"Loudness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux(1) standard has something the effect of a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... brought round the house; heard plainly the jingle of the bits and a sneeze or two. This had been followed by long interminable talking, muffled and indistinguishable, that came up to him from some unknown direction. Voices changed curiously in loudness and articulation as the ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... be quite unaware that all Brownsville was waiting, breathless, for his destruction. Behind the bar stood O'Brien, pale under his bristles, and his eyes never leaving the slender figure at the end of his room; but seeing Buck he called with sudden loudness: "Come in, stranger. Come in and have one on the house. There ain't nothing but silence around this place and it's ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... to rise again. This blew the snow down from the mountain side, and occasionally the landscape was all but blotted out thereby. They struggled along as best they could, the driver cracking his whip with the loudness of a pistol. They passed around one edge of the mountain, only to view with consternation a still more dangerous ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... I had done eating, we proceeded to inspect the lower floor. Window by window we tried the different supports, now and then making an inconsiderable change; and the strokes of the hammer sounded with startling loudness through the house. I proposed, I remember, to make loop-holes; but he told me they were already made in the windows of the upper story. It was an anxious business this inspection, and left me down-hearted. There were two doors and five windows to protect, and, counting Clara, only ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be seen that upon Helmholtz's plan the tuning forks themselves produce tones of uniform intensity, the loudness being varied by an external reinforcement; but it struck me that the same results would be obtained, and in a much more perfect manner, by causing the tuning forks themselves to vibrate with different degrees of amplitude. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... another the secret smile, because of some little imperfections of manner. It is a type which has grown more and more familiar to us, yet never less strange: the man in costly but severe costume, big, with a necessary great waistcoat, not noticing the loudness of his own voice; as ignorant of the thousand tiny things which we observe and feel as he would be careless of them (except for his wife) if he knew. We laugh at him, sometimes even to his face, and he does ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... which leads either to the doing of great things or to the attainment of sublime character. The dangers of Hebraism lay in excess of absorption, in a proneness to fanaticism, in an obstinacy which might become rabidness, in a certain misplaced loudness and disregard of dignity. The dangers of Hellenism lay in proneness to sacrifice character to talent, and deeds to thought. Hebraism tended towards asceticism and bigotry; Hellenism towards indifference and self-indulgence. The narrow Puritans of the seventeenth century revealed some of the ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... of ordnance bore the arms of the several city companies of Fishmongers, Vintners and Merchant Taylors. One gun, the gift of the first-mentioned company, acquired the name of Roaring Meg from the loudness ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... interior of the house, he left me to myself. Presently I heard the jar of iron from the far end of the building; and this was followed by the same throbbing noise that had startled me in the valley, but now so near at hand as to be menacing by loudness, and even to shake the house with every recurrence of the stroke. I had scarce time to master my alarm when the doctor returned, and almost in the same moment my mother appeared upon the threshold. But how am I to describe to you the peace and ravishment of that face? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will not take more of the discourse than falls to his share; nor in this will he shew any violent impetuosity of temper, or exert any loudness of voice, even in arguing; for the information of the company, and the conviction of his antagonist, are to be his apparent motives; not the indulgence of his own pride, or an ambitious desire of victory; which latter, if a wise man should entertain, he will be sure to conceal ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... lost Mrs Belfield's next answer, and another speech or two from Mr Delvile, to whose own passion and loudness was owing Belfield's entering his room unheard: but the next voice that called their attention was that of Mr Hobson, who just then walked ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... were appalled by the view of billows which mount to the very skies—of huge volumes of water, dashing down the dreadful precipice into a vast basin, which seemed large enough to be the tomb of the giant Chappewee; and their ears were saluted with sounds, whose loudness and violence were a thousand times beyond those of the tempest, or the thunder, or the earthquake. Onward they groped their desperate way beyond the fiercest fall, until all at once they came to a dreadful cavern shrouded in ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Forbes cleared her throat with desperate loudness and tugged at her son's shirt sleeve with an energy which caused him ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... 'fear is but the betraying of the succors which reason offereth,' and that which roused him to further exertion, would have sealed the fate of almost any other human being. A sudden short cracking peal of thunder burst in stunning loudness just over his head, and the forked and flashing lightning at brief intervals threw its vivid fires around him. This, too, in its turn passed away, and left the sea once more calm and unruffled: the moon (nearly full) again threw a more brilliant light upon the waters, which the storm ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... in the seat of sensation in the brain called the sensorium that the various auditory impulses received from different parts of the inner ear are fused into one, and interpreted as sounds. It is the extent of the vibrations that determines the loudness of the sound; the number of them ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... began talking to Freda; he was so kind and so natural even in his loudness, that Freda felt as if she would rather trust him with every secret of her heart, than the polished worldling who ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... nature, and seem to begin just where birds and butterflies leave off! Leigh Hunt, with his delicate perceptions, paints this well: "The voices of children seem as natural to the early morning as the voice of the birds. The suddenness, the lightness, the loudness, the sweet confusion, the sparkling gayety, seem alike in both. The sudden little jangle is now here and now there; and now a single voice calls to another, and the boy is off like the bird." So ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... under sail, the Indians on board took their leaves, and wept, with a decent and silent sorrow, in which there was something very striking and tender: The people in the canoes, on the contrary, seemed to vie with each other in the loudness of their lamentations, which we considered rather as affectation than grief. Tupia sustained himself in this scene with a firmness and resolution truly admirable: He wept indeed, but the effort that he made to conceal his tears, concurred, with them, to do him honour. He sent ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... their pains. He looked back upon it as he had unfolded it. He looked forward across it as, most stern and bleak, it awaited them. He cried with a sudden loudness, as though he protested, not before her, but before arbitrament in the high court of destiny, "But I cannot help you upward; I can only lead ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... apartment, and abrupt enough to throw me into tremors. I dropped the book and yielded for a moment to confusion and surprise. From what quarter it came, I was unable accurately to determine; but there could be no doubt, from its loudness, that it was near, and even in the house. It was no less manifest that the sound arose from the discharge of a pistol. Some hand must have drawn the trigger. I recollected the disappearance of the candle from the room below. Instantly a supposition darted into my ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... came, "I am here, uncle," and if the first voice startled one with its loudness, this second was equally startling from its music, its ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... reference is made to the exquisite beauty of his compositions. The loudness is all that seems to be praised, and we suspect, that in private Pope was inclined to laugh with Swift in his disparaging comparison between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Wordsworth has written on the "Power of Sound;" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... large extent, be a self-educator in good behavior, as in everything else; he can be civil and kind, if he will, though he have not a cent in his pocket. Gentleness in society is like the silent influence of light, which gives color to all nature; it is far more powerful than loudness or force, and far more fruitful. It pushes its way quietly and persistently, like the tiniest daffodil in spring, which raises the clod and thrusts it aside by the simple ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... suited the air, joined the concert with their voices; but the words of the song made them now and then stop, and fall into excessive laughter. While their amusement was at its height, there was a knock of unwonted loudness at ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... friends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-room, expecting visitors; and working at a huge piece of worsted by the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great Iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolled with mournful loudness in the dreary room. The great glass over the mantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the opposite end of the room, increased and multiplied between them the brown Holland bag in which the chandelier hung, until you saw these brown Holland bags ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... surpassed in loudness that of all the others put together; and brought up several ferocious-looking Turks, bent on condignly punishing the outrageous conduct of the ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... of command is animated, distinct, and of a loudness proportioned to the number of men ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... course—I don't see what we're here for," Mrs. Jack Stepney remarked with careless loudness to Ned Van Alstyne; and the latter's deprecating murmur—"Julia was always a just woman"—might have been interpreted as ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... which Mr. Fairly, with his usual but Most uncommon openness, protested there was something in the violence of their animal spirits that Would make him accept no post and no pay to live with them. Their very voices, he said, had a loudness and force that wore ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Old gaffer dead?" And when the soldier was told how the feeble thread of life had been snapped by the shock of joy on his coming, a fit of compunction and sorrow seized him. He covered his face with his hands and wept with a loudness of grief that surprised and touched his hearers; and presently began to bemoan himself that he had hardly a mark in his purse to pay for a mass; but therewith he proceeded to erect before him the cross hilt of poor Abenali's sword, and to vow thereupon that the first spoil and the first ransom, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bounded impetuously against the wall with a hoarse, rough bark of fearful loudness. The walls re-echoed just as if a clap of thunder had rattled ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... say something about Lord Liverpool, not only on account of his rank as a minister, but also on account of the talents which have qualified him for that high situation. The greatest objection that I have to him as a speaker, is owing to the loudness of his voice—in other respects, what he does say is well digested. But I do not think that he embraces his subject with so much power and comprehension as some of his opponents; and he has evidently less actual experience of the world. This may doubtless be attributed to ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... "an entirely new world" of melody, color, and emotion. His orchestration is more varied, euphonious, and enchanting than Beethoven's, and in this direction he did for the symphony what Weber did for the opera. By using the brass instruments pianissimo, for color instead of for loudness, he opened a path in which later masters, including Wagner, eagerly followed him. Schubert was also the first composer who revealed the exquisite beauty and the great emotional power of the freest modulation from key to key. His poetic impromptus for piano became ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... smile. Dead? Not I! The scorching sunlight streams through the open door of the inn—the thirsty flies buzz with persistent loudness—some voices are singing "La Fata di ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... if the touch of a hand might break him into atoms, so brittle and delicate a figure of clay was he. When he spoke, his harsh voice, issuing from the long thin lips which scarcely moved, even in utterance, was startling in its unmelodious loudness, the more so when its ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... esoteric levels, and realised more and more the general vulgarity and coarseness of the world about him, and his own detachment. The vulgarity and crudity of the things nearest him impressed him most; the dreadful insincerity of the Press, the meretriciousness of success, the loudness of the rich, the baseness of common people in his own land. The world overseas had by comparison a certain glamour. Except that when you said "United States" to him he would draw the air sharply between his teeth and beg you ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... of imagination and vastness of design raise such envy in their fellow mortals, that every eye watches for their fall, and every heart exults at their distresses: yet even a projector may gain favour by success; and the tongue that was prepared to hiss, then endeavours to excel others in loudness ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... their character, and are, on the whole, even in their intensity, no measure of the beauty of the music which arouses them. Indeed, we can get intense emotion from sound which is entirely unmusical. So, too, loudness, softness, crescendo, diminuendo, volume, piercingness, have their emotional accompaniments. It is to Hanslick that we owe the general summing up of these possibilities of expression as "the dynamic figures of occurrences." How this dynamic skeleton is filled out ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... was still one woman who kept her faith in his capacity for soaring above the common pitch. She it was who, understanding him better than his own family, became a second mother to him. Attracted by him, in spite of his weaknesses of conceit, loudness, and vulgarity, she polished his behaviour, guided his perceptions, corrected his pretentiousness, influencing him through the sincerity ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... rather stern, and the grey eyes were steady and frank. It was not the face of a merchant, but rather that of one of good degree, accustomed to camps and war. For the rest, his figure was well-built and active, and his voice when he spoke, which was seldom, clear and distinct to loudness, but cultivated and pleasant—again, not ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... (cf. dynamic—the opposite of static) as used in the nomenclature of music has to do with the various degrees of power (i.e., the comparative loudness and softness) ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... them thence before persecuting tribunals, by whose sentence they were doomed to perpetual banishment. They must all have finally disappeared from the island, if the people, at last grown indignant at such baseness and cruelty, had not, by the loudness of their execrations, checked the activity of the priest-hunters. Wherever they dared show themselves, they were pelted with stones, and exposed to the summary ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... soft of heart, but proud of spirit, and haughty beyond his age; you may not remember, even I could not always look down his anger, or silence his loudness of speech. Why should he kill Mr. Barbary? I will tell you, child: the preacher, too, had discerned well your brother's besetting sin, and, being fearless in duty, from the Sabbath pulpit he spake of it plainly and with such point that it could not fail to come home directly to the ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... Zastrow had to imitate in that respect, kept bringing up more cannon, ever more, as if they would bring up all the cannon of their Army: and there rose between Zastrow and them such a cannonade, for length and loudness together, as had not been heard in this War. Most furious cannonading, musketading; and seemingly no end to it. Ferdinand himself came over to ascertain; found it a hot thing indeed. Zastrow had to relieve his 200 every hour: 'Don't go down in rank, you new ones,' ordered ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... air hinders the articulateness of a discourse from coming to the ears, though it may convey something of the loudness and length of it. Now the night, simply considered in itself, hath nothing that may disturb the air; though the day hath,—namely the sun, according ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... contains a number of the nerve-ends, which are, however, most numerous in the cochlea. We do not know for certain what the functions of the canals and the cochlea are; but it is probable that the former enables us to distinguish between the intensity or loudness of sounds and the direction from which they come, while the latter enables us to determine the pitch of a note. In the cochlea are about 2,800 tiny nerve-ends, called the rods of Corti. The normal ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... him, held on to the back of it. "I know?" she repeated, as if to herself. Then she drew a long breath, which quivered through her, and, with it, voice and emotion and the power of expression returned. "I know?" she cried with a startling loudness. "Good God, you fool, do you think I'd be here with you, if I had known?—if I ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... mistake loudness for animation. A whisper may be more vital, more animated than a shout. The slightest quiver of a muscle may reveal greater intensity of thought than the most violent gesticulation. Yet since freedom and abandon of the agents ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... darting; the loudness of music is around the hill; the fat soft mast is budding; there is grass on ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... FACT, and make him sit up on his hams, and puff out his chin, and look important and insolent and come-to-stay; and assert his genuine simon-pure authenticity with a thundering bellow that will convince everybody because it is so loud. The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where reasoning convinces but one. I wouldn't be a thug, not even if—but never mind about that, it has nothing to do with the argument, and it is not noble in spirit besides. If I am better than a thug, is the merit ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... above-mentioned description I shall add one or two remarks. The first is; that the beautiful in music will not bear that loudness and strength of sounds, which may be used to raise other passions; nor notes which are shrill or harsh, or deep; it agrees best with such as are clear, even, smooth, and weak. The second is: that great variety, and quick transitions from one measure or tone to another, are contrary to ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... seemed not to hear, though a person close enough to him to see the expression of his face might have doubted it; and she said a third time, with a timid loudness, "Mr. Winterborne! What, have you forgotten my voice?" She remained with her lips parted ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... picked party of his friends, had forced their way to the top of the hall, and were in the act of mounting the platform for the purpose of turning the vicar out of the chair, when a voice of unearthly loudness was heard to shout, "Forbear!"—upon which the meeting broke up in wild confusion, leaving Foster prostrated on the ground by some invisible and mysterious power, where he lay till brought back to consciousness by the joint efforts of Mr Maltby and Thomas Bradly; after which, at their earnest ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... voice of God and the voice of Nature. I cannot be wrong if I listen to them. Sometimes, when uncertain of a voice from its very loudness, we catch the missing syllable in the echo. In God and Nature we have Voice and Echo. When I hear both, I am assured. My sense of hearing does not betray me twice. I recognize the Voice in the Echo, the Echo makes me certain of the Voice; I listen and I know. Natural Law, Eternal ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... shouted at last with unnatural loudness. "Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. Alexandr Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don't pay your debts! You're a ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... young bride-elect, and ran swiftly down stairs. There did seem to be a good deal of confusion in the orderly household, and the very air of the hall seemed to be pervaded with a singular subdued excitement; voices of suppressed loudness issued from the front parlor and as Ester knocked she heard a half scream from Mrs. Ried, mingled with cries of "Don't let her in." Growing thoroughly alarmed, Ester now abruptly pushed ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... This is intense, but not loud, though at times it may break through its restraint. It is most fitting when the hearers are near at hand, as in the case of a jury or judge in court, when the din of loudness ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... was such a "Hurray! hurray!" as surpassed the former cheer in loudness. Everybody engaged in it except Piggy Duff, who made an instant dash at the three-cornered puffs, but was stopped by Champion, who said there should be a fair distribution. And so there was, and no one lacked, neither of raspberry, open ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... law-making of the State. She was in evidence in most public places; at the theatres, the concert halls, the County Club races, and at every fashionable entertainment to which her cleverness could procure her admission, her conspicuous figure, made more prominent by a certain indefinable loudness of style, a marked dash of manner, and gowns in a taste rather daring than refined, was too conspicuous to be overlooked. Yet it is doubtful if she had ever been up the steps leading to the gilded-domed capitol in her life. She went about much; and the unchaperoned ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... loins—her two hands pressed on my buttocks, as if to drive me further home, and we ran a most delicious course, I feigned to be even still more excited than I really was, and almost brayed at the ecstatic moment of ejection. Mamma herself was too far gone in delight to notice the loudness of my braying. She lay panting and throbbing on my prick, almost in a state of insensibility to aught else beside. Her eyes were closed, so that she did not observe the entrance of the light carried by the doctor. It was not until he was standing by the bedside, and made ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... him indignantly. The conscience-stricken culprit of a few minutes before had disappeared, leaving in his stead an arrogant young man, demanding explanations in a voice of almost unbecoming loudness. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... sometimes loomed up like a distorted shadow and then in a moment plunged into a yellow pocket of obscurity, and was lost. Then Stonehouse could only listen for his footfalls, quick and irregular, echoing with an uncanny loudness in the low vault ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... The loudness of her tones frightened her, however; she might have woke Jeanne, and she bent down over the bed. But no; the child was sound asleep, with rosy cheeks, and a vague smile playing round her lips. The air of the quiet chamber was charged with languor. The whilom drowsiness, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... addressed, O king, (by his sister and others), the slayer of Kesin, exceedingly afflicted by grief, answered,—'So be it!'—These words were uttered with sufficient loudness and they gladdened all the inmates of the inner apartments of the palace. The puissant Krishna, that foremost of men, by uttering these words, gladdened all the people assembled there, like one pouring cold water on a person afflicted with sweat. He ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... another "Spot," and a sign of lost control. In public places, especially, it is a sign of ill breeding and bad taste. Good breeding should always keep a woman from loud talk. We must remove the stigma of loudness and coarseness that now rests upon the race. The less a person knows, the bigger noise she generally makes. The big touring car never makes the noise that a motor cycle does, nor does a great steamer make the fuss that a tug boat does. The deep ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... down,' said Darco, pacing and turning suddenly. 'No. Don't but that down. I don't vant that' He roamed off again, murmuring: 'No. Don't but it down. I don't vant it. I don't vant it. Nodes. Dake nodes.' Then with sudden loudness and ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Chris's excitement grew into fierce exultation, when the stones were flying, the pony's hot breath floating back to his cheeks, and the yelling of the savages began to grow faint; and then again moments when the mustang's efforts seemed to flag and the yells of the Indians increasing in loudness came nearer and nearer, till the boy had hard work to keep from wrenching himself round in the saddle to try and pierce the black darkness to gaze defiantly at the fierce starting eyeballs and gleaming teeth of those who were hunting him for ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... this the worst: the door was not shut again but remained ajar. Through the chink, Polly, shrunk to her smallest—what if one of them should feel hungry, and come into the pantry and discover her?—Polly heard Purdy say with appalling loudness: "Oh, go on, old man-don't jaw so!" He then seemed to plunge his head in the basin, for it was with a choke and a splutter that he next inquired: "And what did you think of the little 'un? Wasn't ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at the loudness of the squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her shoulders, and her eyes, while she still delayed, had turned from him, engaged by another interest, though the court was by this time, the hour of dispersal for luncheon, so forsaken that they would have had it, for free talk, should they have been moved to loudness, quite to themselves. She was ready for their adjournment, but she was also aware of a pedestrian youth, in uniform, a visible emissary of the Postes et Telegraphes, who had approached, from the street, the small stronghold of the concierge and who presented there a missive taken from the ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... effective report. The rockets in general had a slight advantage over the same quantities of material fired near the ground. The loudness of the sound was by no means proportional to the quantity of the material exploded, 8 oz. yielding very nearly as loud a report as 1 lb. The 'aerial echoes,' which invariably followed the explosion of the rockets, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... knew it was his duty (his wife having accepted charge of the girl) to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe: nothing would have induced him to have done so, since it must have involved the loss of his conveyance; and I think he made it up to his conscience by the loudness of his voice. At least he broke out upon Captain Sang, raging and saying the thing was a disgrace; that it was mere death to try to leave the ship, and at any event we could not cast down an innocent maid in a boatful of nasty Holland ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rather nervous loudness, "since Lieutenant Keith has seen fit to make this suggestion to Basil before his ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... over to play bridge, and then Walker showed himself in what Mackintosh considered a characteristic light. He played regardless of his partner, calling up in his desire to play the hand, and argued interminably, beating down opposition by the loudness of his voice. He constantly revoked, and when he did so said with an ingratiating whine: "Oh, you wouldn't count it against an old man who can hardly see." Did he know that his opponents thought it as well to keep on the right side ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... couple of months; but they afterward entirely ceased, so that the inhabitants of the place were lulled into security. On the night between the 28th and 29th of September, however, the subterranean noises were renewed with greater loudness than before, and the ground shook severely. The Indian servants living on the place started from their beds in terror, and fled to the neighboring mountains. Thence gazing upon their master's farm they beheld it, along with a tract of ground measuring between ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... traces the movements of the stars, and tells of their constitution; but the fact of their singing together, and that "such harmony is in immortal souls," it leaves to poet and philosopher. The timbre, loudness, pitch, of musical tones, is a concern of science; but for this a Beethoven symphony is no better than the latest ragtime air from the music halls. In brief, science deals only with phenomena, and its gift to man is ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the musical sense, is the result of rapid periodic vibration. The pitch of tone depends upon the number of vibrations in a given period; the loudness of tone depends upon the amplitude of the vibrations; the quality of tone depends upon the form of the vibrations; and the form of the vibrations depends upon ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... easily, into the slovenly habits and careless demeanor that were natural to him before he was called to command; his uniform begins to look like a masquerade dress hired for the occasion; of the hard and, perhaps, gallant service of months past, there is soon no other evidence, than an unnecessary loudness of speech, and a readiness to seize on any occasion to bluster or blaspheme. A friend of mine once remarked (by way of excuse for being detected in the most eccentric deshabille) that "the British dragoon, under ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... second tenor, and his pipes was kinder cracked, But Rube made up in loudness what in tune he might have lacked; But 'twas a leetle cur'us, though, for p'r'aps his voice would balk, And when he'd fetch a high note give a most outrageous squawk; And Uncle Elkanah was deef and kind er'd lose the run, And keep on singin' loud and high when all the rest was done; ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it sooner than the rest, and so on with those immediately subsequent. As their captivity may continue six days, it is possible that the bees in this space of time may forget which has emitted it first; but it is also possible, that the queens diversify the sounds, encreasing the loudness as they become older, and that the bees can distinguish these variations. We have even ourselves been able to distinguish differences in the sound, either with relation to the succession of notes, or their intensity; and probably there are ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... that this mask would be a happy contrivance; for what, you say, could a common human voice avail against the vast radiation from the actor's centre of more than three myriads? If, indeed (like the Homeric Stentor), an actor spoke in point of loudness, (Greek Text), as much as other fifty, then he might become audible to the assembled Athenians without aid. But this being impossible, art must be invoked; and well if the mask, together with contrivances of another class, could correct it. Yet if ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... the entire rod is thrown outward against the lower ends of the damper levers, releasing all the dampers simultaneously. This being the only office of the right pedal, it is readily seen that this pedal does not increase the loudness, but simply sustains any number of tones struck successively, giving ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... black clouds round the trees and the conical red caps of the oast-houses which give that country the look of being studded with turreted castles; then they descended—a black line—upon the fields, with what seemed an unearthly loudness of caw. And all round there arose a shrill quavering bleating of lambs and calling of sheep, while the wind began to catch the topmost branches of ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... not a singing-bird. He utters his usual notes at all times of the year; but in the early part of summer he is addicted to a very low but pleasant kind of warbling, considerably varied, and wanting only more loudness and precision to entitle him to a rank with the singing-birds. This warbling does not seem intended to cheer his partner, but it is rather a sort of soliloquizing for his own amusement. If it was uttered by the young birds only, we might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... piece of calico, with a needle stuck in it, as if the work had been left hurriedly. The pink-crested cockatoo started, on his appearance, into clumsy activity and began to climb laboriously up and down his perch, calling "Joanna" with indistinct loudness and a persistent screech that prolonged the last syllable of the name as if in a peal of insane laughter. The screen in the doorway moved gently once or twice in the breeze, and each time Willems started slightly, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the string vibrate, and the louder will be the sound. Just so with these vocal bands or cords. The varying force with which the breath strikes them and their different tensions and lengths at different times, explain the different degrees of loudness and the varying pitch ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... he insisted upon haste, for they had not gone far when the glacier broke abreast of the spot they had just left. There came a rending crack, terrifying in its loudness; a tremendous tower of ice separated itself from the main body, leaned slowly outward, then roared downward, falling in a solid piece like a sky-scraper undermined. Not until the arc described by its summit had reached the ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... gleams of sunshine soften storms to showers, So, if you smile, the loudness of my rage In gentle whispers shall return but this— That nothing can ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... tone of his voice, no less than the sudden loudness of the exclamation, made the faces, hitherto bent upon the door through which Mr. Frere had passed, turn round again. To many there it seemed that the "notorious Dawes" was no longer in the box, for, in place of the upright and defiant villain who stood there an instant back, was a white-faced, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... noise was caused. He went down the stairs as if he were a real burglar in rubber shoes. He stopped several times with a faster beating heart, for although he had never known the steps to squeak before they now did so with such loudness that he was sure his father heard him. But the snoring continued unbroken and Jim reached the door, where he stealthily slid back the bolt and reversed the key, without causing ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... park, and by and by the chapel done, the King and Duke into the bowling-green and upon the leads, whither I went, and there the guns were plain to be heard; though it was pretty to hear how confident some would be in the loudness of the guns, which it was as much as ever I could ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... incomparably more able, than themselves. Off-hand dogmatists of this stamp, who usually abound among professional religionists, think that they can refute any number of scholars, however profound and however pious, if only they shout "Infidel" with sufficient loudness. ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... cry filled the cavern for an instant, and almost froze their blood! The loudness and abrupt stoppage of the cry left the impression that the creature which uttered it had been suddenly and effectively killed, for it ended in a sharp gasp or gurgle, and then all was still,—but only for a moment, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... the secondary circuit for adjustment to the wave length, turning it slowly from minimum to maximum until you come to the point where the desired station is heard. When this is found, you again readjust the primary until you find the point of maximum loudness. ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... Honor had mixed with the feminine world more intimately she would not be the standard of maidenly modesty and reserve that she was in her nineteenth year; but in her there was an utter absence of that self-sufficiency and loudness that is painfully prominent now-a-days in the very city we inhabit. And yet in all her meekness and mildness if you by look or word injured the extreme sense of delicacy that was the under current of all her movements, then—she reared her aristocratic chin high in the air and looked ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... degrees of importance. There is no lack of evidence that we have entered into a period in which an especial emphasis will be laid on the too long neglected psychical factor. This new movement is probably only in its beginning and the loudness with which it presents itself to-day is one of the many indications of its immaturity. Whether it will be a blessing or a danger, whether it will really lead forward in a lasting way, or whether it will soon demand a reaction, will ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... Albert and put it on himself, lest Albert might suspect, and then began to sing purposely, with loudness and levity, an old farm rhyme that had been familiar to ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... the harbor. By day it was quite impossible, all toots and blares, the most frightful discords—but at night its vulgar loudness was toned down sufficiently so that a fellow with artist's ears could really stand listening to its life, especially if I did not go too close but listened from my window. Here with uglier sounds subdued I could catch ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... but our own, no voices but of birds, broke the stillness of the woods. We moved onward swiftly, and presently the noise of the sea came to us with the sudden loudness that I remembered. I paused, signaled caution to my companions, and ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... and the exercise consists, first, in the recognition of sounds of equal intensity, arranging the cylinders in pairs. The next exercise consists in the comparison of one sound with another; that is, the child arranges the six cylinders in a series according to the loudness of sound which they produce. The exercise is analogous to that with the color spools, which also are paired and then arranged in gradation. In this case also the child performs the exercise seated comfortably at a table. After a preliminary explanation from the teacher he repeats the exercise ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... increased, hurried forward the fire with terrific rapidity, and drove the smoke in dense masses round us, so that, bright as were the flames, we could often see but a short distance ahead. The shouts and cries of the terrified settlers increased in loudness. All hope that the village would be preserved must by this time have been abandoned. The fire was coming up from the west and north-west, leaping at a bound, as it seemed, over the clearings; the burning branches, driven ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... self-exiled Chieftain, is restored: There be bright faces in the busy hall, Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall; Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze; And gay retainers gather round the hearth, With tongues all loudness, and with ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... with such perfect art. And this last, an effect so new made with such world-old material! I cared nothing that I was the victim, and I joined them; but ceased, feeling suddenly somehow estranged or chilled. It was in their laughter. The loudness was too loud. And I caught the eyes of Trampas fixed upon the Virginian with exultant malevolence. Scipio's disgusted glance was upon me ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... loudness of the street noises, and the glare of the sunlight as he stepped to the sidewalk. He stood there blinking for a moment, until his eyes became accustomed to the light. The foot-procession of ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... speak in cipher, and to gesticulate by some rule of freemasonry. But to the uninitiated he is explanatory to a scruple, as though mischief might ensue from his being misapprehended. He makes sure of your understanding by an emphasis, which reminds one of the loudness of tone used towards a person supposed to be hard of hearing—a proceeding not very flattering where there happens to be neither dulness nor deafness in the case. In a word, the measured pedantry of his whole deportment betrays the happy conviction in which he rejoices of being conversant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... a cigar and a frugal glass of lager. They took their places quite unaware of his proximity, and he listened with considerable interest to the tones and words of the fair stranger who had so unexpectedly taken possession of his thoughts. Were it not for a slight shrillness and loudness at times, and the fashionable affectation of the day, her voice would have been sweet and girlish enough. As it was, it suggested an instrument tuned to a false key and consequently discordant with all true and womanly harmonies. Her conversation with young Minty was as insipid ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... sounds increased in loudness, when we saw ahead of us, amid the snow, a flashing of tails and flying hair, and directly afterwards a dozen or more dark forms, all tugging and snarling and occasionally biting at each other, evidently employed in pulling away at a body ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... aurocapillus), or Golden-Crowned Thrush. It is the smallest of the Thrushes, is confined exclusively to the wood, and when singing is particularly partial to noon-day. There is no melody in his song. He begins rather low, increasing in loudness as he proceeds, until the last notes are so loud as to seem almost in our immediate presence. He might be supposed to utter His words, I see, I see, I see, etc.,—emphasizing the first word, and repeating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... think you'd tumbled over a precipice!" exclaimed Sir Samuel, with the jovial loudness that comes to men of his age from good champagne or the rich ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... words. To Claude, of course, they were perfectly intelligible, though not so to Zac, who did not understand any language but his mother Yankee. Judging by the distinctness and the loudness of the sound, the speaker could not be very far away. The voice seemed to come from the water astern. No sight, however, was visible; and the two, as they stared into the fog, saw nothing whatever. Nor did any of the others on board seem to have heard the voice. The priest was still intent ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... as fondly united and raising their voices to the night as if superfluously to sing out at you that they were happy, and above all were Tuscan. On reflection, and to be just, I connect the slightly incongruous loudness that hung about me under the Beautiful Towers with the really too coarse competition for my favour among the young vetturini who lay in wait for my approach, and with an eye to my subsequent departure, on my quitting, at some unremembered spot, the morning train from Siena, from which ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... always depend on old Skeezics," Maurice told himself, with a friendly look at her. He had forgotten Eleanor's behavior, and was trying to suppress his grins at the forlorn and dripping people, who were on land now, shivering, and talking with astonishing loudness. ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... we knew that we were once again approachin' the edge of the hurricane. There happened to be a little food in the galley and a scrap was given to each man. If we were going under, there was no need to drown hungry. So, faintly, but with quickenin' loudness, the whirring roar of the hurricane rose into a shriek and the ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... learn where these later arrivals came from—whether from the other shore or whether they were prowling up and down the bank, where they were now grouped. To the whites, who could hear every word uttered, the talk of course was incomprehensible; but the loudness of the tones, as well as the rapidity and general jangle, led them to believe they were angry about something that had taken or had failed to take place, and that had produced a quarrel between them. Such was the fact, and Lena-Wingo listened ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... well-known writer, "at times of a low, deep moaning, repeated five or six times, and ending in scarcely audible sighs; at other times, the forest is startled with loud, deep-toned, solemn roars, increasing in loudness to the third or fourth, and then dying away in sounds like ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... and waited; for he could hear the sound of wheels behind him, and noted that it was not increasing in loudness. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the little creature, dressed him in the red and gold robe, and put on his head the holy crown, and the people admired to see how straight he held up his neck under it; indeed, they admired the loudness and strength of his cries, when, as the good lady records, "the noble king had little pleasure in his coronation, for he wept aloud." She had to hold him up for the rest of the service, while Count Ulric of Eily held the crown over his head, and afterwards to seat him in a chair ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... up," he cried, thrusting me aside, and was on his feet before myself. His voice shook like a sail in the wind, yet he spoke with a good loudness; his face was like the snow, but his eyes were steady and dry. "Here is too much speech," said he. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lighter by the fact that all the words spoken by the Jew were overheard by the man who was supposed to be there in the capacity of his servant. But the man, as it seemed, had a mission to fulfil, and was the captain's master as well as servant. "Mr. Hart," said Captain Scarborough, repressing the loudness of his words as far as his rage would admit him, but still speaking so as to attract the attention of some of those round him, "I do not know what good you propose to yourself by following me in this manner. You have my bonds, ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... above was shuttered. There was a hole in the shutter, however, where a knot of the wood had fallen out, and a thin shaft of light stretched across the blackness and buried itself in a ragged yew-tree at the end of the garden. From the loudness of the sounds I judged this to be the room where the flute-playing was going on. The crackling of my footsteps on the thin soil did not disturb the performer, so I gathered a handful of earth and pitched it up against the pane. The flute stopped for a minute or so, but just as I was ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cannot reveal the poetry of their compositions. In one of his letters Chopin notes that Thalberg played forte and piano with the pedals, not with his hands, and some piano bangers do so still; but every pianist who deserves the name knows that loudness and softness must be regulated by the hands (and very rarely the left-side pedal). Yet even among this better class of pianists the notion seems to prevail that the main object of the right-side pedal is to enable them ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... reports of carbines and the yells of the bandits. There were scarcely more than a dozen of the original twenty left; but they made up for their depleted numbers by the rapidity with which they worked their firearms and the loudness and ferocity of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to express cordiality, suddenly became flaccid and died. If Mr. Crooper had been a sensitive person he might have perceived the chilling disapproval in their glances, for they had just begun to be most unfavorably impressed with him. The careless loudness—almost the notoriety—with which he had uttered Miss Pratt's name, demanding loosely to be presented to her, regardless of the well-known law that a lady must first express some wish in such matters—these were ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... leg. The head- master talked to Mr. Povey, in tones carefully low, for about a quarter of an hour, and then he closed the interview. Mr. Povey escorted him across the shop, and the head-master said with ordinary loudness: "Of course it's nothing. But my experience is that it's just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I'd tell you. Forewarned is forearmed. I have other parents to see." They shook hands at the door. Then Mr. Povey stepped out ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... of the helicopter came across the broken ground. Now louder, now momentarily muted, its moments of loudness grew steadily more strong. It was coming nearer. Thorn gripped his spear in an instinctive, utterly futile gesture of defense. Sylva touched ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... who is an old and faithful retainer to this household, is now suffering from his annual cough. It is a terrific cough, capable of disputing supremacy with all other coughs of which the world has heard. The special points about this cough are (1) its loudness; (2) its combination of the noises made by all other coughs; (3) its depth; (4) its shriek of despair as it trembles and reverberates through the house; (5) its capacity to repel and annihilate sympathy. It is true that I have interviewed Binns with regard to his cough—it is an annual ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... the Bobolink seldom flies without singing, often hovering on the wing over the place where his mate is sitting upon her ground-built nest, and pouring forth his notes with great loudness and fluency. The Bobolink is one of our social birds, one of those species that follow in the footsteps of man, and multiply with the progress of agriculture. He is not a frequenter of the woods; he seems to have no taste for solitude. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... wine; and the Parson, satisfied with what he deemed a clencher upon his favorite subject of discussion, changed the subject to lighter topics, till happening to fall upon tithes, the Squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to his own satisfaction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and iniquitous ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... and the males have a large mane, which covers their neck and shoulders, so that they have very much the appearance of lions when their upper part alone is seen above the water. Such were the monsters which seemed to be guarding the island towards which we were pulling, their roar vying in loudness with the hoarse sound of the surf as it ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... the human voice, under the influence of various emotions, has been discussed by Mr. Herbert Spencer[2] in his interesting essay on Music. He clearly shows that the voice alters much under different conditions, in loudness and in quality, that is, in resonance and timbre, in pitch and intervals. No one can listen to an eloquent orator or preacher, or to a man calling angrily to another, or to one expressing astonishment, without being struck with the truth of Mr. Spencer's remarks. It is curious ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... they aim?[5] Clouds keep the stoutest mortals under, When, bellowing,[6] they discharge their thunder: So, when the alarum-bell is rung, Of Xanti's[7] everlasting tongue, The husband dreads its loudness more Than lightning's flash, or thunder's roar. Clouds weep, as they do, without pain; And what are tears but women's rain? The clouds about the welkin roam:[8] And ladies never stay at home. The clouds ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... of the spot where we stood was an open space or glade of considerable extent. Towards this the animal approached, as was evident from the increasing loudness of its wild roar, which was almost continuous. In another moment the thick wall of underwood at its farther extremity was burst asunder with a crash, and a wild buffalo bull bounded into the plain and dashed ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... gone, before another—a far heavier—step sounds in the passage outside the professor's door. It is followed by a knock, almost insolent in its loudness and sharpness. ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... oak-stump cast a long and attenuated shadow across the barren heath. All was still: thanks to the lofty trees at our feet, we were unable to catch a glimpse of the valley of the Rhine below. The peacefulness of the spot seemed only to intensify the loudness of our pistol-shots—and I had scarcely fired my second barrel at the pentagram when I felt some one lay hold of my arm and noticed that my friend had also some one beside him who ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... seemed interminable, while dusk thickened to darkness; then snores. The snoring continued all the while he was counting up to four hundred. Also it achieved a regularity and loudness that guaranteed it to be genuine. Still Johnnie did not open his eyes. There were little movements in Cis's room, and he felt sure she was not asleep. Soon he had proof of it. For peering up carefully from under lowered lids, he saw her door slowly open; next, she ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... was fast and the lights were out. He knocked, at first lightly, but gradually increasing in loudness. At the fourth knock a light appeared in the room above, the window was raised, ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... veiling their keenness. The expression of his mouth was lost in the dark moustache, and in the beard combed from the center. The visible part of his face would have made a gambler's fortune; and, save for its warm color, it might have been carved out of ice. Without ever a hint of harshness or loudness, his voice was one to command attention; though it came out soft and velvety, it was with the half assurance that it could ring like steel if the occasion arose. The occasion never arose. The hands, whose fingers thrummed on the glass-topped ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach |
