"Staccato" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peering out into the darkness of the cloud-enshrouded night, there came to him from across the water, like a slap in the face, so sudden and unexpected was it, the sharp staccato of an exchange of shots and then ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... realized his ambition to see with his own sharp puncturing little eyes (Aileen said they reminded her of a sewing-machine needle playing staccato) several of the most flagrant examples of capitalistic extravagance where parasitic femalehood idled away their useless lives and servitors battened. In other words the extremely comfortable or the shamelessly luxurious homes built for the most part by still ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... head in uncertainty when suddenly from above there came to them the sharp report of a rifle. Then, like a bundle at firecrackers, a volley of half a dozen staccato shots. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... I see!" exclaimed Mr. Day in staccato fashion, and evidently very much relieved. "Mrs. Watkins is looking for ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... The thin, staccato voice broke off abruptly, and three out of the five other men present being the Master's pupils, remained silent, knowing he had not finished. But Mr. Toovey, a young don overflowing with mild ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... were installed in tents. That huge canvas erection was a mining exchange; that great log barn a dance-hall. Dwarfish log cabins impudently nestled up to pretentious three-story hotels. The effect was oddly staccato. All was grotesque, makeshift, haphazard. Back of the main street lay the red-light quarter, and behind it again a swamp of niggerheads, the breeding-place ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... her arms, and for a few seconds we hung together. Suddenly she tore herself apart from me, and stood drawn up to the full height, with a dignity I cannot describe or express. Her voice had a new dominance, as with firm utterance and in staccato manner she said: ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... drought wore on to its third day I began to perceive that siphoning the pinks with soda-water out of the dining-room window was insufficient to meet the crisis. I rang up the nearest fire station and told them in my most staccato tones that the garden was being burnt to a cinder and would they please—but they rang off suddenly without making a reply. It was then that I had a bright idea—so bright that the thermometer which was hanging near my head went up two degrees ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... cheeks, with a slight tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes' surmise as to his habits. His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right up in front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a slow staccato fashion, choosing his words with care, and gave the impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had ill-usage at ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... sitting around thinking noisy thoughts. Noisy thoughts, jarring thoughts, stunts like the concentration-interrupter of playing the first twenty notes of Brahms' Lullaby in perfect pitch and timing and then playing the twenty-first note in staccato and a half-tone flat. Making mental contact with Barcelona was approximately the analogue of eavesdropping upon the intimate cooing of a lover sweet-talking his lady in the middle of a sawmill working on an order three days late under a high ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... of suspense was apparent. And there at the river-brink the author of this breathless dismay, some lithe flesh-eater, would stride, shadow-like, through the high reeds to drink. Now and then the woman-like scream of the wildcat, or the harsh staccato laugh of the hyena would startle the marshes into silence. Sometimes retiring shapes would halt and gaze with emberous eyes at the boat moving ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... his explanation, and again Boris caught the sound of his voice, noticing that sometimes he spoke shortly, staccato—sometimes drawled as if he were singing, and then rapped out his ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... evening dress. His, however, was as little conventional as possible, and while he nervously adjusted it he could not help recognizing that it was exceedingly becoming. He tore a tie and destroyed two collars, however, before the result satisfied him, and his nerves were at leaping pitch when staccato chords upon the piano announced that the concert had begun. He found a seat in the farthest corner of the saloon, and waited, penciling feverish circles upon the green-topped table to keep ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... not show his delight sufficiently when he was out of the crate. He capered about them, licking the girl's shoes, tumbling down in his haste and weakness, and uttering his funny little bark in excited staccato. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... which separated the final words brought a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, and the discomfort of a fencer, dueling in the dark—a swordsman who recognizes that his cleverness is outmatched. His question came with a staccato abruptness. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... machine upright while Blake vaulted to the forward saddle and began to work the pedals to start the motor. The cylinders were still hot from the recent run, and at the first revolution the staccato explosions began. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... Do!" he sang in staccato notes, nodding the sparse gray foretop jerkily with each note as bass, alto, tenor, soprano took up their pitch. Thereupon he seized the pointer, a long switch kept conveniently near in the corner, and indicated the ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... cried, in high-pitched staccato tones. "It's a box, an express box. Oh, it's a perfect monster, a mammoth! Vi, this must be your dresses. Hurrah! we'll have ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... could hear now the quick staccato chug-chug of the engine. Slowly Norton's aeroplane, this time really equipped with the gyroscope, rose from the field and circled over toward us. Craig frantically signalled to him to come down, but of course Norton could not have seen him in the crowd. As for the ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... with something of the staccato mannerism of the evening before. 'I'll motor down in my little car, and we'll go to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... hearing you read," she said, at last. "You do read abominably. First you go along in staccato jerks, then you drone in a monotone. Philip is a fine reader. I love to hear Philip read. I wish he'd come in to-day. I wonder why he doesn't? Probably because you're here. He must have taken a violent ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... hands lay listlessly upon the counterpane. No one touches him; bathed in sunlight, as he was, the others seemed in shadow. When he spoke, his voice was almost a whisper, but it was distinctly audible to the four intent listeners; only the clock seemed to accompany his staccato speech, running a race, as it were, ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... life. When she came to the tale of this last year, a tale of the ends of cigarettes left all over New York in little trays marked "Midnight Frolic" and "Justine Johnson's Little Club," he began nodding his head slowly, then faster and faster, until, as she finished on a staccato note, it was bobbing briskly up and down, absurdly like a doll's wired head, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Carley watched the golden rosy sunset, and as the day ended she breathed deeply as if in unutterable relief. Supper found her with appetite she had long since lost. Twilight brought cold wind, the staccato bark of coyotes, the flicker of camp fires through the cedars. She tried to embrace all her sensations, but they were so rapid and many ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... course that in less than two hours would bring him over the heights of Mount Lawson and the mystery that awaited him there. And he fingered the trigger grip that was part of the stick and nodded within his dark cockpit at the rattle of a machine gun that merged its staccato notes ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... misty meditation, at the second changin'-station, Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato, Played on either pony's saddle by ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... interval filled with small confused sounds—the staccato note of a bell, the soft thud of a passenger's body as he is jerked unexpectedly against the rail, the picturesque ripple of his expostulations ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... ran to the door, sniffing eagerly. A muffled sound of voices became audible, and Irvin, following a moment of hesitation, crossed and opened the door. The dog ran out, yapping in his irritating staccato fashion, and an expression of hope faded from Irvin's face as he saw a tall fair girl standing in the hallway talking to Hinkes, the butler. She wore soiled Burberry, high-legged tan boots, and a peaked cap of distinctly military appearance. Irvin would have ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... want to get up and shout. I read and re-read it, repeating it, with noiseless lips. The tune it went to seemed inadequate, the more so as in our church tunes were always dragged to the limit of non-conformist dolorousness. The stanza seemed to me, even then, happy, hopeful, staccato, jubilant. I wonder what I should have thought had I known its author was a Methodist? Could good come out of Nazareth, after all? Instead, I fell to wondering about the after life in the sky. Heaven I pictured as a city builded on a cloud. If, on a very clear day, the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... all be glad if you will," said Mendelssohn, as he turned once more to the key-board. The bright staccato rhythm flashed out from his fingers so gaily that I was swept into the song without time ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson
... ruminating, his gaze fixed thoughtfully on the sputtering, imperilled candle. Finally he shook his head, sighed, and began to unstrap his roll of blankets. He had decided to remove only his coat and waistcoat. The sharp, staccato barking of a fox up in the woods fell upon his ears. He paused to listen. Then came the faraway, unmistakable howl of a wolf, the solemn, familiar hoot of the wilderness owl and the raucous call of the great night heron. But there was no sound from the farmyard. He said his prayers—he ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very unlike those with ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... having tea. The rattle of the crockery sounded very distinctly. He could distinguish the sharp, staccato ring when a cup was laid in a saucer, and the nervous rattle when cup and saucer were passed from one hand to the other. Spoons struck china with a faint metallic tinkle. He felt as if all the sounds were made at the back of his neck, and the crash ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... his side. The sleeper awoke, and after washing his lips at the tank, sounded the soldiers' clarion call, the "Reveille." Instantly the whole bivouac was alive, but scarcely had the bugle notes died away when the telephone buzzer began to give forth a series of sharp, staccato sounds. The Czech operator gave a sharp ejaculation, like "Dar! Dar! Dar!" looking more serious as the sounds proceeded. He then calmly hung up the speaking-tube on the tree that supported our home and began to explain to my interpreter, ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... of the fight—a hail-stone chorus of arrows, a clash of thousand swords, trumpets, drums, and clattering horse-hoofs; a silent interval, to introduce a single combat between Alfred and Hubba the Dane, with Homeric challenges, tenor and bass; the routed foe, in clamorous and discordant staccato; the conquerors pressing on in steady overwhelming concord; how are the mighty fallen—and praise ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... exuberantly). MacDowell threw an irresistible joyous excitement into this piece (as he did later in the superb The Joy of Autumn, from New England Idyls, Op. 62). In Autumn opens with a brisk staccato theme, followed by little chromatic runs which seem to suggest the whistling of the wind through the tree-tops. A middle section brings a complete change of mood, as if questioning the elements. ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... there is too much salt—rather too much sugar. Every one's mouth seems full of it, with "I" turned to "ah" and every staccato a drawl. But the voices are full of sweetness and music ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... artillery—that custom "more honored in the breach than in the observance." From such fancy the mind passed easily enough to the memory of that astonishing composition of Grieg's, "In the Hall of the Mountain King," and, once recalled, the stately yet staccato rhythm ran in one's ears continually. For if we had many days of cloud and smother of vapor that blotted out everything, when a fine day came how brilliant beyond all that lower levels know it was! From our ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... their buildings useless, once the overtopping elevator went up alongside—from small buyers who found themselves being driven out of the market with the flat warehouses. But these voices were drowned in the swish of grain in the chutes and the staccato of the elevator engines—lost in the larger exigencies of the wheat. The railway company held to their promises and the tall grain boxes reared their castor tops against the sky in ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... dragging," shrieked in shrill staccato Daisy Shaw; and there had been a dull nod of the head, a feeble pull at the dragging robe, then it had ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... which, together with his breakfast, lay the three newspapers he had bespoken. Polly Sparkes throughout her leisurely toilet was moved to irritation and curiosity by the sound of frequent laughter on the other side of the party wall—uproarious peals, long chucklings in a falsetto key, staccato ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... of the room where the black shadows lay flicked a long tongue of flame. Muffled, staccato, came the report. And the yellow face at the ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... animadversions; it was a soliloquy rather than a conversation—a soliloquy accompanied by an obligate of general mental disagreement from the wife of his bosom, who expressed herself in sniffs and snorts and scornful staccato interjections as the soliloquy ran on. Here are a few bars of it ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... our attention. Two or three men, though usually only two, took position on the little terreplein below the shack, and began a slow movement, taking very short, formal, staccato steps in a circle against the sun. Keeping back to back and side to side, they maintained the whole body in a tense, rigid posture with the chest out, head up and thrown back, abdomen drawn in, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... they sat listening to the clear staccato knocking of the distant blows, and the more forceful thuds of the man nearer at hand. A bird or so darted from the direction of the sound and shot silently into ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... his larger poems are full of proof. But there is another verse, of irregular rhythm, in which he was even more successful,—lyric poetry as found in the irregular ode, varying from the short line to the "Alexandrine dragging its slow length along;" the staccato of a harp ending in a lengthened ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... Staccato, hurried, nervous, brisk, Cascading, intermittent, choppy, The brittle voice of Mrs. Fiske Shall serve me now as copy. Assist me, O my Muse, what time I pen a bit ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... answered by two fox-hounds shut up in the opposite cow-house; the old top-knotted hens, scratching with their chicks among the straw, set up a sympathetic croaking as the discomfited cock joins them; a sow with her brood, all very muddy as to the legs, and curled as to the tail, throws in some deep staccato notes; our friends the calves are bleating from the home croft; and, under all, a fine ear discerns the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... save where a little spreading feather of black ripple showed the course of some water-rat. Bats wheeled and dipped like some company of nocturnal swallows, pursuing their minute prey, and uttering their little staccato cries so high in the scale that none but the acute ear could ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... in high spirits, and his hearty and resounding laughter would break out on the smallest provocation. That laugh of his was eminently characteristic of the man. There was nothing smothered or furtive about it; there was not even the vestige of a chuckle in it. Its deep "Ah! hah! hah!" came with a staccato, quacking sound from somewhere low down in the chest, and set his huge shoulders moving in unison with its peals. The whole closed with a long breath of purest enjoyment—a kind of final licking of the lips after the feast ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... singing; other Indians compose the choir; yet they have the Gregorian music at their finger ends, and pronounce the Latin so correctly that I could follow the meaning as they sang. The pronunciation was odd and nasal, the singing hurried and staccato. "In saecula saeculoho-horum," they went, with a vigorous aspirate to every additional syllable. I have never seen faces more vividly lit up with joy than the faces of these Indian singers. It was to them not only the worship ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more than an hour, though in fact it was but the ten minutes agreed on with Bohannan, off behind them toward the coast a sudden staccato popping of revolvers began to puncture the night. Up and down the Legionaries' trench it pattered, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Southern girls wear most. There was a constraint over us for the reckoning that we knew was coming. Each felt guilty toward the other and the result was a formal politeness. So it was a relief when, just at the last bit of toast, Anne burst in, all staccato notes ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... the fog had massed, every noise was magnified as by a sounding-board. There were cheery hails, yachtsmen bawled over the mist-gemmed brass rails interchange of the day's experiences, and frisking yacht tenders, barking staccato exhausts, began to carry men to and fro on errands of sociability. In the silences Captain Candage could hear the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... earlier than usual from the office, had found, on the hall-table, a note which, since morning, had been under his mother's observation. The envelope, fashionable in tint and texture, was addressed in a rapid staccato hand which seemed the very imprint of Miss Verney's utterance. Mrs. Peyton did not know the girl's writing; but such notes had of late lain often enough on the hall-table to make their attribution ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... media the noises of the reef are isolated. furtive, echoless—staccato accidentals and dull dissonances out of tune with the soothing theme of the sea. Hence, when, as I wandered absorbed in an inspection of minor details, and a mellow whistle, constant but varying in volume, broke in upon ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... inspector-general. He certainly was a most indefatigable fellow, and went at his work with an enthusiasm that made him very useful for a time. It was worth something to see a man who worked with a kind of dash,—with a prompt, staccato movement that infused spirit and energy into all around him. He would drill all day, and then spend half the night trying to catch sentinels and officers of the guard at fault in their duty. My first impression was that I had got hold of a most valuable ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... back to the front door as if we were afraid that Miss Banks might get there first; but she kept us waiting for something like ten minutes before she came downstairs. The silence of that interval was only broken by such nervous staccato comments as "Long time!" "Dressing, presumably," and occasional throaty sounds of impatience from Jervaise that are beyond the representative scope of typography. I have heard much the same noises proceed from the throat of an unhopeful pig ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... of admiration and childish envy he had watched them drill for many weeks, but they had never seemed such real, grand soldiers until now, as they came marching by with quick, firm steps, keeping time to the clear, staccato notes, marching off to real battle-fields. It was all so beautiful, splendid, and gay—the music, the soldiers, the people, the hurrahing! It stirred his sentient little body through and through with a kind of joy, and he thought it so strange ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... was riding, but at a pace which took no heed of a horse's endurance, riding a gallant brute that stretched out its neck, nostrils flaring, hammering hoofs beating out the very staccato of urgent speed upon the flying sands. Already his revolver was tight clinched in a lifted hand. Already he had swerved a little from the distant lights of San Juan. He was taking the shortest line which led ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... four the staccato notes of "Assembly" rang across the terrace as Polly sounded the call upon her bugle. The girls came hurrying from every direction and the ensuing hour and a half, usually free for recreation, was cheerfully ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of his staccato sentences by stamping a puny foot on the floor. His gloating over Jim's death was ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... rifles barked their message of death into the sky. For agonizing seconds nothing happened. The guns roared again. Below and behind the fleeing plane, two puffs of white smoke appeared in the sky. The staccato calls of the observers came from the control station and the guns roared again and again. Now above and now below the Russian plane appeared the white puffs that told of bursting shells, but the ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... no response. The long gleaming folds of the portieres hung motionless. Still, a sharp and staccato clatter of hoofs that had risen in the street, might have drowned ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... thus engaged, and chatting, that the staccato exhaust of a motor-boat drew their attention to the Island of Pipes. From the other side, a boat was poking around into the passage leading ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... in her best hat and coat, feeling rather spry and pleased with herself, until presently, clinketty clank, round the bend of the road came the quick, staccato beat of horses' hoofs. Mr and Mrs Maplestone cantering past in hunting kit, which at one glimpse killed complacency and substituted disgust for ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... simile [Transcriber's Note: Corrected error "similie"] (sometimes segue) indicates that a certain effect previously begun is to be continued, as e.g., staccato playing, pedalling, style of bowing in violin music, etc. The word segue is also occasionally used to show that an accompaniment figure (especially in orchestral music) is to ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... of senators and governors and first citizens, and before nightfall you may get a sight of him, since you come from Anderson. Not one man in a hundred,' says Appleton, I not one man in a hundred, reaches his chief-of-staff.' Next morning," the General continued in a staccato which was often his habit, "had breakfast before daybreak and went 'round there. Place just swarming with Californians—army contracts." (The General sniffed.) Saw Fremont. Went back to hotel. More Californians, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for blackberry pastures responded by some keen and graphic observation; while the Olympian host, anxious that so much good material should be spun into something, beamed smiling encouragement upon all parties. But the conversation became more and more staccato. Miles Coverdale, a statue of night and silence, sat, a little removed, under a portrait of Dante, gazing imperturbably upon the group; and as he sat in the shadow, his dark hair and eyes and suit of sables made him, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Mr. Underwood—we'll stand in the presence of the Board. [He speaks in a biting and staccato voice, rolling his r's, pronouncing his a's like an Italian a, and his consonants short and crisp.] How are you, Mr. Harness? Did n't expect t' have the pleasure of seeing you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cut off. It coasted. Presently the horizon tilted and all the dazzling ground below turned sedately beneath them. There came staccato instructions from a voice-speaker, which the engineer obeyed. The landing boat swung low—below the tips of giant mauve mountains with a sand plateau beyond them—and its nose went up. ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... at the side door and the thumping overhead blended in a travesty on the anvil chorus, the staccato tapping of somebody's knuckles rising flute-like above the hammering of Joel's cane. TO some temperaments the double summons would have proved confusing, but Persis Dale dropped her sewing and moved briskly to the door, addressing the ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... Staccato! Staccato! Leggier agitato! In and out does the melody twist— Unique proposition Is this composition. (Alas! for the player who hasn't the wrist!) Now in the dominant Theme ringing prominent, Bass still repeating its one monotone, Double notes crying, Up keyboard go ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... "My Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?" ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... anything I had ever heard, I was thrown into an ecstasy of delight, and could not imagine from what kind of bird larynx so quaint a medley could emanate. The song opened with a loud, fine, piercing whistle, and ended with an abrupt staccato gurgle much lower in the musical staff, sounding precisely as if the soloist's performance had been suddenly choked off by the rising of water in the windpipe. It was something after the order of ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... maid alike looked on in helpless convulsions of laughter. No rehearsal was possible under the circumstances, though Cynthia persisted in acting her part, and sat on the edge of the sofa tossing her head, and delivering herself of staccato little sentences in reply to imaginary questions suitable ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... the bench land through a pair of field glasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedly upon the young grass a mile or so away. Two men on horseback loitered upon the outer fringe of the herd. From a distance hilltop came the staccato sound of hammers where an other shack was going up. Cloud shadows slid silently over the land, with bright sunlight chasing after. Of the other horsemen who had come up the bluff with the cattle, he saw not a sign. So the man yawned and ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... rustlers told the story in Galeyville amid grim laughter; and the voices of the narrators were raised to carry above the staccato pounding of the painos, the scuffling of boot heels on the dance-hall floors, the shrill mirthless outcries of rouge-bedizened women, and the resonant slapping of dobie dollars on the unpainted pine bars. Now and again the recitals were ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... is glad when the tortures of the Trio are over. This loveliest of idylls is turned into a veritable monstrosity by the passage in triplets for the violoncello; which, if taken at the usual quick pace, is the despair of violoncellists, who are worried with the hasty staccato across the strings and back again, and find it impossible to produce anything but a painful series of scratches. Naturally, this difficulty disappears as soon as the delicate melody of the horns and clarinets is taken at the proper tempo; these instruments ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... as he had said to me before lunch, with, perhaps, a little more shamefacedness. Were it not for reiteration upon reiteration of the same things in talk, life would be a stark silence broken only by staccato announcement of facts. At last Barbara's eyes grew uncomfortably moist. Impulsively she flew to Jaffery and put her arms round his vast shoulders—he was sitting, otherwise she could not have ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Patsy might have termed "fit." The dogs of the village were on hand; that self-appointed escort of all doubtful characters barked them down the street with a lusty chorus of growls and snarls and sharp, staccato yaps. There were the children, too, of course; the older ones followed hot-foot after the dogs; the smaller ones came, a stumbling vanguard, sucking speculative thumbs or forefingers, as the choice might be. The hurly-burly brought the grown-ups ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... remembered was the sound of her own wild scream. There came back to her a stronger shout, and the bark of a dog. She had a blurred consciousness of a whole troupe of men scrambling down the choked ravine, of glad questions and joyous answers, of a delirious dog leaping on board and yelping staccato assurances that everything was all right in a most wonderful world. Then she found herself in Courtenay's arms, and heard him say in ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... there in the dark night was one of those mysterious stops which trains are prone to make, unexplained and doubtless unexplainable by any other than a higher intelligence which directs the movements of men and rolling stock. There was no town, and not even a switch light. Presently two staccato blasts broke from the engine's whistle, there was a progressive jerking at coupling pins, which started up at the big locomotive and ran rapidly down the length of the train, there was the squeaking of brake shoes against wheels, and the train moved slowly forward again upon its long journey ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Mohammedan feast of Ramadhan. During the feast, which lasts a month, night is turned into day. No food is allowed, in theory, from sunrise to sunset. Drums beat, dogs howl, cocks crow and the revellers shout and wail and clap their hands in long, rhythmic, staccato periods, and explosions of powder occur under the ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... to utter "yes," "no," "what?" "ah!" "bah!" and other monosyllables; but when the editor, who knew the cash price of "peuh" and "oh," declared he would only pay for lines half full, Grimaud was slaughtered the next morning. However, these yarns show that the French can satirize their jerky, staccato style of feuilleton, with each sentence staked off in a paragraph by itself, like some grimacing clown, who expects each particular joke or handspring to be observed individually, and to be greeted with separate applause. Across ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... came another sound. It was the deep staccato of the exhaust of an automobile, with opened muffler. It was tearing ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... sick-room and found Tommy sitting up in bed, holding his violin in the position for playing, and scolding in a sharp staccato voice because he ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... their breasts like doves, knelt and rose, pressed their hands to their bosom or voluptuously outspread their arms, which seemed to flutter as the wings of Iris or Nephthys, dragged their limbs, bent the knee, displayed their swift feet with little staccato movements, and followed every undulation of the music. The maids, standing against the wall to leave free space for the evolutions of the dancers, marked the rhythm by snapping their fingers or clapping their hands together. Some of these maids, absolutely nude, had ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... noises. From one of the balconies near at hand, though unseen, a gong, a pipe, and some kind of stringed instrument wailed and thundered in unison. There was a vast shuffling of padded soles and a continuous interchange of singsong monosyllables, high-pitched and staccato, while from every hand rose the strange aromas of the East—sandalwood, punk, incense, oil, and the smell ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... loud, rather harsh at first, then softened to a mourn, wild, lonely, haunting. A pack of coyotes barked in angry answer, a sharp, staccato, yelping chorus, the more piercing notes biting on the cold night air. These mountain mourns and yelps were music to Columbine. She rode on down the trail in the gathering darkness, less afraid of the night and ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... stillness, the nightingale began to sing. Three clear notes rang out from the echoing coppice; it was like the voice of the organ in a great church. It sounded over the fields, to die away in a low, hushed fluting. Now, louder and staccato, like a spiral stair of metallic sound, the notes rang out, high and low alternately, in quickening time, a running, rustling and rioting, with long-drawn pipings, wonderfully sweet, that rose in a storm of bell-like tinklings, limpid as water, with a strength, a violence, a precision exceeding ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... orchestra, very well instrumentated, full of happy melodies, and where the principal part contained features of a character as ingenious as piquant. He possesses an extreme dexterity in the use of the bow, and makes the staccato with as much audacity as perfection. He has the tone agreeable, the style elegant, and the expression just, and not affected. Here he is, then, placed in the first rank in that glorious phalanx of violinists which Europe ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... properly, he would dance a hornpipe, whistling his own music in sharp staccato notes, as from a piccolo. He could likewise "present arms" with a little straw musket which I had provided for him; besides feigning to be dead, and allowing you to take him up by the legs, his head hanging down, apparently lifeless, the while, without stirring—although ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Norton, in his Political Americanisms (New York, 1890), informs us that "the peculiar staccato cheer, 'rah, rah, rah!'" was probably invented at Harvard in 1864. In the Blaine campaign of 1884 it was introduced into political meetings and processions together with "the custom, also borrowed from the colleges, of spelling some temporarily significant ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... wireless apparatus before, and showed some excitement as Hood made ready to send the most famous message ever transmitted through the ether. At last he threw over his rheostat and the hum of the rotary spark rose into its staccato song. Hood sent out a few V's ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... With her hand pressed hard over her mouth to keep back the hysterical scream that threatened, she fled to the house. Behind her the rifle spat forth its staccato message of death. For a few seconds the mountains flung whiplike echoes back and forth in a volley. Then the sibilant voice of the wind alone ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... distant speck on the water was fast assuming the proportions of a motor-launch. He noticed too that the approaching craft was coming at a high rate of speed and was swerving shoreward. Tugging harder at the nets, he worked doggedly on, listening to the staccato bark of the speed-craft as Mascola drew close. They were hauling at the last string when he came ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... fling of slender gray legs, as regularly intervaled as the teeth of a giant comb. Company by company, the regiment fell into the cadence of full-step. Midway, the standards of the Republic and Alleghenia rippled side by side. And so, with blare of brass and sharp staccato of snare-drums, with sheen of rifles and accoutrements, with flash of slender swords, raised in salute,—above all and always, with that magnificent unanimity, that mighty pulse of the thunderous advance, the Ninth swept past its Governor and its ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... was imparting, in queer staccato sentences. "Shouldn't have much difficulty, though; responsibility lies between two men. Here all last night. Nobody else. Callahan and O'Brien holdin' 'em. One 's Page's private secretary; fellow named Burke—Alexander Stilwell Burke. Peach ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... longer than a reel had to be of rare excellence, such as the art films imported from France for the Licensed program. In those days, Stella rose rapidly to prominence. Her large wistful eyes had set the hearts of many of us to beating at staccato rate. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... the meal, the priestess recounts in the old archaic language of song the chronicles of bygone days. This is taken up by such other makers of Manbo monody as may be present. If the child proves to be restless, it is lulled to sleep with the weird staccato of the bamboo guitar.[30] During the course of the night the two souls are supposed to enter into mystic consociation with the babe, and thenceforth to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... nice?" cried Robin in delighted staccato. "It's just made for what we want. Look—a fireplace!" To be sure, it was nothing more than a gap in the wall. "And these darling windows. We can put a seat way across, all comfy." She promptly saw, in her mind, Susy curled upon it with a beautiful picture book and a handful of cookies. "Oh, let's ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... Isabel's turn, and she now came forward with a smile that extended her mouth from ear to ear, and in a gushing manner said, in staccato sentences: ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... town. Suddenly Sir Charles paused, his coup d'archet half-executed, the final beauty of his neck-cloth half-achieved, while he listened with surprise and indignation upon his large, comely, fresh-complexioned face. Below, the decorous hum of Jermyn Street had been broken by the sharp, staccato, ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... forcibly arrested his chattering teeth. He calmed his vocal organs and answered the Wildcat, but when he became articulate his feet assumed the staccato movement. ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... eyes to dim the glare of the sun and relieve the strain on his eyeballs, which ached fiercely. His pony, having worked off its excess of spirit, settled down into a tireless pace that tested the picked mounts the planters had selected as their best, and the miles passed in silence save for staccato pounding of hoofs on hard packed earth and the swish of underbrush that lined ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... a wonderful dog, routed out a she-coyote that evidently had a den somewhere, for she barked angrily at the dog and at us. Fox could not catch her. She led him round in a circle, and we could not see her in the thick brush. It was fine to hear the wild staccato ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... you hear me? Are you asleep? . . . Uncle!" Her voice shrilled on to a sharp staccato note, then cracked ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... have cost much. Cairn Street at nine o'clock levels all distinctions of rank as impartially as the grave. Again and again I loitered at the heels of a couple of resplendent beings, only to overhear, when I expected the level voice of culture, the staccato "Sez he," "Sez I" that is the mark of the white servant-girl all ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... pieces usually performed on an instrument incapable of modulation (this was not a pedal Harp), when another visit from Abel brought him back to the Viol da Gamba. He now saw the imperfection of sudden sounds that instantly die away—if you wanted staccato, it was to be had by a proper management of the bow, and you might also have notes as long as you please. The Viol da Gamba is the only instrument, and Abel the prince of musicians! This, and occasionally a little flirtation with the Fiddle, continued some years; ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... matter of close-ups to him, and write your scene straight, with emphasis on the points that should be brought out most strongly? I don't say that this surmise is right; I merely am wondering. In any event, we do not want to see the close-up overdone. We don't want too much of the Griffith staccato. It leads to what a certain friend of mine once called Tom Lawson's method of muck-raking—'The method ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... has no supercilious contempt—no sense of isolation or separation; not even the consciousness of toleration toward him. Toward Celia, with her delicious commonplace of rather superficial yet naive worldly wisdom, her half-conscious selfishness, her baby-worship, and her inimitable "staccato," she is more than tolerant. She looks up to her as in many respects a superior, even though her own far higher instincts and aims of life cannot accept her as an aid and guidance toward the realisation of these. Even at old Featherstone's ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... contrasting masses of light and shade. It does not depend for its effect upon intellectual quality beyond a rigorous sense of simplicity, or upon refinement of conception or detail, but rather upon size, picturesque mass, and staccato light and shade. The proportion of capital to column in quantity of surface was very slight. The proportion of voussoirs to arches naturally depended upon the size of the arch,—large voussoirs to large arches, small voussoirs to small arches. Columns were only grouped around piers and ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 04, April 1895 - Byzantine-Romanesque Windows in Southern Italy • Various
... has an indescribable effect upon the singers, whose excitable feelings it sometimes works up almost to the pitch of frenzy. The dancing tunes of the Kamchadals are of course entirely different in character, being generally very lively, and made up of energetic staccato passages, repeated many times in succession, without variation. Nearly all the natives accompany themselves upon a three-cornered guitar with two strings, called a ballalaika (bahl-lah-lai'-kah), and some of them play quite well upon rude home-made violins. ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... brought the staccato music of the circus band to the foster-mother's ears. The music completed her moral decay, for she was thinking, if Brother Baker would only look after his own children as carefully as he looked after those of other people, the world would be better. Then she said: "Now, ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... somewhat far-fetched notion of my position," he said, with a staccato quality in his velvet voice. "I am not a magnate, and I toil here to make, not to lose, money ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... certain want of fixedness of purpose which she had certainly not noticed before—a quick, spasmodic utterance which belongs rather to the insane than to those of intellectual equilibrium. She was a little frightened, not only by his thoughts, but by his staccato way ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... back and with a lateral curve of his person when he talked about art, which would alone have carried conviction even if he had not had a thick, dark bang coming almost to the brows of his mobile gray eyes, and had not spoken English with quick, staccato impulses, so as to give it the effect of epigrammatic and sententious French. One of the ladies said that you always thought of him as having spoken French after it was over, and accused herself of wrong in not being able to feel afraid of him. None of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of wireless telegraphy between husband and wife. It appeared that Mr. Negget sent off a humorous message with his left eye, the right being for some reason closed, to which Mrs. Negget replied with a series of frowns and staccato shakes of the head, which her husband found easily translatable. Under the austere stare of Mr. Bodfish their faces at once regained their wonted calm, and the ex-constable in a somewhat offended manner ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... gay little air with his fingers on the table. His touch was staccato, and he appeared to be taking some pride in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... above the hum of the betting ring rose the notes of a bugle. The last field of the season was being called to the track and instead of the usual staccato summons the bugler ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... minutes before seven, three staccato rings would come at the front-door bell. At her sewing or what not, Mrs. Becker would glance ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... When the staccato beats of the ponies' hoofs ceased, he shouted: "Come on, boys, make this your home. Everything goes, and the Sweetwater ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... silent. Her seeking, pitiful eyes were on him perpetually, trying to make him out, to acquaint herself with this new personality, which spoke in these harsh staccato phrases—to reconcile it with the exciteable, sanguine, self-confident man whom she had ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... leaping up above the houses in front of them against the hot, blue sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply not fifty yards ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... Mauer, who was perpetually in mourning, literally darkened my doorway. Seeing Follet she became nervous—he did affect women, as I have said. What with her squint and her smile, she made a spectacle of herself before she panted out her staccato statement. Doctor Mauer was away with a patient on the other side of the island; and French Eva had been wringing her hands unintelligibly on the Mauers' porch. She—Madame Mauer—couldn't make out ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sometimes used for bunting-up a sail, but more usually for 'sweating-up.' Although I have allowed the last note its full musical value, it was not prolonged in this manner aboard ship. As it coincided with the pull, it usually sounded more like a staccato grunt. ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... stake, listen to the rolling notes of this bloody battle. High in the air, bursting shells with white puffs light up the clouds of musketry smoke. Charging yells are borne down the wind, with ringing answering cheers. The staccato notes of the snapping ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... heard I had a fever, they might be alarmed—but I couldn't find them. The motor was not at the curb either. I stepped into a telephone-booth and called the house. Edith answered herself. I recognized her quick staccato "Hello." ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... Russian school. Her knowledge of people and events was extremely limited; but she used to patronise every one who came in contact with her. There was a story that when she died and left the Millionaya for Heaven she addressed St. Peter in her formal staccato French: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor-i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie me presenter au Bon Dieu.' St. Peter made the desired introduction, and the Princess ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... in the roar of the river, and rose more distinct again, while the girl, who realized that a man was riding up the valley, wondered with unusual curiosity what news he would bring. She also grew impatient, for that staccato drumming seemed to jar upon the harmonies of the evening, and she walked to the balustrade when the sound swelled into a thudding beat of hoofs. The man was crossing the oatfield at a gallop now. Then the sound rose muffled out of the gloom of the orchard the trail ran through, and she ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... she had learned from him in those few minutes. He had gone on remorselessly, in his staccato manner, as if addressing a parade, which I knew so well, putting before her the dry yet ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... exaggerated his achievement. He expected people to be interested also in meeting him. He expected from the great genius a reciprocal buoyancy. Madame von Marwitz bent her brows upon him. Irony grew in her smile, a staccato crispness in her utterance. Cool and competent as he was, Bertram presently looked disconcerted; he did not easily forgive those who disconcerted him, and, making no further effort to carry on the conversation, he sat silent, smiling a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... the responses to the almost staccato words of the clergyman. The ceremony was hurried through at a lively rate, but to Eddie it seemed to take hours. Her fingers felt like a closed fan in his own pulseless hand. He replied "I do" and "I will" without really being aware of the fact, and all the time ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... the terms were misunderstood. 'Presto' signifies 'turn over,' 'Lento' 'with style.' 'Staccato' was said to mean 'stick on the notes,' or 'notes ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... respective national temperaments, fanciful perhaps, but interesting. It is not, however, under the figure of the etcher's art or of the process of the mint that we can fully represent Bergson's resources of style. These suggest staccato effects, hard outlines, and that does not at all represent the prose of this writer. It is a fine, delicately interwoven, tissue-like fabric, pliant and supple. If one were in the secret of M. Bergson's private thoughts, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... eight, launches, a bargee in a tublike dingey standing up and pushing his sculls instead of pulling; gentlemen, with their shoulders in a halter, hauling like horses and towing fair freights against the current; and punts poled across to shady nooks. The splashing of oars, the staccato sound as a blade feathered too low meets the wavelets, merry voices, sometimes a song, and always a low undertone, which, as the wind accelerates it, rises to a roar. It is the last leap of the river to the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... himself, he twirled the heavy moustaches—artificial affairs which he had contrived to become possessed of—and glared at his comrades through that pair of big-rimmed spectacles which so completely altered his appearance. Then he talked to them—cross-questioned his friends in the gruff, staccato accents one might have expected from such an individual as he ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... never catch it. This immortal hopefulness, fortified by its immortal and unteachable misjudgment, is the immortal feature of this character, for a play; and we will write that play. We should be fools else. That staccato postscript reads as if some new and mighty business were imminent, for it is slung on the paper telegraphically, all the small words left out. I am afraid something newer and bigger than the electric light is swinging across his orbit. Save this letter for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hour later, clear and distinct, that same wailing howl at the beginning—but ending in a staccato of quick sharp yelps that stirred his blood at once into a fiery excitement that it had never known before. The same instinct told him that this was the call—the hunt-cry. It urged him to come quickly. A few moments later it came again, and ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... the deep-toned whistle poured forth its warning on the night, and before the long blast had died away, up from the depths of the dense fog bank ahead arose an echo, accentuated with sharp, staccato shrieks. Then came a sudden, startling cry at the bow; then deep down in the bowels of the ship the clang of the engine gong; then, shouts, and rushings to and fro at the hidden forecastle; and Loring started to his feet only to be hurled headlong to the deck, for, with fearful shock, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... more or less resonant medium; by the use—when the voice is employed—of conventional verbal symbols instead of the elements of significant speech; and—where actual verse has been spoken—by a treatment of the words in formal staccato scansion, or by the beating of time throughout the utterance. The last of these methods is a halting between two courses which casts doubt on the results as characteristic of either type of activity. There is no question that the rhythmic forms of recitative poetry differ vastly ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... called him from the first by the pretty Scotch equivalent of Evan's first name) is of a wholly masculine mould, and like his father in light hair, gray eyes, and determination. His very speech is quick and staccato, his tendency is to overcome, to fight rather than assuage, though he is the champion of everything he loves. From the time he could form distinct sounds he has called me Barbara, and no amount of reasoning will make him do otherwise, while the imitation of his father's ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... and appropriate to the occasion; but Miss Patty thumped the words out of me, to the tune of the Umbrella Quickstep, in staccato. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... fur shoulder cape. Withal, his head was drawn down to his body, and his beak pointed upward at an angle of forty-five degrees. In this peculiar and absurd position he began a strange little song, ludicrously weak and low for a bird of his size. The tones were delivered in a sharp staccato style, like "picking" the strings of a violin very softly, several notes uttered with queer sidewise jerks of the head, and eyes apparently fixed on the goldfinch. After a phrase or two he scraped his bill violently and ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller |
