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Tone   /toʊn/   Listen
Tone

noun
1.
The quality of a person's voice.  Synonym: tone of voice.  "He spoke in a nervous tone of voice"
2.
(linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages.
3.
(music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound).  Synonyms: quality, timber, timbre.  "The muffled tones of the broken bell summoned them to meet"
4.
The general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people.  Synonyms: feel, feeling, flavor, flavour, look, smell, spirit.  "A clergyman improved the tone of the meeting" , "It had the smell of treason"
5.
A quality of a given color that differs slightly from another color.  Synonyms: shade, tincture, tint.
6.
A notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound.  Synonyms: musical note, note.
7.
A steady sound without overtones.  Synonym: pure tone.
8.
The elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli.  Synonyms: tonicity, tonus.
9.
A musical interval of two semitones.  Synonyms: step, whole step, whole tone.
10.
The quality of something (an act or a piece of writing) that reveals the attitudes and presuppositions of the author.  "From the tone of her behavior I gathered that I had outstayed my welcome"



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"Tone" Quotes from Famous Books



... thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... man," madame says, in an indescribable tone. "You have not forced your bud into premature blossoming. There might be a decade between Laura ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... direction of a moral regeneration of Italian Society. It is, however, difficult to reconcile his theory with what we know of Italy in the days of the counter-reformation; while it may at the same time be doubted whether a tone of anaemic sentimentality is, in itself, preferable to one of cynical convention. It should be added that there is little regeneration of domestic love to be found in the partly pathetic and partly sordid ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... were altogether more appropriate than flattering.(5) Of course the regents agreed to be pacified; they refused nobody pardon, for there was nobody who was worth the trouble of making him an exception. That we may see how suddenly the tone in aristocratic circles changed after the resolutions of Luca became known, it is worth while to compare the pamphlets given forth by Cicero shortly before with the palinode which he caused to be issued to evince publicly his repentance and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... regret," says Coleridge, "that so many religious persons of the present day think it necessary to adopt a certain cant of manner and phraseology [and of tone of voice] as a token to each other [one another]! They improve this and that text, and they must do so and so in a ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... turnstile came up here and inquired what was the matter. His voice and tone of authority brought the sailor back to the position he occupied; he restrained himself, therefore, and spoke no more. Already Noy feared that his passion might have raised suspicions, and now, turning and picking up his catalogue, he made hasty departure ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... is the old shepherd's tone; though kindly, it is quite conformable to his estate ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... Renshaw, quickly. "Do let me return with you, and share with you and your father the trouble I have brought upon you. Do not," he added in a lower tone, "deprive me of the only chance of expiating my offense, of making myself ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... lady blushed, or flushed. "May I ask how you know this to be so, if it is so?" she asked, and there was the sharpness of the wasp in her tone, as ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... had several talks about the stuff after that. "The New Accelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident on each occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiological results its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; at others he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how the preparation ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... evidence with remarkable clearness, although he was more than eighty years of age, Lord Mansfield examined him as to his habitual mode of living, and found he had been through life an early riser and a singularly temperate man. "Ay," remarked the Chief Justice, in a tone of approval, "I have always found that without temperance and early habits longevity is never attained." The next witness, the elder brother of this model of temperance, was then called, and he almost surpassed his brother as an intelligent and clear-headed utterer of evidence. "I suppose," ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... lovely speech, where every tone was fashioned By generations of emotion high and sweet, Of thought and deed and bearing lofty and impassioned; A land of golden calm, grave forms, and ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman

... go to—nobody knows where, down into the under world—great, gaping, blue-green mouths of Hades; and C. must needs jump across them, and climb down into them, to the mingled delight and apprehension of the guide, who, after conscientiously shouting out a reproof, would say to me, in a lower tone, "Ah, he's the man to climb Mont Blanc; he ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... tone! The poor dear was in bed all Tuesday, but she took advantage of her rest to ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... do no good!" Then in still lower tone to her own self: "I do no good, I only long for rest. O weary me! Would I might never wake! Yet dare I sleep? It means calamity To those whom I in vain have tried to serve. Resist I cannot! Yea, the time has come! I feel the awful spell upon mine eyes,— ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel

... to him and politely said that he had a wager with a friend that he was an American. "Not by a d——d sight," replied the Englishman. Morrow apologized for the intrusion, but the gentleman changed his tone and said that his abrupt answer was caused by a letter he had lately received from a nephew of his whom he had sent to America to make his fortune. His nephew had written him now that the rebels were put down, the next thing to do would be to put down "old England." ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... oppressors. Whenever thefts, murders, or incendiarisms take place in Russia the press invariably attributes them to the Nihilists. There is an old proverb which says, 'Slander, slander; some result will always be obtained.' Judging from the tone of the press some result has been obtained. According to its statements the Nihilists are little better than wild beasts. We do not venture to assert that there are no bad men in our ranks, but are yours entirely free from them? The number of bad persons ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 12, December, 1880 • Various

... Monsieur Rene de Ronville," she presently added in a calmly advisory tone, "that you had better quit trying to say such foolish things to me, and just be my very good friend? If you don't, I do, which comes to the same thing. What's more, I won't be your partenaire at the dance unless you promise me on your word of honor that you ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... was saying these words in a sorrowful tone, Dhritarashtra, the son of Ambika, accomplished in speech, once more addressed him, saying.—'My knowledge of life and death is similar to thine. The truth is known to me as regards these. Man, however, in what concerns his own interests, is deprived of judgment. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the full immensity of Clithering's fatuousness until he uttered that mangled quotation from Macbeth in the tone of an old-fashioned tragedian. I believe the man actually revelled in harrowing emotion. It would not have surprised me to hear him assure me that the "multitudinous seas" would not wash out the blood-stains from his hands. He might very well have asked for "some sweet oblivious antidote." If he ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... have before had occasion to praise Captain Mahan's literary style, which is flexible, nervous, and sufficiently dignified to satisfy every reasonable demand. It is, moreover, full of energy, and marked by a felicitous choice of language, and its tone and qualities are sustained steadily ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... to desert their roosts in great flocks until at last but few lingered on the barren limbs. Charley was about to call his companions together and propose a return to camp when a sudden cry sent the blood tingling through his veins. It was Walter's voice, and its tone was that of fear and horror unutterable. Pausing a second to locate the direction of the sound, Charley bounded away for it at the top of his speed. As he passed a thick clump of trees the captain broke out from among them and lumbered on in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... something in his look and tone as he uttered these inoffensive words which took Game aback and even startled Telson. It was not at all like what fellows had been used to from Riddell, certainly very unlike the manner he was generally credited with. But neither Telson nor Game were ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... replaced the Saxon flag on the very spot where Harold had fallen; and, all around, the ground continued to get covered with dead and dying, fruitless victims of the passions of the combatants. Next day William went over the field of battle; and he was heard to say, in a tone of mingled triumph and sorrow, "Here is verily ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Although treated almost as one of the family, she ought not to have forgotten that she was a servant. What right had she to weep over Cyril's luggage? This question was put to her in Constance's tone. ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... a tone of sadness in his voice: "Our life is one of constant vigilance, and old and young are continually on the lookout for wolves. We have not suffered from them for three years, but they may appear suddenly at any moment when we think ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu

... may belong to his villa. Rustica is pronounced short, not according to our stress upon—"Usticae cubantis." It is more rational to think that we are wrong, than that the inhabitants of this secluded valley have changed their tone in this word. The addition of the consonant prefixed is nothing; yet it is necessary to be aware that Rustica may be a modern name which the peasants may have caught ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... great staring specs on, or I should have seen he hadn't a tail,' retorted Jawleyford, nettled at the tone in which Jack ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... different subjects, asking me first the place I was coming from and whither I was going. There was a chief of them sitting inside the tent, and engaged in reading a book. I inquired about his name and the book he was reading from, one of his Chelas, who answered me in rather a serious tone, saying that his name was Guru Koothum-pa, and the book he was reading was Rig Veda. Long before, I had been told by some Pundits of Bengal that the Tibetan Lamas were well-acquainted with the Rig Veda. This proved what they had told me. After a short time, when his reading ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... hours the wretched young man had had time to familiarize himself with the terrible idea of this accusation; and yet, uttered as it was in this formal, brief tone, it seemed to strike him with a horror which rendered him ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... chord that every woman's voice touches some time, no matter what her words may be. As Virginia spoke, Asher saw again the moonlight on the white pillars of the south veranda of the old Aydelot farmhouse, and his mother sitting in the shadows; and again he caught the tone of her ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... amidst all the execrable tricks wherein he delighted and wherein he was a master, he possessed the sacred spark. . . . A licentious scamp of a student, bred at some shop in the Cite or the Place Maubert, he has a tone which, at least as much as that of Regnier, has a savor of the places the author frequented. The beauties whom he celebrates—and I blush for him—are none else than la blanche Savetiere (the fair cobbleress), or la gente Saul cissiere, du coin (the pretty Sausage girl ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... down. After a pause he lifted his lashes towards her draggled skirt, and said in an easier, conversational tone, "Yes! I thought I knew that dress. I gave it to you for that walking scene ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... went through him at the tone of her voice; her face had that possessed look which he always dreaded. "What did ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... governed his argument. The flaneur, the poseur—if such he was—no longer appeared. He came close to the jurymen, leaned his hands upon the back of a chair—as it were, shut out the public, even the judge, from his circle of interest—and talked in a conversational tone. An air of confidence passed from him to the amazed yet easily captivated jury; the distance between them, so gaping during the last two days, closed suddenly up. The tension of the past estrangement, relaxing all at once, surprised the jury into an almost ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... hotel or camps are assured that there are no rattlesnakes, fleas, malaria, fogs, or poison oak. The character and tone of the place will also be recognized when it is known that saloons and gambling resorts are absolutely ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... minor prophets of the Old Testament, a contemporary of Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos; his prophecies are in the same strain as those of Isaiah, and numerous are the coincidences traceable between them; though a great sternness of temper and severity of tone appears in his prophecies, a deep tenderness of heart from time to time reveals itself, and a winning persuasiveness (chap. vi. 8); chap. vii. 8-20 has been quoted as one of the sweetest passages of prophetic writing; his prophecies predict the destruction ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... the same piece. Ives was also a revolutionary atonal composer, who created, essentially without precedent, many atonal works that not only pre-date those of Schoenberg, but are just as sophisticated, and arguably even more so, than those of the 12-tone serialist. ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... cheap wooden chairs for furniture. A giant Irishman was standing there, with shirt collar and vest unbuttoned, and no coat on. I put my hat on the table, and was about to say something, when the Irishman took the innings himself. And not with marked courtesy of tone: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... and has only recently become easily accessible: this was "Blanca de Borbn," a historical drama of the times of Peter the Cruel in five acts, in verse. The first two acts were written in Espronceda's early Classic manner; the last three, written at a later period, are Romantic in tone. The influence of "Macbeth" is apparent. "Blanca de Borbn" could never be a success on the stage. The verse, too, is not worthy of the author. Espronceda was too impetuous a writer to comply with the restrictions of dramatic technique. The dramatic passages in "El Estudiante ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... it that you heard yesterday?" he asked, without much change of tone. He had laid down the photograph, and had gone back, and was leaning by ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... tone of Oxley's journal from the start; the exceeding flatness of the country, the many ana-branches of the river, the low altitude of its banks, and the absence of any large tributary streams, above all, the dismal impression made by the ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... when he could not work off any superfluous steam in the garden, he had lately taken to flinging himself flat on the floor and kicking, if thwarted in any way. And Miss Bibby had vaguely recognized that this was due to his being deprived so long of the healthy moral tone of the presence of his mother ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... of labor. The class of well-bred young men who are ashamed to admit that they must earn their living, and who affect the company of gamesters and chicken-fighters, has some remnants left among us, but they find no aliment in the public sentiment, and hear no response in the public tone. Duelling is over; visiting one's relatives as a profession is done; thrift is no more a reproach, and even the reputation of being a miser is rather complimentary to a man. The worst chapters of humanity in America are those narrating the indigence of the old agricultural families ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... so," said Lash, and for once his easy, good-natured tone was not in evidence. His ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... frame and the silks, Mademoiselle,' the Duchess said, in a tone of such imperious command that the other felt an angry blush flame in her cheeks; but she walked quietly across the room and brought the frame to her Highness, who at once busied herself in matching the coloured silks ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... as they were walking thus—it was the evening of the fifteenth of October, and Crete was distant but two days' sail—Monte-Cristo tenderly took Haydee's hand in his and said to her in a tone of ineffable softness: ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... doubt, and this person was considering whether he might not acquire distinction by replying that such an office fell by custom to the lot of the more austere Maiden Blank, when the very inadequate reply, "Mark Lane with St. Mary's Axe," was received with applause and some observations in a half-tone regarding the ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... dim descent and three spacious landings to mark off. His instinct was all for mildness, but his feet were harsh on the floors, and, strangely, when he had in a couple of minutes become aware of this, it counted somehow for help. He couldn't have spoken, the tone of his voice would have scared him, and the common conceit or resource of "whistling in the dark" (whether literally or figuratively) have appeared basely vulgar; yet he liked none the less to hear himself ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... courteous tone she raised a pair of startled eyes. He was regarding her patiently, as ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... Good-Sense, because where you do not go yourself, you do not object to another's going, if he will. You are really liberal. You, Old Church, are of use, by keeping unforgot the effigies of old religion, and reviving the tone of pure Spenserian sentiment, which this time is apt to stifle in its childish haste. But you are very faulty in censuring and wishing to limit others by your own standard. You, Self-Poise, fill a priestly ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... the same vocabulary of adoration was applied by authors indifferently to patrons and patronesses. It is known that one series of Michael Angelo's impassioned sonnets was addressed to a young nobleman Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and another series to a noble patroness Vittoria Colonna, but the tone is the same in both, and internal evidence fails to enable the critic to distinguish between the two series. Only one English contemporary of Shakespeare published a long series of sonnets addressed to a man who does not prove on investigation ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... wifehood and motherhood may finish the business; but there is not one man in ten thousand of the writers aforesaid who would marry a vixen, trusting to the sanctifying influences of marriage to tone her down to sweetness. A thoughtful, gentle, pure, and elevated woman, who has been accustomed to stand face to face with the eternities, will see in her child a soul. If the circumstances of her life leave her leisure and adequate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... determined him to change his resolution; and he begged them to desist from so foolish an adventure. The prince received the disappointment with sorrowful submission and silent tears: Buckingham presumed to speak in an imperious tone, which he had ever experienced to be prevalent over his too easy master. He told the king, that nobody for the future would believe any thing he said, When he retracted so soon the promise so solemnly given; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... predecessors. A century of growing historic consciousness has not passed over us in vain; and if any generic distinction is to be found between our recent, often penetrating and beautiful, poetry of the English countryside and the Nature description of Wordsworth or of Ruskin, it is in the ground-tone of passion and memory that pervades it for England herself. Wordsworth wrote magnificently of England threatened with invasion, and magnificently of the Lake Country, Nature's beloved haunt. But the War sonnets and the Lake and mountain poetry come from distinct strains in his genius, which ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... spell as Jacob Settle spoke. There was something so far away in the tone of his voice—something so dreamy and mystic in the eyes that looked as if through me at some spirit beyond—something so lofty in his very diction and in such marked contrast to his workworn clothes and his poor surroundings that I wondered if ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... hard saying, variously interpreted. In any case, it is the somewhat clumsy effort of the Christian poet to tone down the heathenism of his ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous

... events we must bear in mind, while reading or thinking over Miss Porter's novels, that, in her day, even the exaggeration of enthusiasm was considered good tone and good taste. How this enthusiasm was fostered, not subdued, can be gathered by the author's ingenious preface to the, we believe, tenth edition of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... drawn into answering the persons I know least, whose wrath is the most menacing. My nearer friends (and none are more dear to me than yourself) suffer from my silence. I count with reason upon their indulgence. The tone of your excellent letters shows that I am right. You spoil me. Your letters continue to be always warm and affectionate. I receive few like them. Since two thirds of the letters addressed to me (partly copies of letters written to the king or the ministers) remain unanswered, I am ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... Army what it is, under the discipline and instruction of officers not more distinguished for their solid attainments, gallantry, and devotion to the public service than for unobtrusive bearing and high moral tone. The Army as organized must be the nucleus around which in every time of need the strength of your military power, the sure bulwark of your defense—a national militia—may be readily formed into a well-disciplined ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... everything he eats, for fear of Paris green," Pearl went on, speaking now in the loud official tone of the body-guard. "I have to stand between him and the howlin' mob thirstin' for ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... hall for a long time; the knights were awe-struck and could not speak. At last Sir Perceval rose in his seat and said in a low tone: ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford

... a state of mental alienation, it was not for me, nor for any person of common humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury. On the day of my departure, and again on my arrival at Kirkby (Jan. 16), I wrote to Lord Byron in a kind and cheerful tone, according to ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... speech; thus, speaking of two gentlemen, one a clergyman: "They seem good and kind and amiable men, and I have no doubt are conscientious in their capacity of slave holders; but to one who has lived outside this dreadful atmosphere, the whole tone of their discourse has a morally muffled sound which one must hear to be able to conceive." She observes that whenever she discusses slavery with people she meets, they waive the abstract right or wrong of the system. Now and then she gets a bit of entire frankness, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... sight was lame, and halted terribly; the second was somewhat better, but as we moved about, from one pupil to another, to ascertain, as far as possible, the individual accuracy of the class, we heard many voices, in a subdued tone, making a number of admirable guesses at their part, but the owners of which could not, by the utmost courtesy, be considered to be singing at sight. The basses missed many a "distance," the tenors were interrupted by the master, and worked, in the defective passages, separately ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... find real flesh and blood beneath the ermine of the judge. We will all now drop a subject that should never have been broached in a lady's presence. (He resumes his seat, and adds, in a businesslike tone) Is there anything further before we release ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw

... Even had Gordon and Danvers talked in a louder tone, Kenelm had been too absorbed in his own thoughts to have heard a word of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... came at once, supporting her head upon his breast, trying to comfort her; but she, in a tone of bitter lamentation, gazing at the crowd, who devoured her with all their eyes, cried, "Oh, sir, is not ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Quixote had recovered from his swoon; and in the same tone of voice in which he had called to his squire the day before when he lay stretched "in the vale of the stakes," he began calling to him now, "Sancho, my friend, art thou asleep? sleepest ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... in a tone in which was the ring of indomitable courage. "Stop! I don't want to de- prive you of your ration; but I suppose you will not require to eat the whole of ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... birds with one stone, addressing two miseries,—a working life brought to despair, a suffering soul without a compass, the victim of what Panurge's sheep call progress, and what, in France, is called equality. The words, simple in themselves, became sublime from the tone of him who said them, in a voice that possesses a spell. Are there not, in fact, some calm and tender voices that produce upon us the same effect as a ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... baskets filled with flasks of milk, are crossing the streets in all directions. A little later the bell of the small chapel opposite to my window rings furiously for a quarter of an hour, and then I hear mass chanted in a deep strong nasal tone. As the day advances, the English, in white hats and white pantaloons, come out of their lodgings, accompanied sometimes by their hale and square-built spouses, and saunter stiffly along the Arno, or take their way to the public galleries and museums. Their massive, clean, and brightly-polished carriages ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... the deuce you have!" said Aiken. His tone was now one of respect, and he regarded me with marked interest. He was not a gentleman, but he was sharp-witted enough to recognize one in me, and my words and bearing had impressed him. Still his ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... to go a little way east with this route to buy goats, but Chitapangwa got very angry, saying, I came only to show my things, and would buy nothing: he then altered his tone, and requested me to take the cow first presented and eat it, and as we were all much in need I took it. We were to give only what we liked in addition; but this was a snare, and when I gave two more cloths ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... can answer better than I," said Dr. Harrison, whose eye also turned that way, and whose tone changed somewhat in spite of himself. "There are none there that could not answer any question ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... see that the breeze lifts it; just now it looked like heavy linen held out by pins. Observe that the satiny lustre I am putting on the bosom gives it the plump suppleness of the flesh of a young girl. See how this tone of mingled reddish-brown and ochre warms up the cold grayness of that large shadow where the blood seemed to stagnate rather than flow. Young man, young man! what I am showing you now no other master in the world can teach you. Mabuse alone knew the secret of ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac

... His tone of mentor nettled her, his attitude seemed to her priggish and dictatorial, and as the sun disappearing behind a sudden cloud, so her childish merriment quickly gave place to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... familiar tone to which the friends were accustomed from their university days. It was infinitely refreshing to both to hear it again. No conventions of any sort divided them. Their relations were free of everything that hampers ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... but there was good company and an interesting library. I had the pleasure of making some interesting acquaintances, and the missionaries gave me much valuable information about the natives and their customs. When the tone of the conversation in the evening threatened to become too serious, our jovial Captain S. speedily improved matters by his grotesquely comical sallies. A strenuous life was that of the missionary who was responsible for ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... with Austria broke out, and the poet seized the long-coveted opportunity to return to Italy, whither he went as the correspondent of a French newspaper. On the conclusion of peace at Villafranca, this journal changed its tone, and being no longer in sympathy with Dall' Ongaro's opinions, he left it. Baron Ricasoli, to induce him to make Tuscany his home, instituted a chair of comparative dramatic literature in connection with the University ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells

... aspect of so much beauty, so much majesty, and so great a reverse of fortune. The king in the intervals of calm and silence frequently spoke to him, and discoursed of the events of the day. Barnave replied, with the tone of a man devoted to liberty, but faithful still to the throne; and who in his plans of regeneration, never separated the nation from the throne. Full of attention to the queen, Madame Elizabeth, and the royal children, he strove by every means in his power to hide from them the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... stroked his goatee in a meditative way, reached over my chair, picked up his half-emptied wine-glass, sipped its contents absent-mindedly and said in an apologetic tone: ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Talk ran on, all the while they were undressing, upon all manner of trifles. When they were laid down, however, and Dolly was just rejoicing to be quiet and think, Christina began to speak in a different tone. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... poisoned bowl, and that the mysterious death of his nephew was only hindered by the thought of the resentment which it would arouse amongst the Numidian chiefs and their dependents. Certainly the mission with which Jugurtha was soon credited—the mission which was perhaps to alter the whole tone of his mind and to concentrate its energies on an unlawful end—was one which any Numidian king might have destined for the most favoured of his sons. Jugurtha was to be sent to Numantia to lead the Numidian auxiliaries of horse and foot, to be a member of the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... of days at the Escorial, with nothing of Manuela to interfere, served Manvers to recover his tone. Before he was in the capital he was again that good and happy traveller, to whom all things come well in their seasons, to whom the seasons of all things are the seasons at which they come. He liked the bustle and flaunt of Madrid, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... feeling that it would have been very cheerful if we had joined in,' said Mrs. Garland, in a hankering tone. 'I was rather too nice in listening to you and not going. The parson never calls upon us except in his spiritual capacity. Old Derriman is hardly genteel; and there's nobody left to speak to. Lonely people must accept what ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... The whole tone of the Hypotyposes, with the constant references to the Stoics as living present opponents, shows that these lectures must have been delivered in one of the centres of Stoicism. As Alexandria and Athens are out of the question, all ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... to accept the change to a lighter tone. "I understand this, Io; that you have begun unaccountably to mistrust me. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... to the back of the curtain. The Doctor said to me, in a tone I had never heard before. "Be brave, my boy: I pledge you my word as a gentleman that you shall succeed. Come to this light." Then he seemed to be brushing my hair back with a few soft finger-touches, and I remembered no more until I found myself on the rostrum listening ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... a Catholic!" she cried in a hollow, vehement tone, that would have earned her the mercy of ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... back on my pillow, happy with a great relief, I thought I heard two laughs in the darkness, one in a tone of silver from beneath me and one of the sound of a choke from opposite me where was reposed that ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... and rejected, but he was now dead; his biography a well-written one was in all the circulating libraries, and even those who were far from agreeing with his political views, had learned something of the nobility of his character. So there was both surprise and envy in Lady Caroline's tone; she ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... very grave. "However, the lung is getting freer," he said, in an encouraging tone. "But it is absolutely necessary that she should have rest. And send her to me once a week. Let her come and see me. And let her take a pleasant day for it,—a ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... is confronted with similar situations which reveal to him the necessity of his presence as a superintending pastor and the urgent need of his wisdom to direct the affairs of the church, his firmness to put an end to many impossible situations, and his inspiration to tone up and give backbone to pastors and other agents connected with him. It should not be forgotten that, while the infant community connected with each mission has many admirable traits of piety and of character, it is still the victim of great weakness ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... meanwhile the cold blue light of the moon grew brighter. Light, half-transparent shadows fell in bands upon the ground. The painter began by degrees to glance up at the sky, flushed with a transparent light; and at the same moment from his mouth fell the words, "What a delicate tone! What a nuisance! Deuce take it!" Re-adjusting the portrait, which kept slipping from under his arm, he ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... everywhere—attractive and delightful, it must be granted, but, except in certain single figures, never significant. Let us glance a moment at his famous frescoes in Santa Maria Novella. To begin with, they are so undecorative that, in spite of the tone and surface imparted to them by four centuries, they still suggest so many tableaux vivants pushed into the wall side by side, and in tiers. Then the compositions are as overfilled as the sheets of an illustrated newspaper—witness the "Massacre of the Innocents," a scene of such ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson

... determined to make a piano which would yield the fullest, richest volume of melody with the least exertion to the player, and one which would withstand atmospheric changes and preserve its purity and truthfulness of tone. And he strove patiently and ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... very different from the growl with which the Chouans had answered their leader, greeted these words. The young man's face grew darker; he took the young lady aside and said in the annoyed tone of a well-bred man, "Will those gentlemen be at La Vivetiere ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... him better than he read himself; and by His answer lets us see that the tone of mind into which we are all tempted to drop, and which is the characteristic natural tendency of some of us, that of being hindered from doing the plain thing that lies before us, because something else crops ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... upon itself, what an artificial light is constructed and broken over the chosen situation; on how fine a needle's point that little world of passion is balanced! Yet, in spite of this intricacy, the poem has the clear ring of a central motive. We receive from it the impression of one imaginative tone, of a single ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... a communistic vein during those early centuries when community of property still prevailed, but its theft was assuming larger proportions. The Syllabus and the encyclicals of the nineteenth century have lost all recollection of this tone, and even the Roman Popes have been compelled to become subjects of capitalist society, and now pose as its zealous defenders ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... raise A minister to her Maker's praise! Not for a meaner use ascend Her columns or her arches bend; Nor of a theme less solemn tells The mighty surge that ebbs and swells, And still between each awful pause, >From the high vault an answer draws, In varied tone, prolonged and high, That mocks the organ's melody; Nor doth its entrance front in vain To old Iona's holy fane, That Nature's voice might seem to say, Well hast thou done, frail child of clay, Thy humble powers that stately shrine Tasked high and ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... remained quietly indifferent as long as the meal lasted; then he rose, peeped cautiously into the outer apartment, resumed his seat, and spoke in a low tone,— ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... unquestionably the best. Kolimbota repeated to Nyamoana's talker what I had said to him. He delivered it all verbatim to her husband, who repeated it again to her. It was thus all rehearsed four times over, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the whole party of auditors. The response came back by the same roundabout route, beginning at the lady to her ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... without; and meanwhile the young King began to betray symptoms of that suspicious and saturnine temper by which he was afterwards so unhappily distinguished. On one occasion when all the efforts of Pere Cotton, his confessor, had failed to overcome his gloom and reserve, the priest inquired in a tone of interest the nature of the annoyance by which he was thus oppressed. "I shall not tell you," was the resolute reply; "for you will immediately write to ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... such thing's reach our firesides, and we coolly censure them as wrong, impolitic, needlessly severe, and dangerous to the crews of other vessels. How different is our tone when we read the highly-wrought description of the massacre of the crew of the Hobomak by the Feejees; how we sympathize for the unhappy victims, and with what horror do we regard the diabolical heathens, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville



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