"Modulation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not agreeable to either of us, Miss Loring," said Dexter in a voice pitched to a lower tone, and with a softer modulation. "I did not expect to find a visitor here at so early an hour; and I fear that I have permitted myself to experience just a shade of annoyance. If I have seemed ill-natured, pardon me. It is not my nature to find fault, or to criticise. I rather prefer looking upon the bright ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... of events, as the Modoc stood in her place in the reading-class and slowly enunciated each separate syllable of the lesson in a tone as remarkable for a loud distinctness as it was for a total lack of meaning and modulation, from that side of her dress which had been sagging most heavily, something fell with a crash to the floor. It was a boiled lobster of anomalous proportions. The pocket had given way at last under its overpowering ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... aim of the book, however, has been kept steadily in view; which is to furnish the best possible exercises for practice in Rhetorical reading. To this end, the greatest variety of style and sentiment has been sought. There is scarcely a tone or modulation, of which the human voice is capable, that finds not here some piece adapted precisely to its best expression. There is not an inflection, however delicate, not an emphasis, however slight, however ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... heavily, but the strong pulsation of the carotid artery or the moistness of the skin from perspiration will not come with an imitated emotion. Of course, that is true of the actor on the stage, too. But the content of the words and the modulation of the voice can help so much that the shortcomings of the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... Betsy's standby light quivered hysterically from bright to dim and back again. The rate of quivering was fast. It was very nearly a sine-wave modulation of the light—and when a Mahon-modified machine goes into sine-wave flicker, it is the same as Cheyne-Stokes ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... compass, depth, sweetness,—and has none of the winning tones which reach the inmost soul, and none of the tones of passionate energy, which raise you out of your own world into the speaker's. But his modulation is smooth, measured, dignified, though occasionally injured by too elaborate a swell, and ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... desired message was sent from the throat of the frightened Pawnee. Deerfoot could not be certain that the cry conveyed the meaning he desired, but he noticed that the modulation of the voice was different and he was almost satisfied on ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... stranger stood quietly, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, studying Ross, as if the younger man was some problem he had been assigned to solve. When he spoke, his voice was a monotone lacking any modulation of feeling. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... is not enough the voice' be sound and clear', 'T is modulation' that must charm the ear. When desperate heroes grieve with tedious moan, And whine their sorrows in a seesaw tone, The same soft sounds of unimpassioned woes, Can only make ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... related of Dubourg and Handel. The latter visited Dublin and presided at a performance of the "Messiah." A few evenings later, Dubourg, who was leader of the band at the Theatre, had to improvise a "close," and wandered about in a fit of abstract modulation for so long that he forgot the original key. At last, however, after a protracted shake, he landed safely on the key-note, when Handel called out in a voice loud enough to be heard in the remotest parts of the theatre, "Welcome home, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... harmonious impression on the mind, thoroughly in keeping with the sublimity of the thoughts expressed. No words can describe the beauty of the flesh-painting, especially in the figures of the Genii, or the technical delicacy with which the modelling of limbs, the modulation from one tone to another, have been carried from silvery transparent shades up to the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... to the studies usually pursued, and they prepare the pupils to receive appropriate instruction in sitting, standing, and in the modulation and use of the voice. Indeed, gymnastic exercises are indispensable aids to proper training in reading, which, as an art of a high order, is immediately dependent upon position, habits of breathing, the consequent power ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... their youth and love; and across the Ivy beck where the mill was splashing and grumbling low thunder to itself in the chequered shadow of the dell, and the miller before the door was beating flour from his hands as he whistled a modulation; and up by the high spinney, whence they saw the mountains upon either hand; and down the hill again to the back courts and offices of Naseby House. Esther had kept ahead all the way, and Dick plodded obediently in her wake; but as they neared the stables, he pushed on and took the lead. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... early last night," Gibson said. "These people use an ancient system of electromagnetic wave propagation called frequency modulation, and once Lee and I rigged up a suitable transceiver the rest was simple. Both Xav and I recognized the old language; the natives reported your accident, and we came ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... of preeminent power. In fertility of thought, spontaneity of expression, modulation of voice, and grace of gesture, he has had few equals. He always spoke from a deep sense of duty. When he began a sentence you could not always foresee how he would end it, but he always succeeded. He had an extraordinary wealth of words and command ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... index finger of his right hand, pointing to the chairman and moving slightly to lend emphasis to his narrative, was the only thing that modified the rigid immobility of his figure. Without a single change in the pitch or modulation of his voice, never hurrying, but speaking with the slow and dreary monotony with which he had begun, he nevertheless—partly by reason of these evidences of his incredible self-control—made a formidable ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... those who performed upon the bamboos, sung a slow and soft air, which so tempered the harsher notes of the above instruments, that no bye-stander, however accustomed to hear the most perfect and varied modulation of sweet sounds, could avoid confessing the vast power, and pleasing effect, of this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... dress, and coquetry is an art not so early and speedily attained. While girls are yet young, however, they are in a capacity to study agreeable gesture, a pleasing modulation of voice, an easy carriage and behaviour; as well as to take the advantage of gracefully adapting their looks and attitudes to time, place, and occasion. Their application, therefore, should not be solely confined ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... suited, as hope encouraged or fear deterred. Ione trembled, though she knew not why; her veil hid her features, and masked an expression, which, if seen by the Egyptian, would have at once damped and enraged him; in fact, he never was more displeasing to her—the harmonious modulation of the most suasive voice that ever disguised unhallowed thought fell discordantly on her ear. Her whole soul was still filled with the image of Glaucus; and the accent of tenderness from another only revolted and dismayed; yet she did not conceive ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... well as propriety, of his manner. They had been long accustomed to an elevation of the voice, with a sudden mechanical depression of its tones, calculated to excite admiration, and to intrap applause. To the just modulation of the words, and concurring expression of the features from the genuine works of nature, they had been strangers, at least for some time. But after he had gone through a variety of scenes, in which he ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... harmonising—as in many ancient folk-songs—and often even an accompaniment spoils their fulness."[89] These melodies so correspond with the emotions, that they reproduce the least thrills of body and mind by their vigorous workings-up and delicate reliefs, by splendid barbarities of modulation and strong and glowing colour, by gentle gradations of light and shade or imperceptible ripples of thought, which flow over the body like a steady tide. It is an art of peculiar sensitiveness, more delicately expressive than that of Wagner; not satisfying itself ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... Western Isles of Scotland. It is performed on a bagpipe, and differs totally from all other music. Its rhythm is so irregular, and its notes, especially in the quick movement, so mixed and huddled together, that a stranger finds it impossible to reconcile his ear to it, so as to perceive its modulation. Some of these pibrochs, being intended to represent a battle, begin with a grave motion, resembling a march; then gradually quicken into the onset; run off with noisy confusion, and turbulent rapidity, to imitate the conflict and pursuit; then ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... that for them to walk abroad is such a rarity. It is not the simple progressive motion alone, but also the harmonious play of features, the coquettish undulation of the face, the exquisite disposition of costume, and the modulation of voice, that engage the beholder and lend a happy charm to every attitude and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... Change — N. change, alteration, mutation, permutation, variation, modification, modulation, inflexion, mood, qualification, innovation, metastasis, deviation, turn, evolution, revolution; diversion; break. transformation, transfiguration; metamorphosis; transmutation; deoxidization [Chem]; transubstantiation; [Genetics], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that there is a "hitch" somewhere; and never was there a more broadly good- humored countenance, or a smile more expressive of meritoriousness, nor an utterance more coaxing in its modulations than his "E-f-fendi, backsheesh." as he repeats the appeal; the smile and the modulation is well worth ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... which it is not easy to find a name, which vanish to nothing in an attempt to describe them, and yet may, by continual repetition, make day pass after day in sorrow and in terrour. Phrases of cursory compliment and established salutation may, by a different modulation of the voice, or cast of the countenance, convey contrary meanings, and be changed from indications of respect to expressions of scorn. The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself, very little consults his own tranquillity. My unhappy vigilance is every moment ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... wish was no longer a five-bladed pocket-knife, but a violin of so fine a ring and delicate modulation that it might render the ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... whose eye would be satisfied with seeing and whose ear with hearing? Who would rather have the truth than the power to seek it? There is a way of reading Ecclesiastes and Schopenhauer with a triumphant lilt in the voice. After all, it is the modulation that carries the message of the text. When you write the history of love, I find it fair reading. When you tell me love is primal and engrossing, I hold it the more a sin to crouch away ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... whom the countenance reflects the emotions of the soul, and the tone of voice is tuned to the feelings of the heart, rising and falling with the subject, as in conversation, without the regular and harmonious modulation of the practised reader. ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... significance of this current must be detected, that is, the modulated current must be demodulated. A current is then obtained which has the same wave form as the human voice which was the cause of the modulation at the distant station. The third operation is performed by a telephone receiver which makes the molecules of air in its neighborhood move back and forth in accordance with the detected current. As you already know a fourth operation may be carried on by amplifiers which give on their output ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... been more agreeable than the modulation of these words, the passage of the tone from a first note of surprise to its grave and womanly close. Again, the same suggestions of veiled and vibrating feeling. Sir Wilfrid's nascent ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... imaginative intellect. It therefore renounces all those attributes of its material which do not forward that motive. It has had, indeed, from the beginning an unfixed claim to colour; but this element of colour in it has always been more or less conventional, with no melting or modulation of tones, never permitting more than a very limited realism. It was maintained chiefly as a religious tradition. In proportion as the art of sculpture ceased to be merely decorative, and subordinate to architecture, it threw itself upon pure form. It renounces the power of expression ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... effect to the Italian language, so pompous and so sonorous, produced upon Oswald an impression entirely novel. The English prosody is uniform and veiled, its natural beauties are all of a sombre cast; its colouring has been formed by clouds, and its modulation by the roaring of the sea; but when Italian words, brilliant as an Italian festival, resonant like those instruments of victory, which have been compared to scarlet among colours; when these words, bearing ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... writers for the instrument, of whom the chief was Giuseppe Tartini, born 1692. Dr. Burney says of his compositions: "Though he made Corelli his model in the purity of his harmony and simplicity of his modulation, he greatly surpassed that composer in the fertility and originality of his invention; not only in the subjects of his melodies, but in the truly cantabile manner of treating them. Many of his adagios want nothing but words to be excellent pathetic opera songs. His allegros are sometimes ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... imaginative intellect. It therefore renounces all these attributes of its material which do not help forward that motive. It has had, indeed, from the beginning an unfixed claim to colour; but this element of colour in it has always been more or less conventional, with no melting or modulation of tones, never admitting more than a very limited realism. It was maintained chiefly as a religious tradition. In proportion as the art of sculpture ceased to be merely decorative, and subordinate to architecture, it threw itself upon pure form. It renounces the power of expression ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... the rhythm is concerned—that is to say, if we pay no attention to the sense of the passage. But these facts indicate a radical difference in the genius of the two languages, as regards their capacity for modulation. In truth, * * * the Latin is a far more stately tongue than our own. It is essentially spondaic; the English is as essentially dactylic."—Pioneer, p. 110. (See the marginal note in Sec.3d. at Obs. 22d, above.) Notwithstanding this difference, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the skylark's defiant challenge; from earth beneath the fussy scream of the blackbird; on all sides the tweetings, twitterings, chirrupings, chirrings and pipings of petulant finches, and, in tender modulation to the avian chorus, the deep-throated, innumerable, drowsy hum of insects. Colour and sound, love and war, it ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... five, and (once) six of them sluggishly performing the most elaborately complicated operations together without either sound or gesture. Their peculiar hooting invariably preceded feeding; it had no modulation, and was, I believe, in no sense a signal, but merely the expiration of air preparatory to the suctional operation. I have a certain claim to at least an elementary knowledge of psychology, and in this matter I am convinced—as firmly as I am ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... vibration of a single pedal note burst from the organ upon the breathing silence, long drawn out, rich, voluminous, and imposing. Presently, upon the massive bass, great chords grew up, succeeding each other in a simple modulation, rising then with the blare of trumpets and the simultaneous crash of mixtures, fifteenths and coupled pedals to a deafening peal, then subsiding quickly again and terminating in one long sustained common chord. And now, as the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... often, I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly compos'd, and those which he had often preach'd in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improv'd by frequent repetitions that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turn'd and well plac'd, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleas'd with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that receiv'd from an excellent piece of musick. This is an advantage itinerant preachers ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... tangent, A smear of rose, black, silver. Short twists and upstartings, Rose-black, in a setting of bubbles: Sunshine playing between red and black flowers On a blue and gold lawn. Shadows and polished surfaces, Facets of mauve and purple, A constant modulation of values. Shaft-shaped, With green bead eyes; Thick-nosed, Heliotrope-coloured; Swift spots of chrysolite and coral; In the midst of green, pearl, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... pieces. The company then seat themselves in a circle on the grass, and feast on eggs fried with herbs, while gay tunes are played on the lionedda.[58] A cup of wine is passed round from one to another, and each, laying his hand on his neighbour, repeats, with a certain modulation of voice, supported by the music of the pipes, “Compare e comare di San Giovanni!”. The toast is repeated, in a joyous chorus, for some time, till, at length, the company rise, still singing, and, forming a circle, dance merrily ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Collins was capable of every degree of excellence in lyric poetry, and perfectly qualified for that high province of the muse. Possessed of a native ear for all the varieties of harmony and modulation, susceptible of the finest feelings of tenderness and humanity, but, above all, carried away by that high enthusiasm which gives to imagination its strongest colouring, he was at once capable of soothing the ear with the melody of his numbers, of influencing the passions by the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... But he was a great literary artist. Within the cramped and starched regularity of the heroic couplet, which the fashion of the time and his own habit of mind imposed upon him, he secured the largest variety of modulation and emphasis of which that verse was capable. He used antithesis, periphrasis, and climax with great skill. His example dominated English poetry for nearly a century, and even now, when a poet like Dr. Holmes, for example, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... but secluded among trees, some distance isolated from my own home and out of sight of any other—what company! What occasional "tumultuous privacy" is mine! I have frequently been obliged to step out upon the porch and request a modulation of hilarity and a more courteous respect for my hospitality. But this is evidently entirely a matter of point of view, and, judging from the effects of my protests at such times, my assumed superior air of condescension ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... other Reasons, why a Student should not imitate the modern Gentlemen in singing Airs, since it plainly appears that all their Application now is to divide and subdivide in such a Manner, that it is impossible to understand either Words, Thoughts, or Modulation, or to distinguish one Air from another, they singing them all so much alike, that, in hearing of one, you hear a Thousand.——And must the Mode triumph? It was thought, not many Years since, that in an ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... in D, has five short movements. No. 1 has an opening of thirty-seven bars in common time, fugato. There is a modulation in the ninth bar to the dominant, and, later on, a return to the opening theme and key; in the intervening space, however, in spite of modulation, the principal key ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... power. She could even listen to what was being said. She had never dared as yet to look at Mr Donne, though her heart burnt to see him once again. He sounded changed. The voice had lost its fresh and youthful eagerness of tone, though in peculiarity of modulation it was the same. It could never be mistaken for the voice of another person. There was a good deal said at that breakfast, for none seemed inclined to hurry, although it was Sunday morning. Ruth was compelled ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... harmony. A certain general style, a certain general manner of expression, are common to all, as is also the case in, let us say, The Tempest. But what distinction, what variation of tone, what delicacy and expressiveness of modulation! As a simple matter of fact, few writers have ever had a greater flexibility of ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me—by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice—and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which she ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... I presume, I have by this Example given proof sufficient (viz. ocular demonstration) to evince, that there is such a modulation, or bending of the rayes of light, as I have call'd inflection, differing both from reflection, and refraction (since they are both made in the superficies, this only in the middle); and likewise, that this is able or sufficient ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... Lady Mabel played a dreary minor melody, chiefly remarkable for its delicate modulation from sharps to flats and back again. A large gentleman sang an Italian buffo song, at which the company smiled tepidly; a small young lady sighed and languished through "Non e ver;" and then Miss Tempest and Lord Mallow sang ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... different, and there is the symbolism of a new medium between it and the speaker. The writer, being cut off from all those effects which are producible by the physical intonations of the voice, has to find substitutes for them by other means, by subtler cadences, by a more varied modulation, by firmer notes, by more complex circuits, than suffice for the utmost perfection of spoken language, which has all the potent and manifold aids of personality. In writing, whether it be prose or verse, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... filled with an assembly of brilliant and agreeable men, one of whom, with his gray hair and bearing of an official, made a low obeisance before the wife of Darvid, and seemed to lay at her feet smiles full of homage. Hence she grew affable, pleasant, vivacious, elegant in gestures, and in the modulation of her beautiful voice, she answered politeness with politeness, requests with promises, and gave opinions in return for questions touching ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... of metultron, surrounded by an insulating shell of inertron, and this in turn by a spherical shell of katultron, from which the current radiates in every direction, tuning being accomplished by frequency of intermissions, with audio-frequency modulation. The receiving battery has a core pole of katultron and an outer shell of metultron. The receiving battery, of course, picks up all frequencies, the undesired ones ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... the nation, all the world. Not a "factor" on the London 'Change who did not turn an ear down the wind to catch the echo of this turmoil, not an agent de change in the peristyle of the Paris Bourse, who did not strain to note the every modulation of its ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... Redstart, the Willow-Wren, the Whinchat, the Pied-Wagtail, and the Spring- Wagtail; yet its imitations are chiefly confined to the notes of alarm (the fretting-notes as they are called here) of those birds, and so exactly does it imitate them in tone and modulation, that if it were to confine itself to one (no matter which), and not interlard the wailings of the little Redpole and the shrieks of the Martin with the curses of the House-Sparrow, the twink, twink of the Chaffinch, and its own care-for-naught chatters, the most ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... pathetic ballad of old Rob with the most heart-melting falls and pauses. Jemima had half-opened the door, when she distinguished her voice, and Maria stood close to it, scarcely daring to respire, lest a modulation should escape her, so exquisitely sweet, so passionately wild. She began with sympathy to pourtray to herself another victim, when the lovely warbler flew, as it were, from the spray, and a torrent of unconnected exclamations and questions burst from her, interrupted by fits of ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... she said, with such force in the command for all its honeyed modulation, that I expected to see its object fly the room ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... who has considered the subject at all must have observed what a powerful influence there lies in the mere manner and tone of a speaker. The captain's voice was so rich, so mellow, and capable of such varied modulation, that the men listened with pleasure to the words which rolled from his lips, as one would listen to a sweet song. He became so deeply interested, too, in the subject about which he happened to be speaking, that his auditors could not help becoming interested also. He had no ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... enthralled the listener, there were four qualities, two specially conspicuous in the substance of his eloquence—inventiveness and elevation; two not less remarkable in his manner—force in the delivery, expressive modulation ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... rows of faces as a criminal eyes the judges and the jury on whom his life depends. A murmur would have set him quivering; any slight incident upon the stage, Coralie's exits and entrances, the slightest modulation of the tones of her voice, would ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... hand occupies him only in its superficial aspects. What he sought on all hands, in his endless questioning of the human frame, his impatience of drapery, the furious haste to reach the live surface, and the tender modulation of it when it is reached, was to make the flesh itself speak and reveal the soul present at all points alike and at once. Nothing could have satisfied him but to impart to the marble itself that omnipresence of spirit of which animal life furnishes the hint. In this Titanic attempt the means ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... eyes fixed upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself: and he walked up to Rnine with jerky movements ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... overwhelming. Luca restrained himself to pure white on pale blue, and preserved an exquisite simplicity of line in all his compositions. There is an almost unearthly beauty in the profiles of his Madonnas, a tempered sweetness in the modulation of their drapery and attitude, that prove complete mastery in the art of rendering evanescent moments of expression, the most fragile subtleties of the emotions that can stir a tranquil spirit. Andrea della Robbia, the nephew of Luca, with his four sons, Giovanni, Luca, Ambrogio, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... gravely forward, and repeating the words tabak-tabak, keibo-keibo, ke-bang-e-nu-to-eek, kebang-enutoeek, amatama-amatama, in the order in which they are here placed, but each at least four times, and always by a peculiar modulation of the voice, speaking them in pairs as they are coupled above. The sound is made to proceed from the throat in a way much resembling ventriloquism, to which art it is indeed an approach. After the last amatama Iligliuk always pointed with her finger towards her ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... The modulation and formation of each figure conform strictly to Grecian models, as does also the entire arrangement of the figures in the group; and yet there is much of modern life in the figures, especially in the faces, in which the stereotyped ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... he thought it was his own. But in general it is not so much the sentiments and images that are new as the modulation of the verses in which they float. The cold obstruction of two centuries' thaws, and the stream of speech, once more let loose, seeks out its old windings, or overflows musically in unpractised channels. The ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... The first column shews all the initial letters, or their powers in the language; the second, the number of terminations, or the remaining part of the monosyllable beside the initial; and the third, expresses the number of monosyllabic sounds that may be given to each by inflexion, or modulation of voice, and by making ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... innkeeper, himself a most godly man, has work enough to do to receive the horses and traps and pony-carriages and stow them away before service begins, when he will stride from the stable to the pew. Then begins the hollow and flute-like modulation of a pitch-pipe within the great building. One of the members of the congregation who is a musician is setting the ears of the people to the tune of the hymn that is about to be given forth. The verse is read, and then rises the full swell of hundreds of voices; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... younger, among whom it was impossible at first to distinguish one from the other. So similar was in every case the display of French flowers, gloves and embroidery; so accordant the make of every dress and the modulation of every tone. Mme. Lasalle herself was, however, prominent, having a pair of black eyes which once fairly seen were for ever after easily recognizable. Fine eyes, too; bright and merry, which made themselves quite at home in your ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... to bear some relation to the subject and spirit of the poem. It admits both simplicity and magnificence of sound and of language, beyond any other stanza I am acquainted with. It allows the sententiousness of the couplet, as well as the more complex modulation of blank verse. What some critics have remarked, of its uniformity growing at last tiresome to the ear, will be found to hold true only when the poetry is faulty ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... stretched myself on the hay at her feet and, with my elbow leaning on the ground, I rested my head upon my hand; my eyes were riveted upon her lips, of which I strove not to lose a single motion, a single modulation, or ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... manifestation of any pronounced individuality or high artistic uplift, it none the less commands the respect due to the exhibition of a vigorous mentality combined with a notable mastery of orchestral resource and mellifluous modulation. At the conclusion of the performance Mr. Walbrook was constrained to make the transit from the artistes' room to the platform no fewer than three times before the applausive zeal of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child,—the madman's laugh,—the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,—are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... which has grown fastidious on the consummate finish of Esmond, Romola, and Treasure Island, is a little critical of the hasty outpourings of spirit which satisfied our fathers in the forties, after the manner of Sybil, the Last of the Barons, or Barnaby Rudge. The Tennysonian modulation of phrase had not yet been popularised in prose, and spasmodic soliloquies and melodramatic eloquence did not offend men so cruelly as they offend ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... to catch the Lady Jane's attention, A modulation toward the theatre, Also, in the case of revolution, A possible ...
— Hugh Selwyn Mauberley • Ezra Pound
... see you, Mr. Vancouver," said his host, whose extremely Celtic appearance was not belied by unctuous modulation of his voice, and the pleasant roll of his ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... the purposes of ordinary dialogue. There is much less of ornate structure and emphatic swell, than occurs in the speeches of Almanzor and Maximin; and Dryden, though late, seems to have at length discovered, that the language of true passion is inconsistent with that regular modulation, to maintain which, the actor must mouth each couplet in a sort of recitative. The ease of the verse in "Aureng-Zebe," although managed with infinite address, did not escape censure. In the "just remonstrance of affronted That," ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... poverty of color language tempts to a borrowing from the richer terminology of music. Musical terms, such as "pitch, key, note, tone, chord, modulation, nocturne, and symphony," are frequently used in the description of color, serving by association to convey ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... and so complete Their wondrous 'rangement, that a tuneful gnome Drew from them sounds more varied, clear, and sweet, Than ever yet had rung in any earthly dome. Loud, shrilly, liquid, soft; at that quick touch Such modulation wooed his angel ears That Zophiel wondered, started from his couch And thought upon the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... odds the most popular fellow of his time. His very popularity increased the danger." As if he had been pleading his own cause, Thayer's voice was full of earnest eagerness. Even in the midst of her anxiety and pain, Miss Gannion felt the power of its flexible modulation; and her half-formulated condemnation of Lorimer ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... with a greater musical inflexion than ours of the North. In other respects their tragic declamation must, I conceive, have been altogether unlike recitative, being both much more measured, and also far removed from its studied and artificial modulation. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... resistance, our brave red faces slobbered over with tears, as we stood marked for execution! Never was there a finer specimen of deprecation in eloquence than we then exhibited—the supplicating look right up into the master's face—the touching modulation of the whine—the additional tightness and caution with which we grasped the waistbands with one hand, when it was necessary to use the other in wiping our eyes and noses with the polished sleeve-cuff—the sincerity and vehemence with which we promised never to be guilty again, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... Steele and Addison and were continued in Goldsmith, Sterne, Cowper, and Charles Lamb. Among Irving's successors, George William Curtis and Charles Dudley Warner and William Dean Howells have been masters of it likewise. It is mellow human talk, delicate, regardful, capable of exquisite modulation. With instinctive artistic taste, Irving used this old and sound style upon fresh American material. In "Rip van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" he portrayed his native valley of the Hudson, and for a hundred years connoisseurs ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... It's an extremely difficult part. It would be superb—I think so, at least—in the hands of an actress who really understood her business; but Miss Bretherton will make it one long stagey scream, without any modulation, any shades, any delicacy. It drives one wild to think of it. And yet how, in the name of fortune, am I to ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of view Grieg is one of the most original geniuses in the musical world of the present or past. His songs are a mine of melody, surpassed in wealth only by Schubert, and that only because there are more of Schubert's. In originality of harmony and modulation he has only six equals. Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt. In rhythmic invention and combination he is inexhaustible, and as orchestrator he ranks among ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... was nearer speaking than singing. Yet again, when I remember the tears I shed at the Psalmody of Thy Church, in the beginning of my recovered faith; and how at this time I am moved, not with the singing, but with the things sung, when they are sung with a clear voice and modulation most suitable, I acknowledge the great use of this institution. Thus I fluctuate between peril of pleasure and approved wholesomeness; inclined the rather (though not as pronouncing an irrevocable opinion) to approve of the usage ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... "Cadence"—by which he meant the modulation of the tones of the voice in speaking—"is the running commentary of the emotions upon the propositions of the intellect." How true this is will appear when we reflect that the little upward and downward shadings of the voice tell more truly what ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... singular quality; if she raised it the effect was not agreeable, owing possibly to its lack of strength, but in low tones, such as she employed at present, it fell on the ear with a peculiar sweetness, a natural melody in its modulation. ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... priggishness, and perhaps over-stepped the border; but nevertheless it made me feel jealous for our village children, for in the conversation of village children one never hears that suggestion of a considerate mental attitude towards one another. The speech is without flexibility or modulation of tone; harsh, exclamatory, and screaming, or guttural and drawling. Rarely, if ever, does one derive from it an impression that the children are growing to regard one another's feelings, or one another's thoughts. ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... quoted I know not what authors and passages, and while rolling out their sweet and sounding lines (the classic tones fell musically from his lips—for he had a good voice— remarkable for compass, modulation, and matchless expression), he would fix on me a vigilant, piercing, and often malicious eye. It was evident he sometimes expected great demonstrations; they never occurred, however; not comprehending, of course I could neither ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in his high forehead. Wherever he had been, whatever he had done, his serenity was still unshaken. It still lay over him, placid and impenetrable. And when he spoke, his voice was cool and impassive and cast in pleasant modulation. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... renunciation of love; when this dies away, the motif of the ring, to be heard so many times after, its fateful character plainly conveyed by the notes, which also literally describe its circular form. By what magic of modulation the uninitiated cannot discern, the ring-motif, as the water by degrees is translated into mist, slides by subtle changes into a motif which seems, when it is reached, conspicuously different from it, the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... these lines of mine before he proceeds farther. The author of this little book is both blind and deaf! For many years he has been absolutely blind. He has utterly lost the sense of hearing also; and whilst he speaks with singular clearness, and with some modulation of voice, he can receive no communication from his fellow-creatures except through an alphabet which he carries upon his hand! Every word must be spelled letter ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... curiosity. Flushed with exercise, braced by the sharp air, her colour was brilliant and her eyes sparkling. Her plain dress and heavy veil appeared to the man to be a disguise, so surprising to him was the brilliancy of her face and the modulation ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... limb of a tree, to keep her in position. As soon as she had attained the upright attitude, another peal of laughter came ringing from her lips, as wild as that with which she had announced her approach; but there was also in its tones a certain modulation that betokened scorn! Neither of us uttered a syllable; but, observing a profound silence, stood waiting to hear what she had to say. Another scornful laugh, and her ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... in kind from a plan where all of the last movement is in insistent major. We know that it is quite possible to begin a work at some distance from the main key, leading to it by tortuous path of modulation; though there is no reason why we may not question the composer's own inscription, the controlling point is really the whole tonal scheme. Here the key of the second movement is built on a design ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... leave of the Gardener and returned to their place, where they sat down to converse. And Taj al-Muluk said to Aziz, "O my brother, recite me some verses: perchance it may broaden my breast and dispel my dolours and quench the fire flaming in my heart." So Aziz chanted with sweet modulation these couplets, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... inclination to the rather dull grey-greenness which had prevailed before 1785, remained somewhat cold and wanting in quality, and the more forcible tints introduced in the draperies were frequently lacking in modulation and were not quite in harmony with the prevailing tone. Something of this deficiency in fusion is also noticeable in his flesh tints, the carnations of the complexions being somewhat detached owing to defective gradation where the pinks join the whites. As experience ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... was under way, and suddenly, without modulation, the performer was again on the theme, Posnett ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... assertion, he availed himself of his talent, and mimicked the manner and voice of all the principal performers, male and female, belonging to the French comedy, to the admiration of the chevalier, who, having complimented him upon this surprising modulation, begged leave to dissent in some particulars from ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Quebec County. Chapman says (Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America) "it is most at home in secluded woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are unequalled." Its "water-dripping ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... a lonely, dreary hour, perhaps in the twilight. The quaver figure rises aspiringly, and the sustained parts swell out proudly. The piquant cadenza forestalls in the progression of diminished chords favourite effects of some of our more modern composers. The modulation from C sharp minor to D major and back again (after the cadenza) is very striking ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... syllables the most intractable, and the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of language are coupled together as naturally as those kindred spirits which poets tell us were created pairs, and dispersed in space to seek out their particular mates. A harmony pervades the whole, a perfect modulation of numbers, never, perhaps, surpassed, and rarely equaled in compositions of their class. This was the forte of Thomas Ingoldsby; a harsh line or untrue rhyme grated on his ear like the Shandean hinge." These observations are just. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... We must recognize at once the fact that the voice is a natural reporter of the conditions, emotions, thoughts, and purposes (character and states or conditions) of the individual. The ring of true culture in the voice is that perfect modulation of tone and movement which, without self-consciousness, communicates exactly the meaning and purpose which impel the ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... of course, obvious that our analysis has confined itself to the barest elements of the musical experience. Our music to-day, with its many-voiced harmonies, with its procession of chords instead of single tones, with its modulation into related keys, has an infinite wealth and complexity defying description. A large part of the astonishing effect of music is derived from the fact that in a brief space we seem to hear and absorb so much: the careers of multitudinous lives compressed ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... secret that must not yet be uttered; and indeed, as he spoke of the change from the little street in Shepherd's Bush to that ancient house in the woods of the far west, a change seemed already to possess himself, and his voice put on the modulation of an antique chant. Mary looked at him steadily and touched his arm, and he drew a long breath before he ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... only assume the dialect of every foreign country, but the particular tone of every district of England so perfectly, that he might have passed for a native of either: and of the variations of the human accent in different individuals his recollection was so acute, and the modulation of his voice so varied, that, having once conversed with a person, he could most accurately imitate his gestures and articulation for ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... lovely, innocent blue eyes gladly upturned to the long, jewel-like head of Nagaya, which twined round the summit of the ebony staff, seemed to peer down at her in a sort of drowsy reflectiveness. Then, all suddenly, Lysia spoke, . . how enchanting was the exquisite modulation of that slow, languid, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli |
