"Quaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the small table set out for tea, to which the servant who had admitted her now returned with a steaming kettle. "Isn't it charming here? Will there be any one else? Where IS Mr. Van? Shall I make tea?" There was just a faint quaver, showing a command of the situation more desired perhaps than achieved, in the very rapid sequence of these ejaculations. The servant meanwhile had placed the hot water above the little silver lamp and left ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... noticed a right-smart change in Samson?" inquired old Caleb Wiley of a neighbor, in his octogenarian quaver. "The boy hes done got es quiet an' pious ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... although they had plentifully besprinkled his hair with gray, shone out with ruddy brightness in his still handsome face, and keen, kindly, bright-hazel eyes; and his voice, hearty and ringing, had not as yet one quaver of age in it. I met him at breakfast on the morning after my arrival, and his reception of me was most friendly. We had spoken together but for a few minutes, when one of the French windows, that led from ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... said Aladdin, with a quaver. "Please make me think that if you can, for, God help me, I think I ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... are on your way to St. Paul now?" Griswold said to the newspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all the tone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver of anxious impatience in ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... between his twelfth and twenty-first year I intend to say little. Suffice to record that they were years of normal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man of fifty; he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step was firm, his voice had lost its cracked quaver and descended to a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to take examinations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed his examination and became a member of the ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... gave a quick deep sob as she buried her face in the buxom Nanoun's bosom and encircled that astonished young person's neck with her arms. Esperit went pale at that; but the hand did not tremble in which he held his still-raised glass, nor did his voice quaver as he said with a deep earnestness: "To the good health of Monsieur le Vidame, with the thanks of two very happy hearts!"—and ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... Mr. Denner said, with an eager quaver in his voice. "Gifford, do you think—would you have any objection, Gifford, to permitting me to see your aunt? That is, if she would be so obliging and kind as to step in for ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... voice, still fainter, Sinking almost to a whisper, With a hesitating quaver, As the picture came before her Of her disappearing people. Then I rose and piled more branches Of the redwood on the campfire, And the flames and sparks leaped upward, Lighting up the mournful forest, Driving back the ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... girls? He had been one of the wise men in the spectacle, and he still wore his white beard and turban and his long blue and red robes. Yet he wasn't in the least fussed; he simply made a bow, said what he had to say, made another bow, with never a blush or a quaver or giggle. His mother was there, and she was so happy—she is a widow, and sews in the neighborhood, plain sewing, and they are ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... with which it was clamped to the building would serve, in case of a bolt's striking the church, to drive its whole force into the building. As a loud crash burst over the village in the midst of his sermon, and showed how frightfully near the storm was, his voice broke into a shrill quaver, as he faltered out, "Yes, my brethren, let us be calm under all circumstances, and ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... a tranquil untrammelled room, all neat and orderly as if nothing unusual had happened in old Lenox. "We call it the guest room but rarely have company to occupy it. I am sure Miss Gifford will want you two juniors to make yourselves at home in it," finished Sally with a quaver. She could not entirely hide the fact of her anxiety to get Jane and Dozia behind a closed door. Jane might have understood ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... over the straps of the rifle-case with unnecessary care, but there was a quaver in his voice that was not like ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... you, the same as the town has. It will stand a lot more, and I will. Get Maggie back. Get her back and give her to me and leave her alone, and I'll eat out of your hand and starve when you don't feed me, the same as the rest"—he came two wavering steps nearer, and dropped his voice to a dry quaver meant to be confidential, a grotesque and sinister parody of a confidence—"the rest, that don't know what ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... this time. His grandmother did not seem to notice that he was in a forbidden place, but asked, with an anxious quaver in her voice, "Did mother ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Non-conformists would he retained and preserved by the Independent congregations in England, after the Presbyterian had almost without exception become, first, Arian, then Socinian, and finally Unitarian: that is, the 'demi-semi-quaver' of Christianity, Arminianism being ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... closed the stable door and turned to his dwelling. A light streamed from a chink in the closed kitchen shutter like a gold arrow shot into the night. From within came the long-drawn quaver of William Vibard's performance of the Arkansas Traveller. He was sitting bowed over the accordion, his jaw dropped, his eyes glazed with the intoxication of his obsession. Rose was rigidly upright in a straight chair, her ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Mary, where are ye, child?" came a call in a high, sweet old quaver of a voice from down the garden path, and Miss Amanda hove in sight, hurrying along on eager but tottering little feet. Her short, skimpy, gray skirts fluttered in the spring breezes and her bright, ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... A little quaver came into Ben's voice as he spoke, and a sudden motion made his hat-brim hide his eyes, for the thought of the happy times that would never come any more was almost too much ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... man proceeded to secrete them in the fallen leaves. Squatted upon the ground, he was too busily engaged to note the sound of approaching footsteps, and started violently when a rough voice accosted him. He mustered courage, however, to quaver:— ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... a quaver of laughter, "now who'd have thought it?" and smiled a consciously American smile ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... down her handkerchief, showing a white face, whose expression matched the quaver in her voice, as she said breathlessly: "But how if I meet a man and feel I cannot live without him, and he is already—" she brought it out squarely in the sunny peace,—"if he is already as good ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... it canna be I sud ever forget yon face ye shawed me i' the coffin, the bonniest, sairest sicht I ever saw," returned Malcolm, with a quaver in his voice. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... celerity as unusual as the quaver in his voice. "Indeed thy words are white, O mightiest of magicians. What are indeed the evil eyes of savages against the power of thy magic, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... mysterious, full of wonder and romance. I am writing, as usual, by my window, the moonlight brighter in its whiteness than my mean little yellow-shining lamp. From the mysterious greyness, the olive groves and lanes beneath my terrace, rises a confused quaver of frogs, and buzz and whirr of insects: something, in sound, like the vague trails of countless stars, the galaxies on galaxies blurred into mere blue shimmer by the moon, which rides slowly across the highest heaven. The olive twigs glisten in the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... to indicate the prevailing metrical unit, or foot, within the line has been frankly given over. Iambs, dactyls, and their ilk receive scant courtesy from the composer of folk-song, who without qualm or quaver will stretch one syllable, or even an utter silence (caesura), into the time of a complete bar; while in the next breath he will with equal equanimity huddle a dozen syllables into the same period. Consequently, this ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... gospel," said the preacher, standing his ground without a quaver, in face of the threatening aspect of the giant Haitian, "an' I tell you"—he pointed a finger accusingly—"dat, for ebery oath you make hyar in de face ob de sun, you is goin' to pay, an' pay heabily, before ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Another rails at me, and that I write, Yet would I lie with her, if that I might: Trips she, it likes me well; plods she, what than[253]? She would be nimbler lying with a man. And when one sweetly sings, then straight I long, To quaver on her lips even in her song; Or if one touch the lute with art and cunning, Who would not love those hands[254] for their swift running? And her I like that with a majesty, Folds up her arms, and makes low courtesy. 30 To[255] leave myself, that am in love with all, ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the sea-breeze ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... and cigars and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square, and itinerant glee singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Early settlers in the Eastern States record the existence of this treacherous beast in their conquest of the forests. The cry of the "painter," as he was called, rang through the dark woods and caused many hearts to quaver and little children to run to mother's side. Once in a while stories came of human beings having met their doom at the swift stealthy leap of this dreaded beast. He was bolder then than now. Today he is not less courageous, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... first bar—is shown by taking one step forward for the first beat and by a slight bend of the knee for the second beat. The next two crochets are represented by one step for each. A step is also taken for each quaver, but twice as quickly; for the dotted crochet, a step and a slight spring before the last quaver—all this while the arms are beating a steady four. After a short practice of these two bars, the master will glide into yet another rhythm, the pupils ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... had a voice like a flute, and she and her mother led the little choir. Amy chirped like a cricket, and Jo wandered through the airs at her own sweet will, always coming out at the wrong place with a croak or a quaver that spoiled the most pensive tune. They had always done this from the time ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... with the customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The music to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either, though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of his own manufacture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are not disposed to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... the monstrosity wonderingly. "'Tis a rare big bean," he said, in the trembling quaver of old age, and with a mumbling laugh like that of a pleased child. "I'll give you two shillin's for it. I suppose you want money badly, or else you wouldn't be wanderin' about at ten o'clock at night tryin' to sell it. I hope you come by it ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... up their quaver, and sent forth their melodious whistling, whilst they congregated together on the edge of ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... the silence in Mrs. Markham's drawing-room, except the hiss of a light, quick breath and the intake and outgo of a heavier, slower one. And so suddenly, with such smothered intensity, that Norcross started in his seat, Mrs. Markham's voice emitted the first quaver of a musical note. She held it for a moment, before she began to hum over and over three bars of an old tune—"Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta." Thrice she hummed it, still sitting with her hand over her eyes.—"Wild roamed ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... that you can be very brave and generous," she answered. "What I WANT to know is whether I can serve you - now or afterwards," she added, with a quaver. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deepening ranks his dexterous cypher-train; And counts, as wheel the decimating bands, 130 The dews of AEgypt, or Arabia's sands, And then the third on four concordant lines Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins; Marks the gay trill, the solemn pause inscribes, And parts with bars the undulating tribes. 135 Pleased round her cane-wove throne, the applauding crowd Clap'd their rude hands, their swarthy foreheads bow'd; With loud acclaim "a present God!" they cry'd, "A present God!" rebellowing shores ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... another hour in the blasted hole!" roared his guest, in a fierce quaver. Out of my way you fool! Where's Joan? Tell her to get up and come directly. I'm off, tell her. I'd as soon go to bed in the drifts as stop another hour in ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... back on the arm-rack deliberately,—the men were at the far end of the room,—and took out his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat, Sim!" said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot and hurled it at Simmon's head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson's throat. Losson fell forward without a word, and ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... aghast, but under his daughter's eye he collected his wits, and, doing his best to assume an agreeable smile, he executed her commands. "Would it please you to receive instruction in our beautiful language?" he inquired, with an appealing quaver. ...
— The American • Henry James
... face impresses one with a sense of resoluteness, strength, and intellectual power, and yet withal a winning sweetness, unconquerable radiance, and hopeful joyousness. His voice is highly pitched and musical, with a timbre which is astonishing in an old man. There is none of the tremor, quaver, or shrillness usually observed in them, but his utterance is clear, ringing, and most sweetly musical. But it was not in any one of these features that his charm lay so much as in his tout ensemble, and the irresistible magnetism of his sweet, aromatic presence, which seemed to exhale sanity, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... broken out?" inquired Marcolina from the window. She had turned round; her face betrayed nothing, but there was a slight quaver in her voice which no one but ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... be badder!" cried Nurse Nancy. "My gown and cap ruinated, my nursery spattered with mud, the back stairs like a street with clay an' rain, yourselves drenched an' drownded, an' your clothes spoiled. And into the bargain," added Nancy, with a quaver in her voice, "my spectacles broken into smash, an' I without e'er another pair to see my way ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... said to Butler, with a perceptible quaver in his voice. "Just you wait while I go in and tell her ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... quaint old parlor organ with the quaver in its tongue, Seemed to tremble in its fervor as the sacred songs were sung, As we sang the homely anthems, sang the glad revival hymns Of the glory of the story and the ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hands tight-clenched, and though he tried to frown, he couldn't hide the pitiful twitching of his lips nor the quaver in ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... there was no longer any quaver in his voice. "That is not the word. I shouldn't be surprised if you were German spies. Get out of ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... great monsters that crawled, and crept, and frightened us ever so much," I told him, with a quaver in my voice. ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... fourth section (fifteen bars) passes by means of broken chords (in imitation of the last bar of the previous section) through various keys, ending in the same fashion as the first section, only, by way probably of intensification at the end, there are seven instead of four quaver chords; the section, of course, ends in F. This movement in the matter of form offers an interesting link between Kuhnau and E. Bach. The second movement is a minuet, with variations; it certainly has a beginning, but seems endless. The 3rd Sonata, ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... always low and gentle, with a quaver and hesitancy in the utterance; now it was tender and comforting with the comprehension of one in suffering, the extraordinary tact, which the old of his race nearly all come to possess. "Li'l chicken-wing ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... wail of distress, imperfectly smothered. "Whatever they've done I shall never know. Never, never—because I don't want to, and because nothing will induce me. So they may do as they like. But I've worked for them ALL" She uttered this last with another irrepressible quaver, and the next moment her tears had come, though she had, with the explosion, quitted her husband as if to hide it from him. She passed into the dusky drawing-room, where, during his own prowl, shortly previous, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... but both his ear and his voice were not of the best, so that it was well perhaps that there was so small and so unprejudiced an audience to the Norman-French chanson, which he sang in a high reedy voice with great earnestness of feeling, but with many a slip and quaver, waving his yellow head in cadence to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that they were staring so intently that they answered her wave only with the stiffly raised hands of automatons. In the next block Mrs. Dr. Westlake was gaping from her porch. Carol said with an embarrassed quaver: ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... beery breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old Reinhardt's soul sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the Paradise where we might live, if we ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... had a quaver of earnestness in it that needed no daylight to enforce. The pitchy night made a bobbing blur of him as he rode his quick-stepping little ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... I could see the glow of the great camp fire burning warmly through the shore-side trees. Someone was singing a dull, old droning sailor's song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had heard it on the voyage more than ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... teeth at having to admit it) his heart had begun to pound so violently, (not from emotion, he told himself,—from a mere ridiculous sort of nervous excitement: what was there in the woman that should excite a sane man like that?) he was afraid to trust his voice, lest it should quaver and betray him. But fortunately this pounding of the heart lasted only a few seconds. The short business of getting the gate open, and of closing it afterwards, gave it time to pass. So that now, as they ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... self-possession. It was a pity to be obliged to reinvestigate the certitude of the moment itself and repeat how it had come to me as a revelation that the inconceivable communion I then surprised was a matter, for either party, of habit. It was a pity that I should have had to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn't, and at the same time, without ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... he, "there was a subject you didn't wish to be referred to. I only want to do so indirectly. It wasn't"—he faltered—"it wasn't because you were dissatisfied with me?" he concluded, with a quaver. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it made way, with respect as to royalty for the distinguished orator. The buzz of admiration as he passed—louder than in drawing-rooms more refined—would have had sweeter music than Grisi's most artful quaver to a vainer man—nay, once on a time to him. But—sugar plums come too late! He gained the corner, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... slight shake of her head and a smile in her eyes, even while the loveliest notes were flowing forth from her melodious throat. The listeners could hear the noble lord's "by Jove," in the midst of the music, and even detect the slight quaver of laughter which followed in ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... will, they shan't think to cow me any longer; one cou'd never stir out o'the Room, but my Grand-mother was purring after a Body, and if she heard one got a little merry at T. Totum, with the Maids, she'd quaver out Totty, come, and say your Catechism;—What is the chief End of Man? And upon ev'ry little Fault, she'd lock me up to get Quarles's Emblems by heart, and threaten I shou'd lie in the great Room that's haunted, and never ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... the picture that rose in his mind of a boy wearing his features and using his body, writing the note that he had written. When dismembered words and phrases from that note came to his mind on the play-ground, the quaver of terror that rose in Piggy's whoop was not dissembled. Sometimes fear froze his vitals, then a flush of self-abasement burned him with its flames. And all the time he knew that the Pratt girl had that note. He almost hoped that an earthquake ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... decrepid, and lost all the beauty which had won her admiration, Eos became disgusted with his infirmities, and at last shut him up in a chamber, where soon little else was left of him but his voice, which had now sunk into a weak, feeble quaver. According to some of the later poets, he became so weary of his cheerless and miserable existence, that he entreated to be allowed to die. This was, however, impossible; but Eos, pitying his unhappy condition, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... meeting, and this confirmed precisely an interpretation of her manner, of her mystery. While she rose, as he would have called it, to the question of Victor Hugo, her voice itself, the light low quaver of her deference to the solemnity about them, seemed to make her words mean something that they didn't mean openly. Help, strength, peace, a sublime support—she hadn't found so much of these things as that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, "knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver." However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in silence, finding ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... water, or the cloud-shadows on the hills, or the sunset sky, with the tall, black tree-boles and waving foliage relieved against it, or when I heard a mellow gush of music from the brown-breasted fife-bird in the summer woods, or the merry quaver of the bobolink in the corn land, the thought of an eternal loss of these familiar sights and sounds would sometimes thrill through me with a sharp and bitter pain. I have reason to thank God that this fear no longer troubles me. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... man put his hand on her shoulder, and with a "I'll just trouble you—this way please," and not so much as a quaver in his voice, led her into the ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... didn't rush at him, we scuttled back into the chamber, and then down the worn stone steps cut out of the rock, which seemed to lead down and down into the bowels of the earth. As we hurried down, leaping lightly on the tips of our toes, the quaver of the tune came after us, so clearly that I even made a guess at ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... slipped out before she saw its significance. She might not have perceived it so quickly even then had it not been for the second of hesitation before Drusilla answered and the quaver in her voice when ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... agreed Pete, without a quaver in his voice. "The varmints hev set fire to the building from ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... own ambition with doubtful, quivering voice. And the ambages should take time. He should approach the citadel to be taken with covered ways working his way slowly and painfully. But this young man, before he had been in the house three days, said all that he had to say without the slightest quaver in his voice, and evidently expected to get an answer about the squire's daughter as quickly as he had got it about ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... is the old formula to which my uncle has always been faithful. I heard Madeleine answer, with a quaver ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... happen? When the whole earth is vibrant with life, does it not seem to you, Octavie, that heaven might for once relent and give us back our dead?" He spoke very low, advisedly, and impressively. In his voice was an old quaver which was not habitual and there was agitation in every line of his visage. She gazed at him with eyes that were full of supplication and a ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike," she answered, with a slight quaver in her voice. "But that's what books will not ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... from this breeze-fluttered throne of oratory," continued Billy, with a rising quaver in his voice, "Mr. Harrison Blake, Westville's favourite son; the Reverend Doctor Sherman, president of the Voters' Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway County's able-bodiest orator, will ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the bobolink, Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, And 'twixt the winrows most ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... false alarm! The City Mouse grew braver. "Come back!" he cried. "No, no! The farm, Where I'll not quake or quaver, Suits me," replied the Country Mouse. "You're welcome to ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... gal!" he exclaimed, cordially, though there was a quaver in his voice. "Da'tter of my old friend what diskivered this here mine an' then lost it. Killed, he was, by a gunman, twenty years gone. Gents, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... lad!" cries she, her little hands clasped, a pitiful quaver in her voice, so that I felt consigned to woe, indeed, for this misdoing, "you'll be ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... said, "don't be hasty." Jerkline Jo had seen many a fight between big men of the outdoor life. It was no new experience, and there was not a quaver in her tones. She had been brought up where men settled matters with fists or guns or pick handles. "Listen, Hiram," she continued, "Mr. Drummond is telling the truth, I think, up to a certain point. When you boys were way ahead of me yesterday ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... sharp minor, op. 45, that it "deserves its name better than almost any one of the twenty-four; still I would rather call it improvisata. It seems unpremeditated, a heedless outpouring, when sitting at the piano in 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 favorite effects of some of our more modern composers. The modulation from C sharp minor to ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... watching him, his eyes keen to detect the slightest quaver, but the little man seemed suddenly to have forgotten him; he moved about absently, mechanically, dropping nothing, burning nothing, yet far away, as in ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... with a perceptible quaver in his voice. "They were not. The wolf, the zebras, and the asses could swim, and so could the monkeys, and ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... silently upturned. And the silence startled me, for, as crowds went, this was the time for them to catch their first breath and send up a roar of applause. But there was no hand-clapping, whistling, cheering—only silence. And instead, clear as a bell and distinct, without the slightest shake or quaver, came George's voice through ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... have already cast off to the foreigner as too old to be of any service to them. Your poets are entirely at the disposal of your famous musicians; one declares that he cannot sing without there is in his air the word felicita; the tenor must have tomba; while a third singer can only quaver upon the word catene. The poor bard must make these different whims agree with dramatic situation as well as he can. This is not all; there are actors who will not appear immediately treading the boards of the stage; they must first be seen in a cloud, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... idealistic and poetical. But, as Mr Norman Douglas admirably puts it in South Wind, "Enclosed within the soft imagination of the homo Mediterraneus lies a kernel of hard reason. The Northerner's hardness is on the surface; his core, his inner being, is apt to quaver in a state of fluid irresponsibility." The comparative method of approach to the institution of marriage among Latins and among Anglo-Saxons illustrates this truth. And it serves also, perhaps, for an example that, in the midst of the terrors of war, the dim project of a League ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... laughed, yet with a quaver in his voice, for there was a depth of passion here, intensified by the spirited resistance of ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... Jessie, with a quaver in her voice; "but I should like to come and talk to you as often as I can." Then presently she added, in a conflicting tone, "I don't know what to call your mother. I don't like to say 'Mrs. Lang,' it seems so— so silly and—stuck-up, and I don't like to call her ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Tamburlaine: Water and air, being symboliz'd in one, Argue their want of courage and of wit; Their hair as white as milk, and soft as down, (Which should be like the quills of porcupines, As black as jet, and hard as iron or steel,) Bewrays they are too dainty for the wars; Their fingers made to quaver on a lute, Their arms to hang about a lady's neck, Their legs to dance and caper in the air, Would make me think them bastards, not my sons, But that I know they issu'd from thy womb, That never look'd ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... knocked, it occurred to me that if so my position would be painful to a degree. However in this particular Fortune stood my friend, which does not always happen to the virtuous. For presently I heard a voice which I recognized as that of Mr. Savage, asking, not without a certain quaver ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... to keep the quaver out of her voice, and at the sound of it, he sat up instantly, astonished, solicitous, tender. "Why, darling, what's the matter?" he said again, moving closer ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... much deliberation, "we have; but I think it will no longer be possible for us to do so. No, we must certainly give up having anything to do with it." "Dear me!" said I, almost breathless, and with a queer quaver in my voice, that I could hardly command, "may I ask why, pray?" "The language it uses——" "It!—the language it uses!" ejaculated I. "Yes," she pursued, with increasing solemnity, "the language it uses is so reprehensible that it will be quite ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... anchor" and I went on deck to take a last look at Dixie with the rest of the party. Every heart was full. Each left brothers, sisters, husband, children, or dear friends behind. We sang, "Farewell dear land," with a slight quaver in our voices, looked at the beautiful starlight shining on the last boundary of our glorious land, and, fervently and silently praying, passed ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... shamefaced because of his wet lashes, stood up, and squaring himself, looked before him with winking eyes, nor would answer until he could speak without a quaver. Then: "He sits in the north chamber, Master Arden. This side o' the house the sun shines." Despite his boyish will the tears again filled his eyes. "'Tis May-time now, and there's been none but him above the salt since Lammas-tide. Sir John came and Sir Philip ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... a faint quaver in Philon's voice but he went on. "However, I've brought you an idea that's worth more than fifty grand. It's ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland
... brow with her glorious hair. Wide-eyed and silent, as the train came near, she moved along by the moat to meet the procession at the drawbridge, not understanding yet, but not letting one movement of the men, one flicker of the lights, one quaver of the deep chant, escape her reeling senses. Then all at once she was aware that Gilbert walked bareheaded before the bier, half wrapped in a long black cloak that swept the greensward behind him. As she turned the last bastion before reaching the drawbridge, the funeral was moving along ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... rush-light in the other. Its glimmer fell across the bed upon Nick's tousled hair; and when the master-player saw the boy's head upon the pillow he started eagerly, with brightening eyes. "My soul!" he whispered to himself, a little quaver in his tone, "I would have sworn my own desire lied to me, and that he had not come at all! It cannot be—yet, verily, I am not blind. Ma foil it passeth understanding—a freed skylark come back to its cage! I thought ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... this?" Marianne heard him say in a voice which he tried to make an angered roar but which was only a shrill quaver from his weakness. "Maybe I'm a lady? Maybe I've fainted or something? Not by a damned sight! Maybe I been licked by that boiled-down bit of hell, Rickety, but I ain't licked so bad I can't walk home. Hey, Perris, ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... down-stairs, crying out to us to surrender in the King's name,—I believe that one poor creature, the Justice of Peace, after getting himself well walled up in a corner with chairs and tables, began to quaver out the King's Proclamation against the Blacks,—the plaguy Soldiers came blundering up both pair of stairs, and fell upon us Billy Boys tooth and nail. 'Slid! my blood simmers when I think of it. Over went the tables and settles! Smash went trenchers and cups and glasses! Clink-a-clink went sword-blades ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... she cried, with a little quaver in her voice; 'and there is nothing more terrible on earth than lack of money. If there was a single really civilized country in existence, it would make provision for its women. Every woman should be assured enough to live on, merely because she is a woman. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... flageolet, whence the Cigarette, with cunning touch, should draw melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying that aside, upraise his voice—somewhat thinner than of yore, and with here and there a quaver, or call it a natural grace-note—in rich and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the question carefully just as he had put it to father, but there was a quaver in his voice as he ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... forthcoming when called for by the author. Voltaire naturally enough danced with rage, screamed all manner of unpleasant things about robbery and the like, cashiered the secretary, and was, we see no reason to doubt, really afraid of a pirated edition. This time his cry of wolf must have had a quaver of sincerity in it. Herr Stahr, who can never keep separate the Lessing as he then was and the Lessing as he afterwards became, takes fire at what he chooses to consider an unworthy suspicion of the Frenchman, and treats himself to some rather cheap indignation on the subject. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... synge; The little birds quaver, Dugperler bade Pearls from night's weeping; Blomsterblade, The flowers are steeping Som Vindene gynge; In the winds which waver; Og med svaevende Fjed To the meadows, fleet En Mo hendandser A maiden boundeth; ...
— The Gold Horns • Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager
... girl loses her mother she's sure lost her best friend. It's up to her paw to see she gets a square deal." There was a quaver of emotion in Tolliver's voice. "I don't reckon he can make ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... back to reality with a pitiful break and quaver of the voice, and turned his eyes helplessly toward her. She answered his gaze timidly, as though he could see her. She was searching his eyes for tears. But there was no trace of tears in them. He took the food she handed him from Aunt Purchase's ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... boughs as he pressed among them, the rise and fall of his own breathing, somewhat quicker than its wont, served to render appreciable to Persimmon Sneed the fact that he possessed nerves which were more susceptible to a quaver of doubt than that redoubtable ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... and yelling and singing their war-songs, leaping and whirling and dancing their war-dance, clashing together their hatchets and war-clubs, waving above them the scalps of their foemen, went the barbarians merry as demons. And strong and clear, with never a quaver, still was heard above the confusion the hymning voice of the smoke-hid victim. But louder and higher than all, it is coming, ringing from far like the blast of a trumpet—a voice so stern, abrupt, and imperious ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... that may be;) and is that a small crescent moon of darkness swimming in its disc? or does the eye disclose a bright light from within, where his soul sits and enjoys bright day? Is he a point of admiration whose head is too heavy, or a quaver or crotchet that has lost his neighbors, and fallen out of the scale? Is he an aspiring Tadpole in search of an idea? What have been and what will be the fortunes of this our small Nigel (Nigellus)? Think of "Elia" having him sent up from the Goblin Valley, packed ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... separation between the two that made her voice quaver so sympathetically—"the Infinite always comes back for us. But we don't always remember that it will! This is such a little bit of the great sea. Maybe it never was left alone before; maybe it doesn't know ...
— Everybody's Lonesome - A True Fairy Story • Clara E. Laughlin
... clauses, eked out with stammerings and throat-clearings. They possess the art (learned from the pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a single syllable—of striking a balance in a top-heavy period by lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, they never cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhausted all their ideas, even after the would-be peroration has finally refused to perorate, they remain upon their feet with their mouths open, waiting for some further inspiration, like Chaucer's widow's ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... boarding-house at Shawnee was the site of another house-wren's nest. While I stood quite close watching the little mother, she fed her bantlings twice without a quaver of fear, the youngsters chirping loudly for more of "that good dinner." At this place barn swallows were describing graceful circles and loops in the air, and a sheeny violet-green swallow squatted on the dusty road and took a sun-bath, which she did by fluffing up all her plumes and spreading ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... malpaco. Quarrel malpaci. Quarry sxtonejo. Quarter (1/4) kvarono. Quarter (district) kvartalo. Quarterly trimonata. Quartern kvarono, kvaronujo. Quartet kvarteto. Quartz kvarco. Quash (repress) premegi. Quash (annul) senigi, nuligi. Quaver trilo. Quay surbordo, bordmarsxejo. Queen regxino. Queer stranga. Quell trankviligi. Quench (extinguish) estingi. Quench (thirst) kvietigi. Querulous malkontenta. Query demando. Query cxu? Quest ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... of his numerous compositions to his elder brother is a pardonable mistake, if we may judge by the works that have been reprinted. But the statement, which continues to be repeated in standard works of reference, that "he was one of the first of Italians to use the quaver and its subdivisions" is incomprehensible. Quavers were common property in all musical countries quite early in the 16th century, and semiquavers appear in a madrigal of Palestrina published in 1574. The two brothers are probably ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... dear!" she said, with a forlorn little quaver in her voice, "how could you be so foolish? Didn't you know there was something better in the world than grubbing after musty old tribes and customs and folk-songs? Oh, precious ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... last word in a long-drawn quaver which gave it a horrid sound—especially in the woods, after dark. And Turkey Proudfoot felt chills a-running up ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... she said, with a slight quaver in her voice, "that my trustees would not take Elinor's wishes into consideration in the first place, nor yours either, Philip. They think of me, and I suppose that is really their duty. If I had ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... its wild dwellers were as familiar to him as were the voices of his fellow men; and something in the first hoot of that owl had awakened his suspicions. It did not sound exactly right. There was a false quaver at the end. In a minute the hoot was repeated, still with that unnatural ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... "I want to pick everything." She began to fill her hands with dandelions. "Only I wish that mother was here"—and a little quaver shook ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... sleepy. I don't mind a little mist and I'm plenty warm." This cheerful assertion was belied by the miserable quaver in ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... narrower replica of his father's, with the same large drooping moustache—decidedly worn. He turned pale. This meeting was terrible after all those years, for nothing in the world was so terrible as a scene. They met and crossed hands without a word. Then, with a quaver in his voice, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bewildered beside her aunts, not hearing the strains of the last hymn nor the quaver of Aunt Anne's trembling voice ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the maidens emerged from the water on to the farther bank, paused for a moment to arrange their hair, like wood nymphs of the Golden Age, then wound their gorgeous kains about them and vanished amid the trees. From somewhere on the distant hillside came the sweet, shrill quaver of a reed instrument. The driver said it was a native flute, but I knew better. It was ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... against my shoulder, Shy at first, then somewhat bolder, And up-eyed; Till she, with a timid quaver, Yielded to the kiss I gave ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... I cried out with a quaver in my voice, "since you're not able to fill the bill, to be head of this ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... takes his way to a roof, and so on, changing his place every few minutes, but never losing a note. His favorite perch is the top spire of a pointed tree, low cedar or young pine, where he can bound into the air as already described, spread his wings, and float down, never omitting a quaver. It seems like pure ecstasy; and however critical one may be, he cannot help feeling deep sympathy with the joyous soul that thus expresses itself. With all the wonderful power and variety, the bewitching ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... important sometimes for me to see that steeple; and in the midst of my investigations the tin horn would blow a great blast from the farmhouse, which would send a cold chill down my back in the hottest days. I knew what it meant. It had a frightfully impatient quaver in it, not at all like the sweet note that called us to dinner from the hay-field. It said, "Why on earth does n't that boy come home? It is almost dark, and the cows ain't milked!" And that was the time the cows had to start into a brisk pace and make up for lost time. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to take to his heels, but he was saved from this ignominious act by the timely recollection that he was an Englishman, whose glorious privilege it is to be born without fear. So he stood still, and in a voice which had something of a quaver in ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... pray, you fellers," he cried at last, with a quaver in his tones. "We're goin' smash-ti-belter onto them rocks, and Davy Jones is settin' on extra plates for eight at breakfast to-morrer mornin'. Do ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... gone in an instant, and Henry was left alone. That instant all the old, primeval instincts, so powerful in him, were aroused. His sixth sense, the sense of danger, was speaking to him in a voice that he could not but hear. There, too, was the quaver of the wolf. All the signals of alarm were set, and he resolved that he should be the first to see danger when ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... lady leaned toward him with a mist in her eyes and a quaver in her voice, and asked softly, "Got ary friend that ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Richard, with a quaver of comic regret. "Our civilization has so narrowed the times that murder is inexpressibly inconvenient. One thing I might ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to watch the morgue; to look up every case of reported suicide that by any chance might be Mrs. Marteen—here or in other cities." Gard felt the blood leave his heart as he said the words, though there was no quaver in his voice. "If they should find her, don't let her identity be known if there is any chance of concealing it, not until you reach me. Don't let Miss Marteen know. Put another man on the hotel arrivals. She left St. Augustine—Here—" ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... and happiness for her. He would fight that she might have those rights, if necessary; but he would rather have her lose her voice entirely, than to hear her sound a bass note so long as a demi-semi-quaver. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... "what is't that ails thee now? It seems to me I sing as well as thou; For mine's a song that is both true and plain, - Although I cannot quaver so in vain As thou dost in thy throat, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Ma Snow's voice had an ominous quaver, "or you'd a learned long ago that you can't knock that young man in my hearin'. I haven't forgot if you have, that the only real money that's been in the camp all Summer has come ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... to ride off, when he was stopped and brought back to the miserable error of his confession. The whole ground was then gone over again, and again pardon with warning was given. Even a glad good-night was exchanged, the wheelman's voice rising in a quaver of grateful affection. Then he seemed to try riding off again, and then he was stayed as before by the victim, whose sense of public duty flamed up at the prospect of his escape. I do not know how the affair ended; perhaps it never ended; ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... quaver in her voice and a sudden suffusion of tears in her eyes. "I loved my mother. No one that ever lived could have loved more truly and more ardently than I loved her; but there it began and ended. ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... said, in her forlornest quaver. "I hope you won't do nothin' out o' the way with it. I should hate to git into trouble here. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... was Nymani; and over his sudden quaver, robbed of all the confidence which had been there only ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... them all in very cheerful and impressing words. As he lay among his pillows with his white hair thrown back and his beard on his breast, he was a fine man to see—a picture of a good and a brave man. He read aloud from the Bible, and then prayed awhile, giving out his words grandly and without a quaver. Then he shook them all by the hand ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... said he, with a sudden quaver in his voice, "who was it—what was it, Peter?" and he laid a beseeching hand upon mine. "Peter!" His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and the hand plucked tremulously at my sleeve, while in the ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... describe the service in detail. There was a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing, and the mournful-looking deacon who passed the collection-plate seemed inured to disappointment. The prayer had in it a note of despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living soul. It gave one the impression that this was indeed a miserable, dark, despairing ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most of her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cannot be," she said, with a frightened quaver in her voice, but a quaver which the Prince recognised, with his large experience, as the tone ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... had also been looking for something to do, and, wandering to the other end of the studio, saw before him my breakfast-things neglected, unremoved. "I say, can't I be useful HERE?" he called out to me with an irrepressible quaver. I assented with a laugh that I fear was awkward, and for the next ten minutes, while I worked, I heard the light clatter of china and the tinkle of spoons and glass. Mrs. Monarch assisted her husband— they washed up my crockery, they put it away. ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... evening comes the ragged twopenny minstrel—a blear-eyed, croaking minstrel, and the good folk give him ear. No pretty words in rhythms from his tongue. No mystic cadences quaver in his voice. Yet he comes squealing out his song of an endless "Extra! All about the mysteries and the torments of life. All about the raptures, lusts, and adventures that the day has spilled. Read 'em and weep! Read 'em and laugh! Here's ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht |
