"Acoustic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Acoustic Telegraphy. The system of sound-reading in telegraphy, universally used in the Morse system. The direct stroke of the armature of the electro-magnet and its "back stroke" disclose to the ear the long and short strokes, dots and lines, and long and short spaces as produced by ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... morning with a cooler mind and one less inclined to fantastic imagination. If the strange episode of the previous evening had not entirely vanished from his mind, it seemed at least fully accounted for by the acoustic explanation to which I have alluded above. Although he saw Mr. Gaskell in the course of the morning, he did not think it necessary to mention to him so trivial a circumstance, but made with him an appointment to sup together in his own ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... interpretation since the significance of any event followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding originally ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and, by the air of an acoustic instrument, enabled Beethoven to hear a few words of ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... held, was completed in 1870. It stands just west of the Temple, is elliptical in shape, and, with its broad gallery running around the entire interior, except the end occupied by the organ loft and pulpit, it can seat about 9000 persons. Its acoustic properties are remarkable, and one of the duties of any guide who exhibits the auditorium to visitors is to station them at the end of the gallery opposite the pulpit, and to drop a pin on the floor to show them how distinctly that sound can ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... Tieckian notes; it was influenced by Brentano, and, unfortunately, was colored by the productions of Count Otto von Loeben (1786-1825), a pseudo-Romanticist of less than mediocre ability. But Eichendorff's individuality, with its constant accentuation of the acoustic, soon made itself felt and brought into German poetry what Tieck had tried for and failed in—an effect of perfect musical synthesis. The melody of the verse receives a peculiar lilt by frequent changes in metre between stanzas or in the midst of the stanza, and is thus ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... % 418. [Sense of sound.] Hearing. — N. hearing &c. v.; audition, auscultation; eavesdropping; audibility. acute ear, nice ear, delicate ear, quick ear, sharp ear, correct ear, musical ear; ear for music. ear, auricle, lug, acoustic organs, auditory apparatus; eardrum, tympanum, tympanic membrane. [devices to aid human hearing by amplifying sound] ear trumpet, speaking trumpet, hearing aid, stethoscope. [distance within which direct hearing is possible] earshot, hearing distance, hearing, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... none. In fugues, multiple counterpoint is one of the normal resources of music; and few devices are more self-explanatory to the ear than the process by which the subject and counter-subjects of a fugue change their positions, revealing fresh melodic and acoustic aspects of identical harmonic structure at every turn. This, however, is rendered possible and interesting by the fact that the passages in such counterpoint are separated by episodes and are free to appear in different keys. Many fugues of Bach are written throughout ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... taken their seats. He was an elderly man with thin cheeks and a large nose. He had one of those great, orotund voices that occasionally roll out of little men, and he read the service with a misjudged effort to fill the building. The building happened to have peculiarly fine acoustic properties; but the unfortunate man roared like him of Bashan. There was nothing of the customary ecclesiastical dignity and monotony about his articulation; indeed, it grew plain and plainer to Harry that he must have "come over" from some franker and more emotional denomination. It seemed ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... conceived figure which surmounts the pedestal represents the master standing, violin and bow in hand, at the moment of his accidental discovery of the curious acoustic phenomenon known as the "third sound,"—i. e., the production of a third note in harmony when only two are struck with the bow. The statue was modelled by Dal Zotto, an able Italian sculptor, whose work found so much favour with those present at its inauguration that they enthusiastically carried ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... is one of the pleasantest in the country and received a high comment, still remembered, from Joseph Jefferson, for its perfect acoustic quality. The armory, the Adriance Memorial Library to the memory of Mr. and Mrs. John P. Adriance, and the historic Clinton House on Main Street purchased in 1898 by the Daughters of the Revolution, also claim the attention of the visitor. Several factories are here located, the best ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... reminding one of the open space between the slats of a Venetian blind. Below it was a pine table filled with papers and surrounded by stools. When occupying one of these seats, one's eyes could sweep the entire plain. On the walls were electric apparatus, acoustic tubes and telephones—many telephones. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... other merely by a low partition; the walls and chairs are covered with heavy silken draperies, and the seats of the third and fourth galleries with a mixture of silk and cotton. One single circumstance was disagreeable to me in an acoustic point of view—I could hear the slightest whisper of the prompter as distinctly as though some one had been behind me reading the play. The curtain had scarcely fallen before the whole house was empty, and yet there was no crowding to get out. This first drew my ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... "frozen music." And when adorned with tropical plants and lit up with electric lights and pretty faces, it must indeed be a superb sight. Very imposing, too, is the vast Banqueting Hall, from whose platform, to test the acoustic effect of the rows of wires stretched six inches apart under the ceiling to break the sound, I addressed vacancy. The panels of this hall still await their artists. 'T is a rare opportunity for Glasgow to emulate the Parisian Pantheon; and, indeed, there is so much ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... 'When thine eye is beaming love,'—but only the first stanza, over and over again. Obliquely across the way, some one is murdering the flute, and has, moreover, lungs like Rameau's nephew; and, in notes of 'linked sweetness long drawn out,' his neighbour is trying acoustic experiments on the French horn. The numerous dogs of the neighbourhood are growing unquiet, and my landlord's cat, inspired by that sweet duet, is making close by my window (for, of course, my musico-poetic laboratory is an attic,) certain tender confessions,—upward through ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... pre-eminently close to nature, and are at home amongst the animals of the wilderness, beasts and birds, winds, and woods, and waters, falling snows, and flying sands, and rolling rocks, and these are carefully distinguished by corresponding verbs of ever-changing acoustic import. Conscious of the fact that, in a people like the Finns where nature and nature-worship form the centre of all their life, every word connected with the powers and elements of nature must be given its fall value, great care has been taken in rendering these ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... at the Gare du Nord may be crude, but its acoustic properties are superb. The noise which accompanied the arrival of the cortege was simply ear-splitting. I was in the very act of wondering whether, if I decided to retire, my legs would carry me, when, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the lesson of his race. First it appears in no great harm, in architectural tastes. Out of blocks, thread-spools, cards, and checkers, he will build his pyramid with the gravity of Palladio. With an acoustic apparatus of whistle and rattle, he explores the laws of sound. But chiefly, like his senior countrymen, the young American studies new and speedier modes of transportation. Mistrusting the cunning of his small legs, he wishes to ride on the necks and ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... stillness of the night, and the singular activity of the senses given by powerful emotion, enabled Clemence to distinguish the scratching of a pen and the involuntary movements of a person engaged in writing. Those who are habitually up at night, and who observe the different acoustic effects produced in absolute silence, know that a slight echo can be readily perceived in the very places where louder but more equable and continued murmurs are not distinct. At four o'clock the sound ceased. Clemence rose, anxious and trembling. Then, with bare feet and without a wrapper, forgetting ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... sound we can employ an acoustic apparatus for the purpose of decomposing any proposed note, and finding not only the main undulation itself, but the several superposed harmonics which give to the note its timbre. So also we can analyze the undulation of the tide, and show the component parts. The decomposition is effected by ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... quite the same power of recovery. He stood with his hands in his pockets looking at Miss Klegg's back. His face was white. "It's—it's a difficult question." He appeared to be paralyzed by abstruse acoustic calculations. Then, very awkwardly, he took a stool and placed it at the end of Ann Veronica's table, and sat down. He glanced at Miss Klegg again, and spoke quickly and furtively, with eager eyes on Ann ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... They drank to the earth and to her satellite, to the Gun Club, the Union, the Moon, Diana, Phoebe, Selene, the "peaceful courier of the night!" All the hurrahs, carried upward upon the sonorous waves of the immense acoustic tube, arrived with the sound of thunder at its mouth; and the multitude ranged round Stones Hill heartily united their shouts with those of the ten revelers hidden from view at the ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... a man of that sort; and if you didn't say it, more shame for you!' Mr Pancks here made a singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... they could have obtained, in order to keep it pledged as a temperance house. Another elegant building has been put up by the Masonic fraternity for their own purposes and those of the Board of Trade, etc., including a handsome opera-house on the ground floor. The auditorium is praised for its acoustic properties by Parepa-Rosa, Wallack, Davenport and other performers, seats about fifteen hundred, and is furnished with the inevitable drop-curtain by Russell Smith. Faced with iron painted white, and very rich in mouldings and ornaments, the building presents as cheery ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... brought us from Cicero's villa to the ruins of three temples—those of Diana, Venus, and Mercury. Of the first, one side and a few little cells, called the "baths of Venus," alone remain. Part of Venus's temple stands in the rotunda. It was built on acoustic principles, so that any one who puts his ear to a certain part of the wall can hear what is whispered at the opposite extremity. A few fragments of the rotunda were the only trace left ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... Gallery, to which the ordinary visitor pays more attention than anything else in the building, has remarkable acoustic properties. A whisper (the lower in tone the better) can be easily and distinctly heard at the other end of the gallery, and to this peculiarity the following lines, by Maurice Wheeler (head-master of the King's School, 1684-1712) ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse |
