"Singsong" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and foul as it appears by daylight, there was a charm and romance to it under the lantern-lights that softened the darkness. Windows and doors were illuminated. Brown, flat-nosed men in loose clothing gathered in groups and discussed their affairs in a strange singsong tongue and high- pitched voices. Here, was the sound of the picking of the Chinese banjo-fiddle; there, we heard a cracked voice singing a melancholy song in the confusion of minor keys that may pass for music among the brown men; there, again, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... I thought he said." Rand recognized the singsong accent he had heard on the phone. "You ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... sir," she cries, in shrill newsboy singsong; "the full, true and particular account of the tragedy at Catheron Royals. Sounds like the title of a sensation novel, doesn't it? Here's No. 1 for you—I've got on ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... bowl in both hands and emptied the whole contents over himself. Then be resumed his smelly garments without troubling to dry his body, and got out a Quran from a corner and began to read it in a nasal singsong that would have kept dead men awake. King lay and watched ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Foanna did make answer it came in the singsong of chanted words. Ross felt Loketh shiver, felt the crawl of chill along his own spine. The words—if those were words and not just sounds intended to play upon the mind and emotions of a listener—cut ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... freak of fate a miracle had saved him, but when he realized the ease with which the girl had, single-handed, beaten off twenty gorilla-like males, and an instant later, as he saw them again take up their dance about him while she addressed them in a singsong monotone, which bore every evidence of rote, he came to the conclusion that it was all but a part of the ceremony of which he was the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... again and read. He read steadily for a quarter of an hour in a monotonous, singsong voice, and John Minute slowly sat himself erect and listened with tense face and narrow eyelids to the record. He did not interrupt ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... cried Dame Eliza, in a singsong heedless voice, which showed that such bickerings were nightly things among her guests. "No brawling or brabbling, gentles! Take heed to the good name ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be a marked accent upon the long syllable next preceding the caesura, and a slighter one upon that next before each of the demi-caesuras. When made too prominent, these pauses lead to a singsong style, which should be ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... in the vestibule and smiled at me, the funniest little wavery smile, as though she were trying on a brand-new expression. It made her look almost pretty. 'Good morning, Mr. Harrison,' she said in that soft, singsong tone English women have, 'here is your loan back again. I hope I have the sum you paid for my lunch correct—and ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... in beside Alixe. It was Mademoiselle Lotbiniere, who immediately was followed by her mother. I leaned forward, perfectly hidden, and listened to the singsong voices of the priests, the musical note of the responses, heard the Kyrie Eleison, the clanging of the belfry bell as the host was raised by the trembling bishop. The silence which followed the mournful voluntary played by the organ was most ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lay in the formation of short metrical sentences without much regard to the rhythmical terminations. Monosyllables, dissyllables, and trisyllables had each their distinct time. The natives repeat their lessons, orders received, or scraps of ancient song, or extemporize in this monotonous singsong tone for hours together, and in ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... should like to hear him read some of his verses himself, and I think some of the other boarders would like to. I wonder if he wouldn't do it, if we asked him! Poets read their own compositions in a singsong sort of way; but they do seem to love 'em so, that I always enjoy it. It makes me laugh a little inwardly to see how they dandle their poetical babies, but I don't let them know it. We must get up a select party of the boarders to hear him read. We'll send him a regular invitation. I will put ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... since Alec learned it, but the words were as familiar still as the letters of the alphabet. As Macklin's high-pitched voice reached them, Philippa joined in in a singsong undertone, and even Alec found himself unconsciously following the well-remembered lines ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... wound of the latter was still too new to stand so long a horseback ride. They arrived late, and the dance was already in full swing. As they stabled and fed the team, they could hear the high notes of the fiddles and the singsong chant of the caller. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... who does not foresee what all must answer who have not wholly forgotten themselves? I sinned, then, when as a boy I preferred those empty to those more profitable studies, or rather loved the one and hated the other. "One and one, two"; "two and two, four"; this was to me a hateful singsong: "the wooden horse lined with armed men," and "the burning of Troy," and "Creusa's shade and sad similitude," were the choice ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... taken to keep it clean. Often the rafters are festooned with cobwebs and dirt. Of furniture, save the teacher's low desk, there is none. The teacher uses a grass mat, while the boys sit cross-legged on the earthen floor. The teacher, in a singsong voice, reads a sentence which the boys shout after him. Then another sentence is read, which the pupils likewise shout in a singsong voice, while their bodies sway to and fro. This goes on until ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... being there. He was angry with himself for having brought them, and with Winny for having made him bring them; and he was angry with himself for being angry. But he couldn't help it. Their voices exasperated him. The children's voices, the high, reiterated singsong, "Where we goin'?" Winny's voice, poignantly soft, insufferably patient, answering them with all that tender silliness, that persistent, gentle, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... which later she was to recite; for this adorable little Lucy was, as a matter of course, to figure in the entertainment. It therefore happened that she heard not one note of Jim Patterson's painfully executed piece, for she was saying to herself in mental singsong a foolish ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... light above ground, yet I marveled that they had no means of lighting their way through these dark, subterranean passages. So we crept along at a snail's pace, with much stumbling and falling—the guards keeping up a singsong chant ahead of us, interspersed with certain high notes which I found always indicated rough ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wishes to know who makes the inquiry?" returned the Sing-Sing skipper, in the singsong manner in which ordinary folk repeat what ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... unconquerable instinct impelled them to the more invigorating sam-shu had only to make known their natural desires. As the feast progressed, and the spirits of the company rose, the charms of music were added to the delights of appetite. A band of singsong girls gently beat their tom-toms, and carolled in soft and soothing strains. As they finished, a general desire to hear Mien-yaun was expressed. Willing, indeed, he was, and, after seven protestations that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... goes around the ring of lodges announcing in singsong fashion the christening, and inviting everybody to a feast in honor of the event. A real American christening is always a gala occasion, when much savage wealth is distributed among the poor and old people. Winona has only just walked, and this fact is also announced with ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... the first peasant, and now there was no trace of patriarchal singsong in his voice; on the contrary, there was a certain scornful gruffness to be heard in it: 'Oh, he clacked away about something or other; wanted to stretch his tongue a bit. Of course, he's a gentleman; what does ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... "they are too monotonous, too singsong, to dead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural; it could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never saw ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain |
