s eyes were fixed on her. The little clock on the shelf took up the burden of the churches, and struck the hour in quick staccato notes. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fifteen kilometres, just going into Swakopmund. The mist from the coast had rolled inland; through it after dawn came miles of horsemen and wagons, guns, limbers, lorries, ambulances. Every human unit in that column was covered in white dust, and every horse was weary. And except for the staccato "click-click" of bits and an occasional deep hum from a passing motor the army moved in perfect silence through ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... the responses to the almost staccato words of the clergyman. The ceremony was hurried through at a lively rate, but to Eddie it seemed to take hours. Her fingers felt like a closed fan in his own pulseless hand. He replied "I do" and "I will" without really being aware of the fact, and all the time he was gazing blankly ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... closure of the great door, the wind rushed all at once against the house, with a tremendous bellow, that threatened to drive the windows into the room. An immediate lull followed, through which as instantly came strange sounds, as of a distant staccato thunder. The moment the laird heard the douf thuds, he started to his feet, and made for the door, and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... trill or staccato tones the pressure of the breath must be felt even before the sound is heard. The beautiful, clear, bell-like tones that die away into a soft piano are tones struck on the apoggio and controlled by the steady soft pressure of the breath emitted through a perfectly ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... upon her—an agonizing sense of youth's futility. Rackingly above the crash and lilt of music, the quick, wild thud of dancing feet, the sharp, staccato notes of laughter—she heard the dull, heavy, unrhythmical tread of the oncoming years—gray years, limping eternally from to-morrow on, through unloved ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... piece of leather, became, by the interposition of a piece of cloth between the hammer and the strings, the piano, harp, or celeste. The more complete sourdine, which muted all the strings by contact of a long strip of leather, acted as the staccato, pizzicato, or pianissimo. The Germans further displayed that ingenuity in fancy stops Mersenne had attributed to them in harpsichords more than a hundred and fifty years before, by a bassoon pedal, a card which by a rotatory half-cylinder ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... the surest way to get caught when they've got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones. "They've got every door watched—sure. Anyhow—Listen! Hear those steps? They haven't trusted you, Matilda; they've followed. Angelica, down with your face to the wall, and be sick! And while you're at ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... as I saw the company pass me gaily down the road, preceded by the hounds, trotting with a staccato step and their noses ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... silence a typewriter began to clack with a fierce, staccato note. It was Mary Fortune, writing her ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... owners of ordinary warehouses who found their buildings useless, once the overtopping elevator went up alongside—from small buyers who found themselves being driven out of the market with the flat warehouses. But these voices were drowned in the swish of grain in the chutes and the staccato of the elevator engines—lost in the larger exigencies of the wheat. The railway company held to their promises and the tall grain boxes reared their castor tops against the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... of stealthy life and motion. What had seemed a fixed shadow suddenly detached itself from the deck and began to slip stanchion by stanchion along the bulwarks toward the companion-way. At the cabin-door it halted and crouched motionless. Then rising, it glided forward with the same staccato movement until opposite the slight elevation of the forehatch. Suddenly it darted to the hatch, unfastened and lifted it with a swift, familiar dexterity, and disappeared in the opening. But as the moon shone upon its vanishing face, it ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... mines. The faint light showed him only a blurred and indistinct landscape; and in the crisp stillness the leather of his saddle creaked a monotonous accompaniment to the horse's hoofs, which struck the road with clean-cut staccato sharpness. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... guns could be seen firing, and shells bursting on high crests. Heavy shells, learned later to be those from the Goeben in the Dardanelles Channel, shrieked occasionally out of the unknown, and sent up great geysers of water near a four-funnelled cruiser to the right. A steady staccato of rifle fire floated faintly ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... quiet in the front room of the little cottage that squatted in the black shadow below Judge Maynard's huge house on the hill. No sound broke the heavy silence save the staccato clip-clip of the long shears in the fingers of the girl who was leaning almost breathlessly over the work spread out on the table beneath the feeble glow of the single oil-lamp, unless the faint, monotonous murmur which came in an endless sing-song from the lips of the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... man on horseback was seen pushing his way through the crowd. He rode directly up to the jail door, on which he rapped thrice with the handle of his riding whip. Against the silence these taps, but gently delivered, sounded sharp and staccato. After a moment the wicket opened. The rider, without dismounting, handed through it a note; then, with a superb display of the old-fashioned horsemanship, backed his horse half the length of the square where he, too, came ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... she was astonished at the wishful, hungry look in the blue eyes before her. "Yes, a little," she said lightly; "for I hate the very word. But, if it must be spoken, it should always be short and staccato. Instead, he sat here, and we talked about Fate and wounds and all sorts of direful things." She shook herself and shivered slightly. Then she sat down in the chair which Weldon had just left vacant. "It is bad manners to have nerves, Captain Frazer. Forgive me first, and ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... sick! pretty!" ejaculated Aunt Dora, staccato. "What about their souls, Lemuel Lockwood? What about the development of their minds? Have you done aught to make them stern and uncompromising when they meet the world on an equal footing—as all women shall in the time to come? Are you preparing them for ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Sanderson since I was born," the unseen lips informed him truculently, even as the unseen fingers continued their fiercely staccato typing. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... direct suggestion and induction. They may become what they signify. Nor is this power confined to words alone; on its possession by the phrase, sentence, or verse rests the whole theory of style. The short, sharp staccato, the bellowing turbulent, the swimming melodious circling sentence ARE truly what they mean, in their form as in the objective sense of their words. The sound-values of rhythm and pace have been in other chapters fully dwelt upon; ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... board, reading instruments and keying controls. So he was back on the job. Mannion sat, head bent, monitoring his recorder. The room was filled with the keening staccato of the ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... wings stand out clearly. You think of him as some sort of big bug. Then you hear the rapid tut-tut-tut of his machine gun. The man that dived ahead of you becomes mixed up with the topmost German. He is so close it looks as if he had hit the enemy machine. You hear the staccato barking of his mitrailleuse and see him pass from under ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... mountain-side became raging, foaming torrents. Suddenly the winds changed, a chilling blast swept across the plateau, and to the rush of the wind, the roar of the thunder, and the crash of falling timber was added the sharp staccato of swiftly ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... emphasized each of his staccato sentences by stamping a puny foot on the floor. His gloating over Jim's death was ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... the young man,—fine buoyant, pungent German spirit, roadways for it very bad, and universal rain-torrents falling, yet with coruscations from a higher quarter;—and you can forget, if need be, the "Literature" of this young Majesty, as you would a staccato on the flute by him! In after months, on new occasion rising, "there was no end to his gibings and bitter pleasantries on the ridiculous reception Broglio had given him at Strasburg," says Valori, [Memoires, i. 88.]—of which this ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Staccato! Staccato! Leggier agitato! In and out does the melody twist— Unique proposition Is this composition. (Alas! for the player who hasn't the wrist!) Now in the dominant Theme ringing prominent, Bass still repeating its one monotone, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... the thicket of currant bushes, and, from the remarks which Stanley barked out in yelping staccato, he punctured that gentleman's person in several places with the fine shot of which the charge consisted. He would have fired again if the recoil had not thrown him quite off his balance, and it is possible that someone would have been killed as a result. For Stanley began firing with murderous intent, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... organ at Birkenhead, England, it had been the custom to obtain or regulate the pressure of wind supplied to the pipes by means of loading the bellows with weights. Owing to its inertia, no heavy bellows weight can be set into motion rapidly. When, therefore, a staccato chord was struck on one of these earlier organs, with all its stops drawn, little or no response was obtained from the pipes, because the wind-chest was instantly exhausted and no time was allowed for the inert bellows ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... another longer pause, and then, above the confusion of soft whisperings, the voice of the old man rose in sharp staccato; "My sister, Catherine Coates." His tone hardened, became obdurate, final. "But, I must see ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... Pell asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the satchel ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... remove our shoes and put on sandals. Instead of sitting down on chairs we took any position we could on the floor mats that were placed at our disposal. At the first sound from the throat of a famous singer in a staccato "E-E-E-E," we all sprang to our feet thinking she was possibly going into some sort of a fit. With a twang on the strings of the flattened out little instrument, we subsided, concluding that the concert had begun. Then when the others joined in, the ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... despair. Cameron needed no interpreter. He knew the singer was telling the pathetic story of the passing of the day of the Indian's glory and the advent of the day of his humiliation. With sharp rising inflections, with staccato phrasing and with fierce passionate intonation, the Sioux wrung the hearts of his hearers. Again Cameron glanced at the half-breed at his side and again he was startled to note the transformation in his face. Where there had been ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... Andy; and the whole orchestra, except the first violin of the leader, burst into a boisterous rendering of a popular street song, in which Just sawed forth the leading part, while the others kept up a rattling staccato accompaniment. Evelyn and Lucy became breathless with laughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Birch, who had just slipped into the room, joined in ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... individual incidents, it may be said in general that the dramatic way of treating them is the crisp and staccato, as opposed to the smooth or legato, method. It may be thought a point of inferiority in dramatic art that it should deal so largely in shocks to the nerves, and should appeal by preference, wherever ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... us they are too often unwisely bracketed. The style of the painter has been judged as analogous to the novelist's; yet, apart from a preference for the same subjects for the "modernity" of Paris, there is not much in Degas that recalls Goncourt's staccato, febrile, sparkling, "decomposed", impressionistic prose. Both men are brilliant, though not in the same way. Pyrotechnics are abhorrent to Degas. He has the serenity, sobriety, and impersonality of the great classic painters. He ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... translucent in the mass, were the bare shoulders of women; and from far off came the plaintive whine of an orchestra, a pulsing sense rather than a living sound, of music, pointed here and there by the staccato cry of a flute. A zephyr, perfumed with the clean, fresh odor of lilacs, stirred the draperies of the archway which led into the conservatory and rustled the bending branches of ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... see!" exclaimed Mr. Day in staccato fashion, and evidently very much relieved. "Mrs. Watkins is looking ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... A little staccato cry of pain; a cry which seemed to spring into life from a tortured heart, broke from her lips. Aynesworth heard it, and, at that moment, he hated his employer. Wingrave paused for a moment politely, and ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... But there is another verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,—lyric poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the "Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp ending in a lengthened ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... thought was abruptly upset by James Polder's familiar, staccato utterance. The precipitant young man! It stamped out all Howat Penny's humorous condescension; his sensitive ear was conscious of a note, almost, of desperation. He avoided looking at Mariana. Damn it, the thing unexpectedly ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?" "'Taint ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... and she now came forward with a smile that extended her mouth from ear to ear, and in a gushing manner said, in staccato sentences: ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... largo, larghetto, andante, andantino^; alla capella [It]; maestoso^, moderato; allegro, allegretto; spiritoso^, vivace^, veloce^; presto, prestissimo^; con brio; capriccioso^; scherzo, scherzando^; legato, staccato, crescendo, diminuendo, rallentando^, affettuoso^; obbligato; pizzicato; desto^. Phr. in notes by distance made more sweet [Collins]; like the faint exquisite music of a dream [Moore]; music arose with ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... at the speed that they were making, with their own horses breathing heavily, O'Rourke's especially; the guns thundering along behind them and the advance-guard clattering in front, and their attention distracted every other minute by the noise of volleys on ahead and the occasional staccato rattle of independent firing. The whole sky was now alight with the reflection of the burning barracks and they could see the ragged outlines of the cracking walls silhouetted against the blazing red within. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... said Dr. Knowles in his most staccato manner. "Don't keep her an hour longer here than necessary. In her run-down state she would be just the sort of person to go down with fever. The sooner she is away from ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... rather thinks aloud looking into space. HETTY, however, looks at HARRIET, talks intently and shadows her continually. The same is true of MARGARET and MAGGIE. The voices of the cultured women are affected and lingering, the voices of the primitive impulsive and more or less staccato. When the curtain rises HARRIET is seated right of tea table, busying herself ...
— Washington Square Plays - Volume XX, The Drama League Series of Plays • Various
... corner of the same block. There was quite an excitement here when we came in. Two men and two girls were playing on native instruments—one of the men on a sort of fiddle, and the other on a rude guitar; the girls, one striking, in sharp staccato fashion, a wooden perforated bowl inverted on a standard or post, and the other a kind of cymbal; they were singing in the same shrill, monotonous way we had heard before. We counted eight girls here. There was a piece of unpainted tin or zinc, about eight by twelve inches, set upon the table ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... appeared at the door of the studio, and made staccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... Her staccato warning deflected his mind from the course toward which it might have turned. He held up his head, listening. The slap of footsteps on a board walk could be plainly heard. A voice lifted itself in question into the night. The door of Dolan's opened and let ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... on the deck, where three dark-bearded figures, eagerly chattering together, in a strange staccato tongue looked over the side into Chelkash's boat. The fourth clad in a long gown, went up to him and pressed his hand without speaking, then ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... is one of our greatest short stories. In the other tales that go to make up the volume are wild, exotic glimpses of Latin-America. I doubt whether the color and spirit of that region have been better rendered than in Stephen Crane's curious, distorted, staccato sentences. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... modified form of singing: the principal difference being in the fact that in singing the vowel sounds are prolonged and the intervals are short, whereas in speech the words are uttered in what may be called "staccato" tones, the vowels not being specially prolonged and the intervals between the words being more distinct. The fact that in singing we have a larger range of tones does not properly distinguish it from ordinary speech. ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... savage in sharp, staccato phrases, but Garry got no meaning from the words. There was a quick interchange between them; vehement protest and shaking of his poised spear on the part of Horab. Luhra added a word or two, and she lowered her weapon as ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... and the rise and fall of the sentence, and yet how varied the rhythm and how nervous the phrases; and then turn to a page of Macaulay, and wince under its stamping emphasis, its over-coloured tropes, its exaggerated expressions, its unlovely staccato. Southey's History of the Peninsular War is now dead, but if any of my readers has a copy on his highest shelves, I would venture to ask him to take down the third volume, and read the concluding pages, of which Coleridge used ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... I," he said, in his usual swift, staccato manner, "because we've agreed that you are the best man in the Service to handle the ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... invoked, and, under cover of doing honor to an immortal composer, a chorus of young people assemble for periodical flirtation. On the whole, it is wise not to attempt too much. Miss Quaver, with her staccato notes and semi-professional minauderies, is not exactly a queen of song. Nor does it give one any exquisite delight to hear Sir Raucisonous Trombone give tongue in a French romance. The talented band of the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... stillness. It grew steadily louder, was lost in the roar of the river, and rose more distinct again, while the girl, who realized that a man was riding up the valley, wondered with unusual curiosity what news he would bring. She also grew impatient, for that staccato drumming seemed to jar upon the harmonies of the evening, and she walked to the balustrade when the sound swelled into a thudding beat of hoofs. The man was crossing the oatfield at a gallop now. Then the sound rose muffled ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... about in his chair like a tiger. His hand dropped to his pocket, so swiftly that my eyes did not follow it. And as it dropped, a single staccato shot split the darkness of the room. The scientist ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... will be possible for students of it to imagine in detail the salient features of the art of Coquelin. It will be evident to them that the actor made love luringly and died effectively, that he was capable of lyric reading and staccato gasconade, that he had a burly humor and that touch of sentiment that trembles into tears. Similarly we know to-day, from the fact that Shakespeare played the Ghost in Hamlet, that he must have had a voice that was full and resonant ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... Nesbit was discoursing to Mrs. Nesbit, who was sewing and paid little heed to his animadversions; it was a soliloquy rather than a conversation—a soliloquy accompanied by an obligate of general mental disagreement from the wife of his bosom, who expressed herself in sniffs and snorts and scornful staccato interjections as the soliloquy ran on. Here are a few bars of it ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... ladies turned into the cloak-room to remove their wraps. The air of vivacity pervading the place, or possibly it was her daughter's staccato liveliness, entered the blood of Mrs. Heth: she was imperious with the ladies' maid who assisted with the unwrapping. Carlisle, strolling about as she unbuttoned her gloves, came to the elaborate screen which sheltered the doorway and glanced out. Directly ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... so little away beyond his admiration. The song faded, silence fell, then a door opened and closed. Vassie's voice was raised, this time in welcome. He guessed the visitor to be Phoebe from the fluttered feminine quality of the sounds below—staccato sentences whose words he could not catch, but whose very rhythm, broken and eager, betrayed them. A moment later, and a ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... they have the Gregorian music at their finger ends, and pronounce the Latin so correctly that I could follow the meaning as they sang. The pronunciation was odd and nasal, the singing hurried and staccato. "In saecula saeculo-hohorum," they went, with a vigorous aspirate to every additional syllable. I have never seen faces more vividly lit up with joy than the faces of these Indian singers. It was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dance a hornpipe, whistling his own music in sharp staccato notes, as from a piccolo. He could likewise "present arms" with a little straw musket which I had provided for him; besides feigning to be dead, and allowing you to take him up by the legs, his head hanging down, apparently lifeless, ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... more than an hour, though in fact it was but the ten minutes agreed on with Bohannan, off behind them toward the coast a sudden staccato popping of revolvers began to puncture the night. Up and down the Legionaries' trench it ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... follow. I shall be all right after a cup of tea." And Sally, after an intricate movement with a safety-pin, an openwork lace cuff that has lost a button, and a white wrist, goes down three accelerandos of stair-lengths, with landing pauses, and ends with a dining-room door staccato. But she isn't long gone, for in two minutes the door reopens, and she comes upstairs as fast, nearly, as she went down. In her hand she carries, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... seemed to heed her, already he had risen and was pacing restlessly about the room, peering out the windows, addressing staccato questions in French to Piqueur. He pulled the shabby silken rope at the doorway and a bell trilled ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of the folds or membranous valves the mouths of the bronchial tubes may be opened widely or almost closed, and in this way, to quote from Mr. Thompson, "the bird is enabled to measure in the nicest manner the amount of air thrown from the lungs into the trachea." In producing a staccato, for example, the valves flop up and down, doling out the air at the proper intervals and in precisely ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Ship. One of their enemies had lost his rifle and need not be counted. Another had fled from flames and might be ignored for some moments, anyhow. But a blast-bolt struck the ship's metal hull only feet from Calhoun, and he whipped around to the other side and let loose a staccato of fire which emptied the ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... to the door, sniffing eagerly. A muffled sound of voices became audible, and Irvin, following a moment of hesitation, crossed and opened the door. The dog ran out, yapping in his irritating staccato fashion, and an expression of hope faded from Irvin's face as he saw a tall fair girl standing in the hallway talking to Hinkes, the butler. She wore soiled Burberry, high-legged tan boots, and a peaked cap of distinctly military appearance. Irvin would have retired again, but ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... the strong staccato panting of an invisible aeroplane circles in wide descending coils and fills infinity. In front, to right and left, everywhere, thunderclaps roll with great glimpses of short-lived light in the ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... nearer down the long slope of the hill, and the beat of hoofs that grew steadily louder in a sharp staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did not know why, but she thought it ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... shrill, Screaming in provocative assertion, Or out of the black and clotted gutters, Piping in silvery thin Sweet staccato Of children's laughter, ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... in the desert valley below the dam. Two hours after they left the dam, Bill drew up before the Ames door with a rattle and a series of staccato explosions that would have done credit to ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... soon as they started up the stairs. Since then the little man had spoken not one word. Of the unsteadiness, the blinking, the rocking to and fro, nothing remained. He had marched to his place with a formal precision. There was the same manner, a correctness exact and staccato, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... Sol! Do!" he sang in staccato notes, nodding the sparse gray foretop jerkily with each note as bass, alto, tenor, soprano took up their pitch. Thereupon he seized the pointer, a long switch kept conveniently near in the corner, and indicated the first ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... seven, three staccato rings would come at the front-door bell. At her sewing or what not, Mrs. Becker would glance ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... uproar of the crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed through, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... contrived to become possessed of—and glared at his comrades through that pair of big-rimmed spectacles which so completely altered his appearance. Then he talked to them—cross-questioned his friends in the gruff, staccato accents one might have expected from such an individual as he ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... exercises are insufficient because the throatiness of tone is partly brought about by a stiffening of the throat in general. The oo-o-ah must then be preceded by staccato exercises upon the syllable Koo, which have the effect not only of throwing the tone forward, but also of making the throat supple. Make the experiment before a mirror and you will ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... his delight sufficiently when he was out of the crate. He capered about them, licking the girl's shoes, tumbling down in his haste and weakness, and uttering his funny little bark in excited staccato. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... were far too far away. Then as she went on again, she discovered whence the sound proceeded—from a little wooden hut facing the sea, which had probably been erected there as a shelter for the coastguardsmen. As she drew nearer, she recognised the staccato twanging of a guitar; so she made sure this was Singing Sal. She drew nearer still—her footsteps unheard on the smooth turf—and then she discovered that Sal was singing away to herself, not for amusement, as was her wont, but for practice. There were continual repetitions. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very unlike those with which she ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... not matter who, was to be ripped and trampled therefore. He was bearing down on them from the left, with his wicked little eye red, his great horn down and his tail like a jury-mast behind him. For a minute Ugh-lomi was minded to slip off and dodge, and then behold! the staccato of the hoofs grew swifter, and the rhinoceros and his stumpy hurrying little legs seemed to slide out at the back corner of Ugh-lomi's eye. In two minutes they were through the bushes of May, and out in the open, going ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... apparently became a contest as to which could drown the other's instrument, and the snapping time grew faster, until the dancers gasped, and men with long boots encouraged them with cries and stamped a staccato accompaniment upon the benches or on the floor. It was savage, rasping music, but one player infused into it the ebullient verve of France, and the other was from the misty land where the fiddler learns the witchery of the clanging reel and the swing ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... have just come from the excellent violinist Slavik. With the exception of Paganini, I never heard a violin-player like him. Ninety-six staccato notes in one bow! It is almost incredible! When I heard him I felt inclined to return to my lodgings and sketch variations on an Adagio [which they had previously agreed to take for their ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... am Jocelyn Garston and not Ursula Garston,' I said, with rapid staccato. 'Poor Ursula! I am fond of her, but I would not change places with her for the world. She has known such a lot of trouble in her life, more than most girls, I believe; she has lost her lovely home,—such ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... inharmonic drum, struck without rhythm by a hand gone lax. The singers no longer knew they sang. The border feast had lasted long. Keg after keg had been broached. The Indian drums were going. Came the sound of monotonous chants, broken with staccato yells as the border dance, two races still mingling, went on with aboriginal excesses on either side. On the slopes as dusk came twinkled countless tepee fires. Dogs barked mournfully a-distant. The heavy ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... he straightened up that the distant speck on the water was fast assuming the proportions of a motor-launch. He noticed too that the approaching craft was coming at a high rate of speed and was swerving shoreward. Tugging harder at the nets, he worked doggedly on, listening to the staccato bark of the speed-craft as Mascola drew close. They were hauling at the last string when ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton |
