"Monotone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and Cassy passed on into a room beyond which other rooms extended, each different, but all in the same key, a monotone attenuated by lustres and the atmosphere, infinitely relaxing, which ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... Chihuahua and Aldama to Laredo, to Torreon, and Albuquerque. From there across the Uncompahgre plateau into the Uintah country; then at last due west through Nevada to California and to the valley of the San Joaquin." His voice lapsed to a monotone, his eyes becoming fixed; he continued to speak as though half awake, his thoughts elsewhere, seeing again in the eye of his mind the reach of desert and red hill, the purple mountain, the level stretch of alkali, leper white, all the savage, gorgeous ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... chimney corner chirped loudly, and his shrill notes seemed to say: "The king—the king." Rodolph could hardly believe his ears. How had the cricket learned to chirp these words? It was beyond all understanding. But still the cricket chirped, and still his musical monotone seemed to say, "The king—the king," until, with an angry frown, Rodolph strode from his house, leaving the child to hear the cricket's ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... and sense of humor, Jim: she's all for a dull monotone. Old Fuller is dead: his mantle descended on me, but they don't appreciate that style nowadays. To return to our topic, and deal with the duty that lies nearest. In an humble and pottering way, we are a happy ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... of the high drama he had authored and he gave his own familiar role everything he had. Frowning and running his finger along each line, as though he were seeing the will for the first time, he read aloud in a deep portentous monotone, like a bass ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... We ceased to find clear spaces where we could gallop; a trot became impossible. We were hemmed in. A rank animal odor mingled with the taint of smoke. Gradually the muffled beat of hoofs grew more pronounced, a shuffling monotone that filled the night. We were mere atoms in a vast wave of horn and bone and flesh that bore us onward as the ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... in a dreary monotone which seemed strangely out of keeping with the half-concealed kindliness which was revealed in her homely countenance. She was a working matron, a sort of upper servant, and had been three years in the place, which, I gradually gleaned from ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... tried to give you a bird's-eye view of Germany; rocks, and woods, and clouds, and brooks, and the pebbles in their beds, and mills, and cottages, and fences, and what not; but it is all a feverish dream, ghastly and strange, a monotone of ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... did with quite enchanting courtesy, making an apt apology for having kept them waiting, which almost mollified the irate Premier. Bridget came with a swift gliding movement to the side of her friend, squeezed her hand and held it, while she talked in a soft rapid monotone. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... by reading the fortune of John Tullis, who had been pushed forward by the wide-eyed Prince. In a cackling monotone she rambled through a supposititious history of his past, for the chief part so unintelligible that even he could not gainsay the statements. Later, she bent her piercing eyes upon the Prince and refused to read his future, shrilly ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was just as dark and gloomy as it was without, and as the two visitors entered, a voice came from out the shadows, and said, in a curious monotone and with ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... intently than any of them, he made no effort to leave the camp. Day after day he attended to my simple wants, spending all his spare time in polishing my weapons, a work he absolutely loved, and crooning interminable songs in a low monotone. ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... shook hands, and then perceived that she had not been intended to show amusement. Cartoner had merely made a rather naive statement in his low monotone. She thought him a little odd, and glanced at him again. She changed color slightly as she turned towards a chair. He was quite grave ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. But the wind without was eager and sharp, 225 Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings, Singing, in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own, 230 Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was—"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!" The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, And he sat in the gateway and saw ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... along, and those were wonderful tunes he drew from the strings. Sometimes he explained what they meant, his words running along in monotone that yet kept time ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... half gutted; out of its windows roared long, fiery tongues; the structure snapped and volleyed a chorus to the sullen monotone of destruction. The street was littered with the household belongings of the neighborhood, and from the galleries and windows near by came such a flight of miscellaneous articles as to menace the safety of those below. Men shouted, women screamed, children shrieked, figures appeared upon ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... the receiver and picked up the mouthpiece of the dictaphone again, paying no further attention to me. He enunciated clearly and precisely, speaking in an even monotone, pausing not at all, as if reading from some prepared script, though his eyes were fixed upon a vacant spot where ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... waiting, Payne," continued Garman in his monotone. "Big hungry one, up there in the cypress. But the Mexican Buzzards, the little brown fellows, will come down from the trees first—fierce little Mexican buzzards—not afraid to tackle a thing still ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... that soon, he thought, without a touch of fear, having utterly accepted death when he determined it were base to carry his weary old life a little longer, and let Ruth's young love die. Now the Falls' heavy monotone was overborne by terrible sounds—a mingled clashing, shrieking, groaning, and rumbling, as of great ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... mournful note of the toucan floated to his ears. In the street without he heard at intervals the pattering of bare feet in the hot, thick dust, as tardy fishermen returned from their labors. The hum of insects about his toldo lulled him with its low monotone. The call of a lonely jaguar drifted across the still lake from the brooding jungle beyond. A great peace lay over the ancient town; and when, in the early hours of morning, as the distorted moon ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... bluebird, straining its little throat in exultant melody, flew from branch to branch of the big chestnut-tree, and the hum of insects made soft monotone to the shrill cry of the locust, which promised greater heat next day. In the distance the Calverton road stretched white and dusty south to town, north to the unknown land, the land of dreams to Peggy and ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... away—and the ending is full of a sad charm. Op. 30, No. 4, the next in order, is bigger in conception, bigger in workmanship. It is not so cheerful, perhaps, as its predecessor in the same key; the heavy basses twanging in tenths like a contrabasso are intentionally monotone in effect. There is defiance and despair in the mood. And look at the line before the last—those consecutive fifths and sevenths were not placed there as a whim; they mean something. Here is a mazurka that will be heard ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... with six ladies was apparently the opportunity of a lifetime, and she was determined to make the most of it. She volunteered to recite, and wound out a long poem in such a rapid, breathless monotone that it was hardly possible to distinguish a word. The party politely expressed gratitude, whereupon she announced: "I'll say it for you again!" and plunged at once ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... lights—here it ran the colour of an olive, there rose pink, and here again a brilliant green; above their heads the stars were coming out, in the east it was already dusk; and behind them in the town, drums were beginning to beat with their barbaric monotone. Both men walked with their chins sunk upon their breasts, their eyes upon the ground. They had come to the end of hope, they were possessed with a lethargy of despair. Feversham thought not at all of the pine trees on the Surrey hills, nor did Trench have any dread ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... history lectures, talked in a bass monotone and never seemed to pause for breath. His words came in a slow steady stream that never rose nor fell nor paused—until the bell rang. The men in the back of the room slept. Hugh was seated near the ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... stirring the leaves of the eucalyptus across the street. In the music-room of the white house the young lady of the family had opened the piano and was practising finger-exercises. The scales and arpeggios following one another without interruption, came to his ears in a pleasant monotone. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a bucket of water and the garden hose. Grocery and delivery wagons came and went, rattling over the cobbles and car-tracks, ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... he was always at liberty to twiddle his thumbs, twirl his pencil, yawn, blink, and look out of the window at the City Park across the way, where excited citizens maintained a steady yelling monotone before the neighbouring newspaper ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... and the Duke's herald rode forward to the gate, and the King's herald was seen within, and there was a great blowing of horns and a sound of loud, high voices reciting formal speeches in a monotone. After that there was a silence, and horns again, and more recitation, and a final blast, after which the Duke's herald came back, and the King's herald came out upon the drawbridge, followed by men in rich clothes of white cloth, embroidered with gold lilies that shone in the autumn sun, like ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... amongst them, a lunar wreck, sometimes on her beam ends, sometimes half submerged, once more gallantly struggling to the surface, and again sunk. The bare boughs of the trees beat together in a dirgelike monotone. Now and again a leaf went sibilantly whistling past. The wild commotion of the heavens and earth was visible, for the night was not dark. The ranger, standing within the rude stable of unhewn logs, all undaubed, noted ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... do and plenty to get."—"Oh, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes." Thereupon—glowering angrily at Sam, and blinking his eyes more than ever—Mr. Justice Stareleigh remarked, with a heavier cold in the head than hitherto, in a severe monotone, and with the greatest deliberation, "You must not tell us what the soldier says unless the soldier is in court, unless that soldier comes here in uniform, and is examined in the usual way—it's not evidence." Another evening, again, we recall quite as clearly to mind, when the Reader was revelling ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... he said in a low, metallic monotone: "Good morning, Sir. I am very pleased to meet you. Can you tell me what o'clock it is? I am much obliged. I wish to descend at Manchester. At what hour do we arrive there? There are few passengers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... Nodding on gentle slopes and dewy hills. Ready for the harvest death's grim reapers stood Waiting the signal with impatient steel; And morning passed, and mid-day. Here and there The crack of rifles on the picket-line, Or boom of solitary cannon broke The myriad-voiced and dreadful monotone. So fled the anxious hours until the hills Sent forth their silent shadows to the east— And then their batteries opened on our left Advanced into the valley. All along The rolling crest of Seminary Ridge Rolled up the smoke of cannon. Answered then The grim artillery ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... the northern part of the State. When Mr. Pond died, he came down to the funeral. Upon his return, he saw a tepee pitched on the edge of his farm and went over to see what it was there for and who was in it. As he neared it, he heard talking in a monotone and stood listening, wondering what it could mean. He pushed up the flap and saw Indians engaged in prayer. He asked them who taught them to pray and they replied "Grizzly Bear taught us." He told them Grizzly Bear, which was the Indian name for Mr. Pond, was dead ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... army," repeated Decius, in a murmurous monotone, when, for a moment, there were silence and space around him. "We marched by the Lake Trasimenus, and the fog lay thick upon us. Then came a noise of shouts and clash of arms and shrieks, but we saw nothing—only sometimes a great, white, naked body swinging a huge ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... flying lead of three lengths, and the mare is left absolutely-absolutely last. The boy whipped her about just as the flag fell." There was the dreary monotone of crushed hope in Porter's ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... grinding work. "Glad I didn't go down a couple of miles," he thought. And as he backed slowly away, the dry, hot wind came in rattling gusts and swept the dust in yellow eddies after him, bearing the voice of the grasshoppers, the monotone of futility. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Clemens was engaged in his rotary denunciation of the criminals, oblivious of every other circumstance. Mr. Rising stood spellbound by this, to him, new phase of genius, and at last his friend became dimly aware of him. He did not halt in his scathing treadmill and continued in the slow monotone of speech: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a soft monotone, while they pulled hard for the mouth of the bay. The priest and I were fairly comfortable in the stern, the steersman perched behind us on the very edge of the combing, balancing himself to the rise and fall of the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... be done now except leave." Her voice was a dull monotone. "There is only so much that a person can do, and I've done it. Please have the ship come; ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... sounds along the ancient shore, Whose dull old monotone Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar, Wailed through the ages lone! I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn Beneath a stormy sky, And warning throes, my bosom long has ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... mine, a great friend of mine. Oh, yes!" Then, in an instant, the look of relief vanished, as once again the terrible reality hammered on her consciousness, and an overwhelming dejection showed in the dull eyes and in the drooping curves of the white lips. There was a monotone of desolation as she went on speaking in a whisper meant for the ears of no other. "It's awful—three years! Oh, I didn't understand! It's awful!—awful!" With the final word, she hurried off, her head bowed. She was still murmuring brokenly, incoherently. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... and the imagery of ruin; with this, an analytic power, a scientific exactness, and a mechanical ingenuity more usual in a chemist or a mathematician than in a poet. He studied carefully the mechanism of his verse and experimented endlessly with verbal and musical effects, such as repetition, and monotone, and the selection of words in which the consonants alliterated and the vowels varied. In his Philosophy of Composition he described how his best known poem, the Raven, was systematically built up on a preconceived plan in which the number of lines was first determined and the word "nevermore" ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... square piano she still remembered so well at the Mill. And this modern piano—heard through open windows in the warm summer air, and mixing with the indistinguishable sounds of distant traffic—had something of the effect of that instrument of seventy years ago, breaking the steady monotone of rushing waters under the wheel that scarcely ever paused, except on Sunday. What had become of the old square piano she and Phoebe learned to play scales on? What becomes of all the old furnishings of the rooms of our childhood? Did any man ever identify ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... a mere redness in the curdling fleecy haze; the weltering seas rose and fell in broad sheets of burnished silver, the monotone of their music followed them, a cool salt wind blew over them and freshened them for storm. Flor rose on her arm and looked back,—the breeze roused her; pain and fear and hope rose with her and looked back too. Eager, feverish, fierce, recollecting and desiring ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... went into a trance as usual, and after a short interval, announced in her low monotone that the spirit of Peter Crane ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... ambled over to the conservatory, where a particular variety of orchid seemed to interest the girl. And there we were, I explaining and she listening, the others off somewhere near the entrance to the gymnasium, where I heard Lloyd's voice in bored monotone. I was quite sure in a moment that she hadn't managed to get me there to talk orchids, and I felt a vague sense of discomfort at her nearness. I have given the impression that her eyes were cold. As I looked into them I saw that I had been ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... hundred as the crow flies, and not by the tortuous route the cavalry had to follow, through a region that, all in an hour's march, shifted its scene from the dull monotone of barren waves of prairie to bold, beautiful heights and deep sheltered ravines and canons, the winding thread of the Mina Ska went foaming and leaping over its stony bed, taking occasional cat-naps in wide, shadowy shallows, only to wake up again to wilder ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... bird-nature and fish-nature and turtle-nature, by sitting perfectly still in one place and waiting patiently till it comes out. You see more of the reality of people in a single day's tramp than in twenty days of guarded monotone. Now I cannot conceive of any reason why people should go to Saratoga, except to see people. True, as a general thing, they are the last objects you desire to see, when you are summering. But if one has been cooped ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... visitor's rapid monotone, the stir and clatter of young shoes, remarked petulantly, "Gordon paid two hundred dollars for that single dog; there ought to ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of some one who is squatting in an angle. It is an ambulance man on guard, whose monotone says to each arrival, "Take the mud off your boots before going in." So you stumble into an accumulating pile of mud; it entangles you at the foot of the steps ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... childish, alto voice, gabbling in a monotone. A phrase would be spoken, the voice would hesitate for just an instant, and then another, totally disconnected phrase would come. The enunciation and pronunciation would vary from phrase to phrase, but the tone ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... high walls. At the bottom of it I stepped upon an officer, who lay across the path asleep with his men. So tired was he that he did not wake. On over a field to the farm. I delivered my despatch to the Brigade-Major, whose eyes were glazed with want of sleep. He spoke to me in the pitiful monotone of the unutterably weary. I fed off bully, hot potatoes, bread ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... the chickens caw-cawed feebly. The colts whinnied, and a couple of dogs rolled and tumbled in wild frolic, while the voice of the preacher sounded dolefully or in humming monotone. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... felt deeply for them. But our young knight of the tuning-fork was not to be vanquished. With a dash he brought the fork down upon the desk, and gave the key again. But alas! for all human expectations! The choir dropped down to a dead monotone, as they went on with the ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... the photograph and cast it into Beauvais's lap. "Do you recognize that face? Is it not a mute accusation to your warped conscience?" The voice, changing from the monotone of narrative, grew strong and contemptuous. "I know you. I recognized you the moment I laid eyes on you, only I could not place you. Perhaps it was because it did not seem possible that you would dare show your face to civilized people. That photograph has done its work. By the Lord, but you're ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people—ah, the people— They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... 2. Monotone time tests, which should be quite short, as the constant repetition of the same note in pitch is irritating to the more sensitive ears in a class. This point is sometimes overlooked, with the result that only the less musical ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... us," she said in her usual monotone. "You shall teach us—preach to many people. No house will hold them all." She leaned down and caressed the child. "Le temps vient, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... our matchless blue, The shade below yon passion plant that lies, And very sweet is love, and sweet are you, My little children dear, with violet eyes, And sweet about the dawn to hear anew The sacred monotone of peace arise. Love, 't is thy welcome from the air-hung bell, Congratulant and ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... on the mossy instep of a spruce. Not a bush or tree was moving; every leaf seemed hushed in brooding repose. One bird, a thrush, embroidered the silence with cheery notes, making the solitude familiar and sweet, while the solemn monotone of the stream sifting through the woods seemed like the very voice of God, humanized, terrestrialized, and entering one's heart as to a home prepared for it. Go where we will, all the world over, we seem ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... grayish fog lay over the river, and a steamer, now and then uttering a dull whistle, was slowly forging up against the current. Damp and cold clouds, of a monotone pallor, enveloped the steamer from all sides and drowned all sounds, dissolving them in their troubled dampness. The brazen roaring of the signals came out in a muffled, melancholy drone, and was oddly brief as it burst forth from the whistle. The sound seemed to find no ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... blood-relationship. Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in the Almighty's intentions about families. She rose slowly without any sign of resentment, and said in her usual muffled monotone, "Brother, I hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you. Solomon says there's great talk of his cleverness. I'm sure it's my wish you should be spared. And there's none more ready to nurse you than your own sister and your own nieces, if you'd only say the word. There's ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... adventurers" to rise to a sitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon—an act signifying, in that time and place, a policy of expectation. The stranger gave the matter no attention and began again to speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotone in which he had delivered ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... fro,—to and fro,—gravely persistent, sublimely eloquent, the huge, sustained, and heavy monotone went thudding through the stillness,—till, startled from his profound sleep by such loud, lofty, and incessant clangor, Alwyn turned on his pillow and listened, half-aroused, half-bewildered,—then, remembering where he was, he understood; it ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... eighteen, with six years of bread-winning behind her, but she told her story exactly in the manner of a child of eight. That is to say, she told it in a monotone without evincing, and clearly without feeling, the slightest amusement in it, and at the end, continuing quite grave, watched for its effect on others with a curious, staring interest. Her immobile, investigatory expression made the doctor laugh, which seemed, of late, to be the object in ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... sounds of the human voice may be comprehended under the general appellation of tones. The principal modifications of these tones are the MONOTONE, the RISING INFLECTION, the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... "double quick" that summoned the laggards to scurry into the silently forming ranks, and finally, with one emphatic rataplan, the morning concert abruptly closed and the gruff voices of the first sergeants, in swift-running monotone, were heard calling the roll of their shadowy companies, and, thoroughly roused, the garrison "broke ranks" for the long routine ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... and the Grand Canal—and lacks absolutely that charm of infinitely varied, if somewhat faded or even shabby, colour that characterizes the "Queen of the Adriatic," there is yet certainly nothing monotonous in her monotone of mellow red-brick; and certainly nothing so dilapidated, and tattered, and altogether poverty-stricken as one stumbles against in Venice in penetrating every narrow lane, and in sailing up almost every ...
— Beautiful Europe - Belgium • Joseph E. Morris
... rambled on In one long listless monotone, We heard a wild and mournful groan Come rumbling down the tunnelled way; A voice, an awful mournful bray, Singing some old funereal lay; Then solemn footsteps, muffled, dull, Approached as if they trod on wool, And as they nearer, nearer ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... them, secretive, shaggy, what I call weather-beaten, and let-alone—a rich underlay of ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning to be spotted with the early summer wild flowers. Enveloping all, the monotone and liquid gurgle from the hoarse, impetuous, copious fall—the greenish-tawny, darkly transparent waters plunging with velocity down the rocks, with patches of milk-white foam—a stream of hurrying amber, thirty feet wide, risen far back in the hills and woods, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... McPherson we were five miles "in the country." Nature in primitive wildness encompassed us, but life's song never ran into a monotone. The prairie is never dull when one watches it from day to day for signs of Indians. Yet we were not especially concerned, as we were near enough to the fort to reach it on short notice, and besides our home there was another house ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... time to time by some casual remark of no interest, drawled out in a monotone; every now and then a man invited the "crowd" to drink with him, and that was all. Yet the moral atmosphere was oppressive, and a vague feeling of discomfort grew upon me. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... uttered without either the upward or downward slide, they are said to be uttered in a monotone, which ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the story that transformed the world. And then in the midst of the reiterated monotone of this insistent message came the glad response from I know not where, "Yes, and will yet transform it!" And then the two met and mingled, strophe and anti-strophe, one answering the other, "This is the story that transformed ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... mistaken for Beauregard's. Though the levee came to an end at "taps," no one felt sleepy, and the excitement banished the pains of fatigue. Major Mike, sauntering through the dark lines near midnight, heard the tale still going on in drowsy monotone, but, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... killed my father," Zenobia continued in a monotone, "and my brothers killed your brother; and so it will go on now for nobody knows ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... annoyance. It was pretty hard work for her to keep the tears out of her eyes; and she endeavoured to think of something else, rather than dwell on regrets and annoyances. She heard Mrs. Gibson talking on in a sweet monotone, and wished to attend to what she was saying, but the squire's visible annoyance struck sharper on her mind. At length, after a pause of silence, he started ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... tortured, he began again his aimless tour of the place, ranging the four walls like a wild creature dulled to insanity by long imprisonment—passing backward, forward, to and fro, across, around his footsteps timing the dreadful monotone of his heart, his pulse beating, thudding out ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... After supper the Cat's master took his pipe, and sought a small store of tobacco which he had left in his hut over winter. He had thought often of it; that and the Cat seemed something to come home to in the spring. But the tobacco was gone; not a dust left. The man swore a little in a grim monotone, which made the profanity lose its customary effect. He had been, and was, a hard drinker; he had knocked about the world until the marks of its sharp corners were on his very soul, which was thereby calloused, ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... paused—at such a height where overhead The clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill, And all was hushed and calm and very still, Save, from abysmal gorges, where the sound Of tumbling waters rose, and all around The pines, by those keen upper currents blown, Muttered in multitudinous monotone. Here, with the wind in lovely locks laid bare, With arms oft raised in dedicative prayer, Lost in mute rapture and adoring wonder, He stood, till the far noise of noontide thunder, Rolled down upon the muffled harmonies Of wind and waterfall and whispering trees, Made loneliness more lone. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... so sure of that," she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes and speaking almost in a monotone. He started. For a moment he ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... naked," went on Cissie in the monotone that succeeds a fit of weeping, "and ashamed—and afraid." She blinked her eyes to press out the undue moisture, and looked at Peter as if asking what else she could do about it than to go ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... into tears, her hands to her face. He drew them away gently, mastering her with firm composure. "It was a shock, wasn't it?" he said in a low, vibrating monotone. "But it had to be done in that way. Jim Graham doesn't upset you in that way, I'll be bound. But Jim Graham is a rich, comfortable vegetable; and I'm not exactly that. You don't want ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... water and sitting in Ruth's room wielding a fan over Ruth's ungrateful face. It consisted in spending of her scant supply of money for medicines, in constant attendance and patient, faithful nursing—accompanied by sharp scoldings and recriminations uttered in a monotone guaranteed not to disturb the sick girl. Perhaps she really fancied she was being hard and unsympathetic and calloused. She talked as if she were, but no single act was in tune with her words.... She grumbled—and ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... ce berceau, Et que Marguerite Filait son fuseau, Quand le vent d'automne Faisait tout gemir, Ton cri monotone M'aidait a dormir. ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... keep no servants, mothers must take their children wherever they go—to churches, theatres, concerts, and military reviews—everywhere and anywhere. Hence the low, pensive wail of the individual baby, combining in large numbers, becomes a deep monotone, like the waves of the sea, a sort of violoncello accompaniment to all their holiday performances. It was rather trying to me at first to have my glowing periods punctuated with a rhythmic wail from all sides of ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the paralyzed tongue of the Atlantic Cable, to catch the utterances that never came for all his patient coaxing; and ever and anon he iterated, feebly and more feebly, as if all his sinking soul he did outpour into the words, that melancholy monotone which was his only stock and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... of surprise, special entertainments being almost unknown at Atticus's dinners. The host turned smiling to his guests. "My friends," he said, "I know you share my pride in the rare event of Apuleius's presence. He is not as accustomed as we are to the grey monotone of our own thoughts. Shall he go back to Carthage or Rome to laugh at our village banquets? Ptolemy, you know Menander shared ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... thus at her rescued feet Save her low breath, I heard alone The sleepless ocean's ceaseless beat, The surge's monotone. ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of the Bororos were singular. On the death of a man, a chorus of moans began and tears were shed in profusion, while some one sang for several days the praises of the defunct in a melancholy monotone. The body was covered for two entire days, during which all articles that belonged to the deceased, such as bow and arrows, pots, and musical instruments, were smashed or destroyed. The debris was stored behind ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... in a capacious armchair in Mrs. Peters' door-way. Across her knees lay a small white bundle, and she was swaying softly back and forth, while she crooned in a low, loving monotone ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... inflections than the ordinary voice has: there was a note in it that might have belonged to a child's voice; another, more primitive, that betrayed feeling with as little reserve as the cry of an animal. Then it sank, and went on in a monotone, like a Hebrew prayer, as if reiterating things worn threadbare by repetition, and already said too often. Gradually, it died away in the surrounding silence. There was no response but a gentle rustling of the leaves overhead. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a husky monotone, as if to himself. "They's nobody else jes' like her," he declared; "that's a cinch! She's shore the kind that comes one in a box! Whenever I'd look at her, I'd allus think o' a angel, 'r a bird, 'r a little, bobbin' rose." He sighed, uncrossed his shaggy knees, crossed ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... low monotone, that nevertheless penetrated to every part of the room. He had a voice of peculiar quality, as sweet as the tones of a tenor, and as pleasant to hear as music; now and then there was a manly ring in it which thrilled his listeners. "A week ago to-night," he said, "at this very ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... from the atmosphere and held it up for Mr. Wayne's inspection; and while that young man's eyes protruded the poet rambled on and on until the melody of his voice became a ceaseless sound, a vague, sustained monotone, which seemed to bore into Wayne's brain until his legs twitched with a ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... wordy, and he tarried but a moment, yet he explained his paralysis. In the dreary monotone of a chronic sour temper he related that some Confederates, about a year before, had come here impressing horses, and their officer, on being called by him "no gentleman," had struck him behind the ear with the butt of a ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... not for those of his wife and daughters, who pined of course for a more exciting life, and for richer dresses than he could afford to give them. His sermons, it must be confessed, were not very instructive, suggestive, or eloquent,—were, in fact, without point, delivered in a drawling monotone; but then his hearers were not used to oratorical displays or learned treatises in the pulpit, and were quite satisfied with the glorious liturgy, if well intoned, and pious chants from surpliced boys, if it happened to be a church rich and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... south, far as the eye could reach, hemmed by low, dun-colored ridges or sharply outlined crests of remote mountain range, in lifeless desolation the landscape lay outspread to the view. Southward, streaked with white fringe of alkali, the flat monotone of sand and ashes blended with the flatter, flawless surface of a wide-spreading, ash-colored inland lake, its shores dotted at intervals with the bleaching bones of cattle and ridged with ancient wagon-tracks unwashed by not so much as ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... space was on my right, and across the dark expanse, and across the street which cut the other side of it I looked to the long roofs and walls of the convent, all a dull monotone scarcely distinguishable from the night. Only on the corner a solitary street lamp illuminated a little space of the wall and made a pool of light on the ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... the bright suspicion of a wing, The slim curved moon, who in shy triumphing Hideth her face. Above, the rose-tint pales Into a silver opal, hills and dales Of cloudy glory, fading high alone Into a tender blue-grey monotone.— And then I thought: "ere that fair, slender moon Has rounded grown and full, (so soon, so soon!) Our hearts' desire accomplished we shall see Dear one, all light, ...
— Poems • Sophia M. Almon
... Charlton and go as far as the plantation gates with her. She was a small, slenderly built woman, or rather girl, with dark, passionate eyes, in whose liquid depths Lester could read the sorrows of her life with such a man as Henry Charlton. Once as he rode beside her through the grey monotone of the lofty, smooth-barked gum-trees she told him that her father was an Englishman and her ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... qu'il savait par tradition (sur ce meme Robert le magnifique, sur l'expedition de Guillaume, &c.) et qui donnent a son oeuvre un reel interet historique. Sa langue est excellente; son style clair, serre, simple, d'ordinaire assez monotone, vous plait par sa saveur archaique et quelquefois par une certaine ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... dragged along just half a beat behind the rest. The others showed a most decided penchant for the ancient Greek music, which, as is well known, having nothing to do with harmony, ran on in unison or monotone. They all sang treble, with slight variations, caused by accidental rising and falling of the voice, say some quarter ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a trace of surprise now in the general monotone Then she added, as if to leave no doubt in my mind, ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... greater variety of tone one hears in ordinary conversation. Your women, especially, seemed to me always just going to sing. And I fancied the address of the men affected—just as, very likely, this monotone of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... say whether he was merely working on Halby that he be true to the girl, or was himself softhearted for the moment. He had a curious store of legend and chanson, and he had the Frenchman's power of applying them, though he did it seldom. But now he said in a half monotone: ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... concluded; the smoke was over; and the more careful men were back in the shed sharpening their shears by two o'clock. Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its summons DE CAPO. The warm afternoon gradually lengthened its shadows; the shears clicked in tireless monotone; the pens filled and became empty. The wool-presses yawned for the mountain of fleeces which filled the bins in front of them, divided into various grades of excellence, and continuously disgorged them, neatly and ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood
... unaware of the flitting time. At mid-day the bell, which had not rung since early dawn, began to swing quickly to and fro in the chapel turret,—the deep bass of the organ breathed on the silence a thunderous monotone, and a bee-like murmur of distant voices proclaimed the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... spoke in a low monotone, holding the book close to his eyes in the uncertain light. And as he read I fell to wondering who our brother in the white coffin might be. Some merry tramp who knew the pain and the joy of the road? Some detached soul who had shaken off the burden ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... capital. He could not afford to be known as a troubadour. But he sang now, a passionate love-song, of which, of course, he felt not a word: the air was full of fervor, with an occasional gay jibing monotone. The words in themselves meant nothing: the music meant that whatever of love or earnestness was in the world was a sham. The men nodded over their pipes, keeping time: Jane held her father's hand quiet in her own, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... up the petty duties of a life apart and lone, Till the slow years wrought a music in its dreary monotone. ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... frigid-flashing sapphire of the sky, and bluer than the sky itself their shadows fall about them; every thorn, every stem, is set, a spike of crusted lustre in its icy mail; the tingling air takes the breath in silvery wreaths; and wherever the gay garment of a skater breaks the monotone with a gleam of crimson or purple, the shining feet beneath chisel their fantastic curves upon a floor that is nothing but one glare of crystal sheen. And here, hero of the scene, glides Beltran, master of the Northern art as school-days made him, skates as of old some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... it. The tousled, tumbling hair, the slipshod feet, the soiled blouse gaping at the back, were, he reflected bitterly, in perfect harmony with Granville, and of a piece with everything. He had ceased to censure them; they belonged so inalienably to the drab monotone; they were so indissolubly a part of all his life. And somehow she bloomed in spite of them. Ranny's unconquerable soul still cried "Stick it!" as he grappled ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... hauling up his anchor, and maybe would take us on a long way, which he surely did. The afternoon slipped on, hour by hour, and the fire snapped and cast its red light in our faces, and the kettle sung and the storm outside kept up its mad business, and the surf its monotone. ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... country seemed flowing forward in steady streams. Sandy River awoke, restlessly listening; lights glimmered behind darkened windows; a heavier, vaguer rumor grew, hanging along the hills. It increased to a shaking, throbbing monotone, like the far dissonance of ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... soft in white, Haughty, and yet how love-imbuing and tender! You stand before us with your gently mournful Memory-haunted eyes and flower-like mouth, Where clinging thoughts—as bees a-cluster Murmur through the leafy gloom, Musical in monotone— Whisper sadly. Yet a lustre As of glowing gold-gray light Shines upon the orient bloom, Sweet with orange-blossoms, thrown Round the jasmine-starred, deep night Crowning with dark hair your brow. Ruthless, once, we came to slay, And you met us ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... the burden of the Night, The saying of the sea, But lo! the hours have brought the light, The laughter of the waves, the flight Of dipping sea-birds, foamy white, That are so glad to be! "Forget!" the happy creatures cry, "Forget Night's monotone, With us be glad in sea and sky, The days are thine, the days that fly, The days God gives to know him by, And not ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... above their heads, while here its perpendicular side went down for fully another thousand to where, in the solemn dark depths of the vast canyon or crack in the rocky crust of the earth, a great rushing river ran, its roar rising to where they stood in a strangely weird monotone, like low ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... connecting up the telephone may be lengthened to any desired extent, so that, in the words of Professor Hughes, 'the beating of a pulse, the tick of a watch, the tramp of a fly can then be heard at least a hundred miles from the source of sound.' If we whisper or speak distinctly in a monotone to the pencil, our words will be heard in the telephone; but with this defect, that the TIMBRE or quality is, in this particular form of the instrument, apt to be lost, making it difficult to recognise ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... side. He talked swiftly. Only Alan understood. There was something unearthly and spectral in his appearance; his hair and beard were wet; his eyes shot here and there in little points of fire; he was like a gnome, weirdly uncanny as he gestured and talked in his monotone while he watched the nigger-head bottom. When he had finished, he did not wait for an answer, but turned and led the way swiftly toward the ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Here, listen to this. Now here's a little incident I found this evening that interests me immensely. It proves to my mind one of two points I hold in regard to Marshal Ney. Listen," and he read at length from his book, a dry, sepulchral monotone that grated on the ear until it became ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... We watched Xavier with bated breath. Not once did he take his eyes from the swirling water ahead, but gave the tiller a touch from time to time, now right, now left, and called in a monotone for the port or starboard oars. Nearer and nearer we sped, dodging the snags, until the water boiled around us, and suddenly the boat shot forward as in a mill-race, and we clutched the cabin's roof. A triumphant gleam was in Xavier's ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... unconscious. He talked in a quiet monotone; only now and then his voice rose; only now and then there were accompanying gestures. Jim had a straight mile down the broad village street to walk before he reached the church and the parsonage ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... buzz of an immense bee. As the hum of insects high in the atmosphere of midsummer suits and fits to the roses and the full green meads, so the hum of the threshing suits to the yellowing leaf and drowsy air of autumn. The iteration of hum and monotone soothes, and means so much more in its inarticulation than the adjusted chords and tune of written music. Laughing, the children romped round the ricks; they love the threshing and flock to it, they watch the fly-wheel ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the fair thing, say, blow in fifteen per cent, to the central committee, and what they feel like on the outside, then politics, instead of a burden and a reproach, becomes a pleasing duty, a joyous occasion and a picnic to those whose lives might otherwise be a dreary monotone. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... everything seemed to be in its place as usual. Summer is over, the fields have been reaped; there is a comfortable row of stacks in the rickyard; the pleasant humming of an engine came up the valley, as it sang its homely monotone, now low, now loud. After tea—the evenings have begun to close in—I went off to my study, took out my notebook and looked over my subjects, but I could make nothing of any of them. I could see that there were some good ideas among them; but none of ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the furious cast-iron machine seemed to him tired of howling the deafening rhythmical gallop, and the vigorously rocked traveller could distinguish in the diminished uproar a strain of music, at first confused like a groan, then more distinct, but always the same cruel, haunting monotone—the fragment of a song that Maria once sang when they were both children. Suddenly a mournful and prolonged whistle would resound through the night. The express rushed madly into a tunnel. Under the sonorous ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... of some description was taking place, lesser priests and other acolytes performing their various parts, the incantations rising now loudly, now sinking to a hollow monotone, the whole affair being none the less absorbing when Bruno remembered that, perhaps, it might have some connection with the vile plots against the Sun Children, if not endangering ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... But mother doesn't like any of my gentlemen friends. She's right down timid. She always makes a fuss if I introduce a gentleman. But I DO introduce them—almost always. If I didn't introduce my gentlemen friends to Mother," the young girl added in her little soft, flat monotone, "I shouldn't ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... topic are those of a bereaved lover." These last expressions are quoted from Poe's whimsical analysis of this very poem, but they indicate precisely the general range of his verse. The climax of "The Bells" is the muffled monotone of ghouls, who glory in weighing down the human heart. "Lenore," The Raven, "The Sleeper," "To One in Paradise," and "Ulalume" form a tenebrose symphony,—and "Annabel Lee," written last of all, shows that one theme possessed him to the end. Again, these are all nothing if not ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... was born a dogged sort of devil," he went on almost in a monotone. "The fact did not manifest itself to me until I came to the time when—all the rest of me dropped into a bottomless gulf. That perhaps describes it. I found myself suddenly standing on the edge of it. And youth, and future, and belief in the use of hoping and real enjoyment ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... man listened, and looked at Constans indifferently. Then he spoke in the inflectionless monotone of extreme ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the leaves of the oaks and chestnuts with a lazy summer stir; white sails spotted the broad bosom of the Shatemuc and came down with summer gentleness from the upper reaches of the river. And here and there a cloud floated over; and now and then a locust sang his monotone; and another soft breath of the North wind said that it was August; and the grasshoppers down in the dell ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... him sharply, and fearlessly approached him. She began talking in a monotone. His ears went flat against his head, but he submitted to her touch because invariably it soothed him, and because he sensed some undefinable power whenever his gaze met hers. She snapped the leash on his collar just as her father ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... has just come for you, Mister Phadrig. Muvver told me ter bring it up, and wot'll yer want for supper, and will yer give me the money?" she said in a piping monotone, still holding out her hand after he had taken the letter. He ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... announced the number, and the great organ struck up, and every person in the great church every man, woman, and child—joined in the swinging rhythm of verse after verse, as if they could never tire, of "The Old-Time Religion." It is a simple melody—barely more than a single line of almost monotone music: ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... brûle et la mer qui moutonne, Au somnolent soleil d'un midi monotone, Tu songes, O guerrière, aux vieux conquistadors; Et dans l'énervement des nuits chaudes et calmes, Berçant ta gloire éteinte, O cité, tu t'endors Sous les palmiers, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... she continued, in a low monotone; "how narrow and limited is all that you know compared to what there is surely up there. Yes, if I did not answer you it was because I was thinking of you, and I was filled with grief. You must ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... down upon his bed, A soft sweet song was born within his thought; But if he sang the song, or if 'twas nought But the soul's longing whispered to the soul, Himself knew hardly, while the passion stole From that still depth where passion lieth prone, And voiced itself in this-like monotone: ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... the solemn monotone Of waters calling unto me I know from whence the airs have blown That ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was hurrying by the spot where she was standing, eager to reach the other side unobserved by her. As I stole with noiseless tread behind her, I heard her talking to the waters in a slow and humdrum monotone: ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... extremely sentimental conversation as to whether Anthony did not consider Gloria change enough. Though he assured her that he did, she insisted upon doubting him.... Eventually the conversation assumed its eternal monotone: "What then? Oh, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... modern parlance, but it was usual to edge each hanging with a tape of monotone, a woven galloon of quiet hue, which had two purposes; one, to finish neatly the work, as the housewife hems a napkin; the other, to provide space of simple material for hanging on rude hooks the ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... near, as when, alone, The heart and soul grow intimate; And on the hills the twilight sate With shadows, whose wild robes were sown With dreams and whispers;—dreams, that led The heart once with love's monotone, And ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... including the present one, consisting of —— volumes [here he produced the customary specimen sheets]. You see this one work alone is worth the full amount you pay for life membership [here occurred a "special offer" of some sort, given in a low monotone which the stenographer was unable to hear; and I must confess that I was so stupefied by this astounding fabrication that I myself have not the faintest recollection of what this "special offer" consisted]. We are very anxious to have your name ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... not change, there was no sign that Hume's hint had struck home. But when he replied there was a slight change in the monotone of his voice. ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... follow your conscience," continued Mrs. Haldane, in her low monotone, "all will be well. It is your being carried away by gusts of impulse and violent passions that makes all the trouble. If you had followed your conscience you would at once have left Hillaton at my request, and hidden ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... forgotten nothing, like the old regime in France. He only knew how to butt and blunder resonantly at the glass; but he could do it as well as ever, and he seemed to have made up his mind to persevere. Sally listened to his monotone, and watched her image ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... branches against a diaphanous sky, and the air was full of delicate spider-webs which the breeze shook and tore asunder. The pines and cypresses—all the evergreen trees—took on something of this colourless pallor, seemed to fade and melt into the all-prevailing monotone. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulae preliminary to an impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,—signs ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... another man more fearful and hateful," went on MacIan, in his low monotone voice, "and they have buried him even deeper. God knows how they did it, for he was let in by neither door nor window, nor lowered through any opening above. I expect these iron handles that we both hate have ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... away. Then I find my soul spreading further and further. The great night, silent and splendid, builds itself over me. The night is the crowded time to travel—car almost to one's self, nothing but a few whirls of light and a conductor for company—the long monotone of miles—miles—flying beside me and above and around and beneath—all this shadowed world to belong to, to dwell in, to pick out with one's soul from Darkness. "Here am I," I said as the roar tightened once more, and gripped on its awful wire and glowed through the blackness. "Here I am in infinite ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... The interminable monotone of the ocean intensified the silence. I sat motionless, holding my breath as one who listens to the first low rumor of an organ. All at once the pure whistle of a nightingale cut the silence, and the first moonbeam silvered ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... against the pane. Outside was the dying light of day, but the glare of noonday, the quiet light of evening, the black of the night, were all one to him now. Was it going to be so with his mind, his spirit? Would all that other light, light of the mind and soul, be gulped into this black monotone, this nothingness? ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... there was apparently no verbal preparation. Yet his diction was peculiarly apt and pointed. He never looked at a note; used no gesture; scarcely raised or lowered his voice. But in a clear and penetrating monotone he uttered the workings of a profound and reflective mind, and the treasures of a vast experience. Though massive, his style was never ponderous: and it was constantly lightened by the sallies of a pungent humour. In the debate on the Second Reading of the Home ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... so hoarse, and the pitch alternates so unexpectedly between an "unearthly treble and a preternatural bass" that a boy can usually sing only in monotone, if, with courage proof against the ridicule occasioned by his uncontrollable vocal antics, he tries to join in. In those cases, where the larynx undergoes a slow change in growth, it is often possible for the boy to sing all through the period of change. ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... capable, as we at Norton Bury sometimes knew to our cost, of being roused into fierceness and foam. Now it slipped on quietly enough, contenting itself with turning a flour-mill hard by, the lazy whirr of which made a sleepy, incessant monotone which I was fond ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... sufficiently terrifying, the air is throbbing with sound. Each Indian pops away for general results as he comes jumping along, and yells shrilly to show what a big warrior he is, while underneath it all is the hurried monotone of hoof-beats becoming ever louder, as the roar of an increasing rainstorm on the roof. It does not seem possible that anything ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... sung in a chanting kind of monotone, and very seldom refused. A boy is chosen to knock at the farm door and rouse the inmates, it being considered unlucky for the household if a girl ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... of ruin; with this, an analytic power, a scientific exactness, and a mechanical ingenuity more usual in a chemist or a mathematician than in a poet. He studied carefully the mechanism of his verse and experimented endlessly with verbal and musical effects, such as repetition and monotone and the selection of words in which the consonants alliterated and the vowels varied. In his Philosophy of Composition he described how his best-known poem, the Raven, was systematically built up on a preconceived plan in which the number of lines was first determined and the ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... turn to read, and when the extracts were not too funny he progressed fairly well, toiling along in a quiet monotone. When the story became very laughable, however, he proved a great trial to his listeners. Before he could utter the joke, his voice would fail and he would collapse into helpless laughter. When importuned by ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... of Mongols had gathered near the palace and at last a long rope was let out from one of the buildings. Kneeling, the Mongols reverently touched the rope, which was gently waggled from the other end, supposedly by the Hutukhtu. A barbaric monotone of chanted prayers arose from the kneeling suppliants, and the rope was waggled again. Then the Mongols rode away, silent with awe at having been blessed by the Living God. All this under a blazing electric light beside an automobile at the foot ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... that wife whom I had hoped to possess. She maintained an obstinate silence when I urged her to give me at least some tangible reason as to why she would not marry me. She contented herself and maddened me by reflecting in a kind of monotone: "I love you, Karl! and am yours, but I cannot ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... read in a calm even monotone, without inflection, but with many pauses, whilst I watched every syllable and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... for them. All these circumstances were hard upon the young man. Looking down straight into the severe iron-grey eyes of his aunt Leonora, he could not of course so much as modify a single sentence of the discourse he was uttering, no more than he could permit himself to slur over a single monotone of the service; but that sudden bewildering perception that he could have done so much better—that the loftiest High-Churchism of all might have been consistent enough with Skelmersdale, had he but gone into the ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... rendered somewhat vague and inconsequential by his rapid changes of financial condition, moods, environment—the brief ecstasy of his triumphant flight that had so ridiculous a climax. Small wonder that Bland's whining voice failed to register anything but a dreary monotone of meaningless words in Johnny's ears. Small wonder that Johnny's thoughts dwelt upon little worries that could have no possible bearing upon the big ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... anything about the quarrel; she feared to reopen it. She talked mainly of old times in a gentle monotone of reminiscence, while he listened, looking up ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... turn, turn," Cousin Jack kept saying in a monotone, and suddenly it flashed on Marjorie that he meant for her to turn something else ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells |
