"Quaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a quaver in my voice, "the only families that I know are dining with friends of their own, whom I do not know. I feel more homesick to-day than ever before in my life and the idea of eating my Christmas dinner alone fills me ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... agreed Pete, without a quaver in his voice. "The varmints hev set fire to the building ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... out and the violins began to quaver their long D against the rude figure of the basses, Mrs. Harsanyi saw her husband's fingers fluttering on his knee in a rapid tattoo. At the moment when SIEGLINDE entered from the side door, she leaned toward ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... 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
... 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 item, even if ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... them back to me," said the girl, quietly, with a quaver in her voice. "Give them back to me. Would ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... was too much. Hester wiped away two large tears onto a dear little handkerchief just large enough to receive them, and went on with a quaver ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... 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 ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... stop 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 this ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... with a slight quaver in his voice. "The thief found and departed with the drawings of a most important new device, originated by Benson and his friends and finished by myself. I'd rather lose a large sum of money than ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... grew the 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 ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... those two fatal corners were passed, and then other well-remembered spots where former bumps had been made, and still Miller made no sign; on the contrary, he looked gloomy and savage. The St. Ambrosian shouts from the shore too changed from the usual exultant peals into something like a quaver of consternation, while the air was rent with the name and laudations of ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to be pretty sure of it," said Amy, with a quaver in her voice. "When the wind rose last night and wailed around the house, I got all creepy thinking of him alone up in that dreary little shack, living that whole horrible ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... not glad," said 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 ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... know there were any snakes around here," said Grace wonderingly, and, it must be admitted, still with a little quaver in her voice. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... little place!" Maguire ejaculated. "And it's not so little, either. Why, it's a regular palace! Look at the fireplace and the four windows! My eye! And the tier of bunks is neat as a ship's cabin. Bear a hand here with the spring. I'm all of a quaver to see if it ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... bruised and batter'd hoof, And, with an amiable mien, His master patted on the chin, The action gracing with a word— The fondest bray that e'er was heard! O, such caressing was there ever? Or melody with such a quaver? 'Ho! Martin![6] here! a club, a club bring!' Out cried the master, sore offended. So Martin gave the ass a drubbing,— And so the comedy ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... 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
... keen disappointment to him that I won't enter the Frontier Day contests. He'd like nothing better than to see me win the bucking-horse match. Think of it! And I'm so timid I can't look an oat in the face!" Barbara attempted a shy laugh, but there was a quaver to her voice, and when Gray continued to stare at her gravely, sympathetically, her face quickly sobered. "Now you understand why my father doesn't think it necessary to go along on my trips through the oil ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... power of silence! There are words that concentrate in themselves the glory of a lifetime; but there is a silence that is more precious than they. Speech ripples over the surface of life, but silence sinks into its depths. Airy pleasantnesses bubble up in airy, pleasant words. Weak sorrows quaver out their shallow being and are not. When the heart is cleft to its core, there is no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... 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 ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... and faster. I cannot help my gray hairs, nor the wrinkles that gather so slowly yet ruthlessly; no, nor the quaver that will come in my voice, not the sense of being feeble in the knees, even when I walk only across the floor of my study. But I have not got used to age yet. I do not FEEL one atom older than I did at three-and-twenty. Nay, to tell all the truth, I feel a good deal ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... 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
... her voice to do this? A single quaver in her tones would betray her consciousness of their presence to the lurking robbers ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Lockwood, with a quaver in his voice, "do you really think I am not doing my duty by Dora ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... she said, in her low voice, which of late had begun to quaver with the feebleness of age. 'Mrs. Jarmey brought it here to show me, because she guessed who it ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... tremulous movement to her breast, a quaver in her voice, of which she seemed slightly ashamed, for she turned suddenly and left ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... 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 ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... ever consented to go into this kind of thing," the K. & Z. man went on, a quaver in his voice. "But it was put up to me, and when I'd taken the first step, I thought I'd ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... 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 ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... was a curious quaver in her voice, "I've had to give in at last. The Lord knows best. He has given me many a happy year with you; yet I have never forgotten the folks over yonder. I shall be glad to see them again,—your father, Jack, and the rest. 'Then ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... 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
... 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
... trying to distinguish Jacqueline's from the rest. He had taken the precaution to open both doors of the cabin wide, after his hosts were safely asleep, letting in the moonlight and a little breeze that smelled keenly of pine woods. Now and then a faint bird-note broke the hush, or the mournful quaver of a screech-owl. The situation was not without picturesque piquancy for ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... 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, old eyes peered out from the gray shawl she held over her ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... impulse was 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 it, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... When she reached the door, she stood for a moment on the threshold, and, putting her hand over her eyes, shouted "Annie!" But, apparently startled at the sound of her own voice where the unhearing dead had so lately passed, she let the end of the call die away in a quaver, and, without repeating it, set off to find the missing child by the use of her eyes alone. First she went into the barn, and then through the barn into the stack-yard, and then round the ricks one after another, and then into the corn-loft; but all without avail. At length, as she ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... considered this story to be of a pestilent example. I am not inclined to imagine we shall ever be put into any practical difficulty from a superfluity of Greenvilles. And besides, I demur to the opinion. The worth of such actions is not a thing to be decided in a quaver of sensibility or a flush of righteous common-sense. The man who wished to make the ballads of his country coveted a small matter compared to what Richard Greenville accomplished. I wonder how many people have been inspired ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hurriedly down into the street, where a few startled women and old men had rushed at the first roll of the cannon. As she stood among them, straining her eyes from end to end of the little village, her heart beat in her throat and she could only quaver out an appeal ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... shiver, totter, brandish, joggle, quaver, shudder, tremble, flap, jolt, quiver, sway, vibrate, fluctuate, jounce, reel, swing, wave, flutter, oscillate, rock, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... a little quaver in his voice, We all looked at him in silence. Uncle Eb drew out his wallet with trembling hands, his fine old face lit with a deep emotion. David looked up at him as he wondered what joke was coming, until he saw ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... German woman supposed that I was the mother of the child, but knew there was a secret, and did not seek to disturb it. At the end of the six months, your—your—brother died." (There was here a slight quaver in her voice, almost instantly passing away.) "Soon after this, my mother died, and the last of our family estate was spent on her burial." (Another tremor in the voice, but brief. The woman seemed to have perfect ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... 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 ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... eyes to the reading, the quiet rhythm of the sentences, and the calm, deep music of his voice, sounding ineffably soothing, when a quaver, then a break in his voice, just as he repeated the last words, made me look toward him. The calm, strong man was weeping silently; and just then he broke into a paroxysm of sobs that shook his strong frame as by a palsy. Dear Lord! what hidden grief there is in the world! Who would ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... will be the death of me! Tartaglia in the flesh—how old Gozzi would have revelled in him! Those pathetic, oyster-eyes, that round, flabby face, that comic nose, and the bleating voice with the sentimental quaver in it, reeling off the live man's dying speech...." He wiped his brimming eyes. "Since the time when Boer spies hocussed him on guard—you remember that lovely affair?—he's registered a vow to impress me with his gallantry and devotion, or die in the attempt. He's the most admirably unconscious ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... spoke; and, though his words were seemingly irrelevant, they were to the point. His voice had a note of martyrdom running through its senile quaver. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... snapped. Simmons fell 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 the ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... truant curly, But, for a spaniel, wondrous surely; Instead of curvets gay and brisk, He slouch'd along without a frisk, With dogged air, as if he had A good half mind to running mad; Mayhap the shaking at his ear Had been a quaver too severe; Mayhap the whip's "exclusive dealing" Had too much hurt e'en spaniel feeling, Nor if he had been cut, 'twas plain He did not mean ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... 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
... her to me!" said Mr. Brand, with a little quaver in his voice. "If you have the advantage of me that is ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... a most pathetic quaver in the rendering, and then big Captain Sartell broke down, with a helpless gulp in his voice, and I, who believed myself of too superior and refined a nature to be moved by such tawdry sentiment, was further dismayed to feel the tears gathering fast ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... had come up. But soon a remark which was let fall started him very wide awake indeed, and at the same time he recognized that the voices were not those of his present companions, but of strangers. From a certain quaver or hesitancy in the tones, he judged them to be ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... 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 ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from observation, that he was for ever throwing himself into the breach when any unusual effort was required. Once when her sister and Mr. Harcourt were present, he challenged them to a game of whist, that Audrey might leave her place at the piano. Very likely he had heard the slight quaver in her voice that told ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Quasimodo went out together, which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe and almost august brow to the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... your Pa and Ma, eh? You're not angry with them, I hope? Oh, it would be wrong of you to be angry with them still! They're very fond of you, you know. They cried when you went away, Lily. Your ... going away," Jimmy insisted, with a quaver in his voice, "was ... a great blow ... ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... sky, but the song went on without a quaver. The girl was evidently in the field and the voice seemed to come vaguely from a haystack about twenty feet ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Softer than lights that stream through the saints on the windows of churches, While the balsamy breath of the hemlocks and pines by the river Stole on the winds through the woodland aisles like the breath of a censer. Loud the people sang old camp-meeting anthems that quaver Quaintly yet from lips forgetful of lips that have kissed them: Loud they sang the songs of the Sacrifice and Atonement, And of the end of the world, and the infinite terrors of Judgment; Songs of ineffable sorrow, and wailing compassionate warning For the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... you see?" Mildred's well-tutored voice, though modulated and repressed even in her present emotion, nevertheless had a tendency to quaver. "It's true. Frank Dowling was going to see her one evening and he saw Arthur sitting on the stoop with her, and didn't go in. And Ella used to go to school with a girl who lives across the street ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... man was he?" demanded five or six anxious voices, in a breath; among which the tones of Desire, however, maintained their supremacy rising above those of all the others, like the strains of a first-rate artist flourishing a quaver above the more modest thrills of the ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... suspicious quaver in her voice that made Arthur's thoughts turn longingly to the safe shelter of his own room. What if he should have a weeping girl on his hands! He turned cold at the thought. "Oh, I'm sure you'll get ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... you! For I love him, my dear Piney! Bless you, for I love him, my dear Piney!" he kept saying over and over, with an hysterical quaver in his voice, his lips pale and moving constantly. "Oh, may God bless you, for I love him, my dear Piney!" It was what Salome Madeira had said to him when he had left her, a white, angelic figure, swaying a little toward him, there in the garden back ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... Their melancholy quaver, lone and low, When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat: The whippoorwills, far in the afterglow, Complain to silence: and the lightnings beat, In one still ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... relieved when a ducal coach and six came and whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the end of the piece where Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and all the divine company of Olympians are seated, and quaver out her last song as a goddess: so when this portentous elevation was accomplished in the Esmond family, I am not sure that every one of us did not treat the divine Beatrix with special honors; at least the saucy little beauty carried ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... up his head and whinnied. At the first quaver, De Lacy touched Selim and rode out into the moonlight toward the strangers, ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... part of his life in the wilderness; and the voices of 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 ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... you?" Marjorie demanded with a regrettable quaver. "Have you come after the Green Box? ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... had an odd little quaver. "Why, so far as I know, I guess it's all right. Damn queer, though. I wish we'd got here in daytime.... But maybe ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... landed. I only want to be quiet, after all," Miss Ambient continued as if she had long been baffled of this modest desire. "And one must be good, at any rate, must not one?" she pursued with a dubious quaver—an intimation apparently that what I might say one way or the other would settle it for her. It was difficult for me to be very original in reply, and I'm afraid I repaid her confidence with an unblushing platitude. I remember, moreover, attaching to it an inquiry, equally destitute ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... called to answer, evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment. The doubt was soon solved. With a face on which no trace of fear could be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore that it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money. The oscillation of sympathy, which had for a time been suspended, came round again to the thin pale girl, who sat there looking wistfully ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... 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, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... should fly from the bowstring like a bird, without quaver or flutter. All depends upon a ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... that it couldn't 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 ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... of mine to quaver in the way it did? Those few words, I was convinced, would tell more against me than the most circumstantial narrative. I clutched hold of the back of a chair near me, and made a desperate effort to steady myself as I proceeded. I gave an exact account ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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
... and we started off on the 200-mile trip together. We had the smoker of the Pullman all to ourselves, and after I had recited some furlongs of Burns to him, he began to sing "Jockey's Ta'en the Parting Kiss" in a sort of thin and whimpering quaver of a tenor that cut through the noise of the train like a violin note through silence. I thought I knew the poem, but it seemed to me I had never dreamed what was in it, with the wail of a Highland woman pouring plaintive melody through ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... door 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
... 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 ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... M.P.—double P, I was told—had been robbing this same lawyer of a good deal of rest recently, and he was trying at a mile a minute to catch up with his sleep. I could feel the sleeper slam her flanges against the ball of the rail as we rounded the perfectly pitched curves, and the little semi-quaver that tells the trained traveller that the man up ahead is moving the mile-posts, at least one every minute. At the first stop, twenty-five miles out, the fat drummer snapped his watch again, but he did not say, "Huh." We had made up ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... cried Dodo, "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 the merry voice. ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... way, 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
... mark you, did he reveal his interest in the Street and its doings. By not a single quaver was the cheeriness of his snatchy, racy, merry voice affected. By not the fraction of an inch nor a second was his gay little trot altered. But when the ends of his mustache stood out straight, his friends, no matter how slight was their acquaintance with financial matters, knew they were safe ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... ground his 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 set forwards ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... I thank you for these words about my brother," she said very gently, and with a little pathetic quaver in her voice. "They have given me a comforting association with that awful day. Oh, I thank God for the thought. Remembering what Mrs. Yocomb said, it reconciles me to it all, as I never thought I could be reconciled. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Joyce, but there was a quaver in her voice, and she turned her head aside. Cousin Kate put her hand under the resolute little chin, and tilted it until she could look into the eyes that dropped under her gaze "You have been crying," she said again, this time in English, ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... days drag by; the heart o' me is sad; The keenin' o' the wind at night, it nearly drives me mad; The cries o' children in the street, they quaver lorn an' thin, For there 's little gold in Ireland save that upon ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... some familiarity 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... 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
... going about the world with a bright red patch on either cheek; and it would seem that on the third day, namely, the Sunday, things came to a crisis in her disturbed mind. At morning service her fervour was something astonishing—the quaver in her voice was more noticeable in the hymns than ever, and the space devoted to silent prayer after the blessing was so abnormally long that Stark, the sexton, had to rattle the keys twice, with all due respect and ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... read the gazette, his clear voice pronouncing every word with a sort of quaver in it, resembling the tic-tac of our clock in the middle of the night, and it could be distinctly heard in the square. The reading lasted a long time, for the commandant omitted nothing. I remember it commenced ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... 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
... 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 so drained ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... red and 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 Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the latter case, for often when he had received bad news from home we have heard his voice quaver with anxiety, while the old smile played on his round, brown features ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... 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 an Indian maid—" Then silence. But now, the breath of Norcross ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... their song, which, like that of the choristers in the legend of the Witch of Berkley, died away in a quaver of consternation; and, like a flock of chickens disturbed by the presence of the kite, they at first made a movement to disperse and fly in different directions, and then, with despair, rather than hope, huddled themselves around their new Abbot; who, retaining ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... sisters. The journey over the heath I gave them in a monotonous piece, composed of three tones, quite dissimilar to that composed by Rousseau. My sisters were near despair; but I told them it was not more uninteresting than the heath. Sometimes I made a little flight, a quaver; that was the heath-larks which flew up into the air. The introduction to the gypsy-chorus in 'Preciosa' signified the German gypsy-flock. Then came the thema out of 'Jeannot and Collin'—'O, joyous days of childhood!'—and ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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
... should be a 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 ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was 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 on piece ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... you care more for your work sometimes than you do for me." There was a little quaver in her voice as she spoke. "And I wish you'd stop behaving as if I were your daughter. I don't know what ails you this morning; but if you go on this way I shall call you Professor Silex all the time. How would you ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... and the aged voice held a quaver of emotion which men were not accustomed to hearing it carry, "I wants ter talk with ye with ther severe freedom of an' old man counsellin' a young 'un—an' hit hain't ergoin' ter be in ther manner of a Doane argyfyin' with a Harper so much ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... 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, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... boy, running the words together and speaking with a parrot-like monotony in an unnaturally high-pitched key. Then his voice began to quaver a little till he stopped short with a cry of despair—"I cannot mind the words, I cannot say my prayers. Oh! will nobody say them for me? If mother, as is not in Lon'on, were here, she would do it fast," he ended, flinging out one thin arm and clutching convulsively at the air in a kind ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... up to Thee" for the first hymn, because Fiddling Boss could play it, and while he was tuning up his fiddle she hastily wrote out two more copies of the words. And so the queer service started with a quaver of the old fiddle and the clear, sweet voices of Margaret and Gardley leading off, while the men growled on their way behind, and Mom Wallis, in her new gray bonnet, with her hair all fluffed softly gray under it, sat with eyes shining like ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... Piggy could not escape 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 would ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... giving your mind to it, you might see things in a different light?" with another pressure of his arm. "Oh, Frank, what does it matter, after all, if the heart is right, whether you read the service in your natural voice, or give that little quaver at the end? I am sure, for ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... stay," reiterated the unwelcome guest, with a sudden quaver in her voice that made Roger ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal—and there was very little else to look at—he was a most satisfactory object, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... other significant objects, and especially 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
... that once one was dead what horrid people thought of one did not matter. It was said with infinite contempt; but something like a suppressed quaver in the voice made me look at her again. I perceived then that her thick eyelashes were wet. This surprising discovery silenced me as you may guess. She looked unhappy. And—I don't know how to say it—well—it suited her. The clouded brow, the pained mouth, the vague fixed ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... me; the color came back into her face, and in spite of my remonstrance she walked to the window, closed the heavy outside shutters and the blinds. As she was fastening them I heard the whizzing quaver of another shell, the racket of its explosion, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... glad she left me something easy. I know it will amuse you. It happened the first night we got here. There were a lot of Fanny's friends at dinner and in the evening we played games and Caroline sang. Poll has described her, but not her voice. It's one of those big throaty ones that quaver, and she sings the most dramatic of love songs. I hated it, it was so affected. Well of course, everybody raved about it and complimented her and asked for more. They didn't really want it, but Caroline has a way of insisting upon the center of ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... fly, Slade showed that he was a man of peerless bravery. No coward would dare that. Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made his dying speech without a quaver in his voice and been swung into eternity with what looked liked the calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in believing, from the low intellect of such a creature, that it was not moral courage that enabled him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cloaks and white doublets; while above them stood the benchers, barristers, and students, music playing all the while, and twenty violins welcoming Charles into the hall with unanimous scrape and quaver. Dinner was served by fifty young students in their gowns, no meaner servants appearing. In the November following the Duke of York, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Dorset were admitted members of the Society of the Inner Temple. Six years after, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... closed his eyes. "I've worked on this thing for years," he said tensely. "It was ... it means something to me. I invented it. I perfected it." His voice began to quaver just a little. "But if it's going to do ... to do all that—" He paused and took a deep breath. "All right. I'll smash my apparatus and destroy my plans and ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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 basket; and, having eaten, laid his head in ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Joanna raised her voice and cried for assistance; fear and distress choked the sound, and the freezing air caused it to fall on the silence with a ringing quaver. She persevered, however, every now and then varying the appeal, "Papa, Lilias, Sandy, do some of you come to me; I want you here, for God's ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... in a horrible circle around it, whooping 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 that forthwith ceases the fiendish fandango. Up dashes a warrior mounted ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... that friend Hans has come to life again," said Martin with a slight quaver in his voice, for Martin ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 Death ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... 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 ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... 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 horse at ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... he had wanted to work, for we had the biggest family of the neighbourhood. So we children made fun of him and we had to hold our mouths shut when he got up all tired and teary-like, and began to quaver: ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... even more charmed, although the melody was usually without much meaning. She was also endowed with the rudiments of a fine voice, and would often strike notes of surpassing sweetness and power; but her tones would soon quaver and break, and she complained that it tired her to sing. That ended the matter, for anything that wearied her was not ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... helped that simple youth into his difficulty. But things must now take their course. So amid a decorous silence, Dan Loftus lifted up his voice, and sang. That voice was a high small pipe, with a very nervous quaver in it. He leaned back in his chair, and little more than the whites of his upturned eyes were visible; and beating time upon the table with one hand, claw-wise, and with two or three queer, little thrills and roulades, which re-appeared with ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... meanwhile 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. They ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... 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 up ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... came on, the subject of employing Mr. Rhythm to teach a singing-school was discussed. Mr. Quaver, a tall, slim man, with a long, red nose, had led the choir for many years. He had a loud voice, and twisted his words so badly, that his singing was like the blare of a trumpet. On Sundays, after Rev. Mr. Surplice read the ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... note which contains more than one beat—for instance, the minim in the 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 still ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze |
