"Syllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fiercer pang of temptation. "A word from me," Harry thought, "a syllable of explanation, and all this might be changed; but no, I swore it over the dying bed of my benefactor. For the sake of him and his; for the sacred love and kindness of old days; I gave my promise to him, and may kind heaven enable ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... rivulet until you come to its source; there you will see a girl, as bright as the sun, with long hair streaming down her shoulders. Take care that she does you no harm. Say not a word to her; for if you utter a single syllable, she will change you into a fish or some other creature, and eat you. Should she ask you to comb her hair, obey her. As you comb it, you will find one hair as red as blood; pull it out, and run away with it. Be swift, for she will follow you. Then throw on the ground, first the embroidered scarf, ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... to his own. He was begging her not to speak to him when he got to his room, that he might fall asleep, as he felt great want of that refreshment. He repeated this desire, I believe, at least a hundred times, though, far enough from need Ing it, the poor queen never uttered one syllable! He then applied to me, saying he was really very well, except in that one particular, that ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... institution which has its thousands of ministers among each of the antagonistic peoples—I mean the Church of Rome—gave his attention to minute questions of doctrine and administration, and bemoaned repeatedly the evil spirit of our age, but issued not one single syllable of precise and useful direction to the various national regiments of his clergy in connection with this terrible impending danger. The heads or Councils of the various Protestant bodies were equally remiss. Here and there individual clergymen joined associations, ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... Calneh," so Merodach is stated, in the cuneiform records, to have built Babel and Erech and Niffer, which last is probably Calneh. The Hebrew scribes would seem to have altered the name of Merodach in two particulars: they dropped the last syllable, thus suggesting that the name was derived from Marad, "the rebellious one"; and they prefixed the syllable "Ni," just as "Nisroch" was written for "Assur." "From a linguistic point of view, therefore, the identification of Nimrod as a ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... Celtic experience of the Lochlanners or Norsemen, with whom the Fomorians are associated,[177] would aid the conception of them as sea-pirates of a more or less demoniacal character. Dr. Stokes connects the second syllable mor with mare in "nightmare," from moro, and regards them as subterranean as well as submarine.[178] But the more probable derivation is that of Zimmer and D'Arbois, from fo and morio (mor, "great"),[179] which would thus agree with the tradition ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... Winnebourg and Metternich near Coblentz, the former the birthplace, the latter the property, of Prince Metternich, lead M. Dumas into a little digression on the subject of the celebrated diplomatist. The family name, we are informed, was originally Metter, but received the addition of the last syllable in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... never forget her," continued he, "the day I went to take leave of her. She was sitting on a sofa when I entered. On seeing me, she rose immediately. Before I could utter a syllable, 'Monsieur,' said the Princess, 'you are accused of being the Queen's enemy. Acquit yourself of the foul deed imputed to you, and I shall be happy to serve you as far as lies in my power. Till then, I must decline holding any ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... eyeglasses and looking them over with a comprehensive sweep of his hand say to me, for we travelled together that day,—"Ah, yes, boxes! how very interesting! do you know, Colonel, nothing gives me greater pleasure than spending the afternoon looking at piles of boxes?" Each syllable was so clearly and distinctly enunciated that the simplest remark made by this born comedian of a Prince was perfectly delightful, and we ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... of these two franchise bills was an undoubted triumph of the women's suffrage party. As one of the opponents in the debate of July, 1883, scornfully observed, "Had it not been for the question of women's suffrage being agitated throughout the country at the time, we should not have heard a syllable of the Scottish women's franchise bill," a sneering admission which we ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Cicero or Quintilian did or could spell; we know the syllable on which they placed the accent of almost every word; and in almost every case we already follow them in this. I have the conviction that in their best days philological people took vast pains to make the writing exactly reproduce ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... have received the name tucano from the noise they make, which resembles "tok-kan" very sharply pronounced and with a snap at the end of each syllable. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the word heard, as if spelt with a double e, heerd, instead of sounding it herd, as is most usually done. He said, his reason was, that if it was pronounced herd, there would be a single exception from the English pronunciation of the syllable ear, and he thought it better not ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... It is oddly spelled, but it is pronounced a little broader than you give it—quite as though it were written Shar-no-vet-skee, in fact, with the accent on the third syllable." ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... were not intended for Miss Claudia's ears; but notwithstanding, or rather because of, that, she heard every syllable, and immediately fired ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... he cried, catching my hand and detaining me. 'She is engaged with company, who will not hasten away as I have done. I will not stay long, nor utter one syllable that is not in harmony with the holy tranquillity of the hour. I am a stranger in name, but is there not something that tells you I was born to be your friend? I know there is,—I see it in your ingenuous, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... standpoint, her conduct is irreproachable; yet, surprisingly enough, when she becomes insane, she sings tainted songs, and salacious suggestions are on her lips, which in sane hours never uttered a syllable of such a sort. And Shakespeare is wrong? No; follow him. Thoughts are like rooms when shutters are closed and blinds down, and can not, therefore, be seen. We tell our thoughts, or conceal them, according ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... of the indefinite article is used for the sake of euphony only. Herein everybody agrees, but what everybody does not agree in is, that it is euphonious to use an before a word beginning with an aspirated h, when the accented syllable of the word is the second. For myself, so long as I continue to aspirate the h's in such words as heroic, harangue, and historical, I shall continue to use a before them; and when I adopt the Cockney mode of pronouncing ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... immutableness is essentially associated. Jesus, living in these moral sentiments, heedless of sensual fortunes, heeding only the manifestations of these, never made the separation of the idea of duration from the essence of these attributes, nor uttered a syllable concerning the duration of the soul. It was left to his disciples to sever duration from the moral elements, and to teach the immortality of the soul as a doctrine, and maintain it by evidences. The moment the doctrine of the immortality ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... as we three did agree, the sacred word to search, so we three do agree to raise this Royal Arch." At the close of the last line they keep their hands raised, while they incline their heads under them, and the first whispers in the ear of the second the syllable, J A H; the second to the third, B U H, and the third to the first, L U N. The second then commences, and it goes around again in the same manner, then the third, so that each companion pronounces each syllable of the word.[12] They then separate, each repairing to his station, and the High Priest ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... waging against the octopus. I try to keep in touch with it through Uncle Silas, who of course is intensely interested and who seems another man of late, but he has not your gift of explaining in words of one syllable. Have you ever thought of getting out a textbook of 'First Principles' of anything, for juvenile intellects of all ages? I am ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... you must have a Body and a Soul, each of the First Order; otherwise you will never get out of coarse art and skating in one syllable. So much for yourself, the motive power. And your machinery,—your smooth-bottomed rockers, the same shape stem and stern,—this must be as perfect as the man it moves, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... despised by the world. Annette had also some idea, that these, and other reports to the prejudice of Charles, originated with an unsuccessful rival, though poor William Curry, amiable, single-minded, and good-humoured as he was, never breathed in her presence, a syllable ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... in the Quichua dialect meaning "animal dung;" for example, Huanacuhuanu (excrement of the Huanacu). As the word is now generally used it is an abbreviation of Pishu Huanu—Bird-dung. The Spaniards have converted the final syllable nu into no, as they do in all the words adopted from the Quichua which have the like termination. The European orthography Guano, which is also followed in Spanish America, is quite erroneous, for the Quichua language is deficient in the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time— And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... phrase too often applied to any one who, with however good reason, has been appalled at the prospect of sudden death, and yet lived to escape it. Though, should he have perished in conformity with his fears, not a syllable of craven would you hear. This is the language of one, who more than once has beheld the scenes, whence these principles have been deduced. The subject invites much subtle speculation; for in every being's ideas of death, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... twenty throats at once one is beset by shrill interrogations; but, owing to the universal rapidity of utterance and the shrillness of enunciation, one is quite unable, in the present state of one's mind, to distinguish a single intelligible syllable. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... could be desired, that little or no assistance was necessary. The Earl and his lady occupied the upper end of the table, and Varney and Foster sat beneath the salt, as was the custom with inferiors. The latter, overawed perhaps by society to which he was altogether unused, did not utter a single syllable during the repast; while Varney, with great tact and discernment, sustained just so much of the conversation as, without the appearance of intrusion on his part, prevented it from languishing, and maintained ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... beauty was anyhow so spick and span, and possessed besides a few charms sufficient to touch the heart. From shame, her face was red and her ears purple, while she lowered her head and uttered not a syllable. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... after every syllable, at once jerk my tongue with tremendous power back to its normal position in singing; that is, with its tip below the front teeth and the base raised . That goes on constantly, as quick as a flash. At the same time my larynx takes such a position that the tongue cannot interfere with ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... hours, during which Wordsworth listened with profound attention, every now and then nodding his head. On quitting the lodging, I said to Wordsworth, 'Well, for my own part, I could not make head or tail of Coleridge's oration; pray, did you understand it?' 'Not one syllable of ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... letters to him, in which she had never mentioned a syllable concerning Knight. It is desirable, however, to observe that only in two letters could she possibly have done so. One was written about a week before Knight's arrival, when, though she did not mention his promised coming to Stephen, she had hardly a definite reason in her mind for ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... His imagination pictured every look she had given him since his return. Not all! Oh, Pierre Philibert! the looks you would have given worlds to catch, you were unconscious of! Every word she had spoken, the soft inflection of every syllable of her silvery voice lingered in his ear. He had caught meanings where perhaps no meaning was, and missed the key to others which he knew were there—never, perhaps, to be revealed to him. But although he questioned in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... years since I went to London," he writes in the Memoirs, "to make the acquaintance of the language and the people. The devil take the people and their language! They take a dozen words of one syllable into their mouth, chew them, gnaw them, spit them out again, and they call that talking. Fortunately they are by nature rather silent, and although they look at us with gaping mouths, yet they spare ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... discovered. And where should they find that perfect system, except in the awful and mysterious volume wherein was the revelation of God's will, and which, with a devotion that had impressed its every syllable on their minds, they had day and night been studying? Was there not contained therein a form of government which He had given to his favored people; and what did both reason and piety suggest but to accommodate ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... gaze continued to rest upon me, but a shadow like a faint anxiety darkened the Homeric brow, and an odd notion entered my mind (without any good reason) that Professor Keredec was wondering what I thought of the name. I uttered some commonplace syllable of no moment, and there ensued a pause during which the seeming shadow upon my visitor's forehead became a reality, deepening to a look of perplexity and trouble. Finally he said abruptly: "It is about him that I have come to talk ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just given) blushed up to the eyebrows, and seemed exceedingly abashed at the reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was my beautiful ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Building," Darrow smiled at her. "Well, here's a very good exposition in words of one syllable. I'll leave you the paper. Professor, what have you concluded ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... the next place, if you halloo too soon, ten to one the fox heads back into cover. When he is well away through the hedge of a good-sized field, halloo, at the same time raising your cap, "Tally-o aw-ay-o-o!" giving each syllable very slowly, and with your mouth well open; for this is the way to be heard a long distance. Do this once or twice, and then be quiet for a short spell, and be ready to tell the huntsman, when he comes up, in a few ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... there are not wanting evidences of a former monosyllabic tendency. The syllable bu, bun, or bung, for instance, occurs in a considerable number of words conveying an idea ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... minute into 60 seconds; the division of the week into seven days, and the very order of the days—all have come down to us from the Chaldeo-Assyrians; and these things will probably be perpetuated among our posterity "to the last syllable ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... to be a coasting junk, bound to Shanghai, as I managed to make out, but not another syllable could I understand of their lingo or they of ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... in the gloom and listened to this poet reciting Browning and he realized that everybody understood it but him. He could see Zena with her eyes fixed on the poet as if she were hanging on to every syllable (she was; she needed to), and he stood it just about fifteen minutes and then slid off the side of the verandah and disappeared ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... the Vedas had been lost (in consequence of the Munis having forgotten them), Angirasa's son, seated at ease on the upper garments of the Munis (duly spread out), pronounced distinctly and with emphasis the syllable Om. And at this, the ascetics again recollected all that they had learnt before. It was there that the Rishis and the gods Varuna, Agni, Prajapati, Narayana also called Hari, Mahadeva and the illustrious Grandsire of great ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her gaze from me, standing white-faced and rigid, as though unable to fully comprehend. I doubt if she heard, to distinguish, a syllable he spoke, her every thought ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... person with the authority of President Lincoln "ever forbore so patiently." The people of the loyal States had "forborne with the Disunionists of the Southern States too much and too long." There was not a line, not a syllable, not a promise, in the Constitution which the people of the loyal States did not religiously obey. "The South has no right to demand any other compromise. The Constitution was the bond of union; and it was the South that sought to change it by amendments, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... had not a syllable to say to such as came only to watch my words, and to criticize them. Even when I thought to try to speak to them, I felt that I could not, and that God would not have me do it. Some of them in return said, "The people ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... typewriter which she had bought, and began to copy from the letters, bending lower and lower over the crabbed writing and sighing deeply and impatiently as her fingers blundered at the keys. On odd nights, when there was no copying to be done, she tried to teach Robert his letters and words of one syllable, but they were both too tired, and he yawned and kicked the table and was cross and stupid with sleepiness. At nine o'clock he washed himself cautiously and crept into the little bed beside her big one ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... the first instance of Europeans using a term which was afterward to become as familiar as "wheat" or "barley." The natives told Columbus that their gold ornaments came from Cubakan, meaning the interior of Cuba; but he, on hearing the syllable kan, immediately thought of the "Khan" mentioned by Marco Polo, and therefore imagined that "Cathay" (the China of that famous traveler) was close at hand. The simple-minded Cubans were amazed that the Spaniards had such a love for gold, and pointed eastward to another island, ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... dismissed, and they are left alone, she says no more, and not a syllable of reproach or scorn escapes her: a few words in submissive reply to his questions, and an entreaty to seek repose, are all she permits herself to utter. There is a touch of pathos and of tenderness in this silence which has always affected me beyond expression: it is one of the most ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... seaman—he meant to have said "impudence," but stopped at the first syllable as being sufficiently appropriate—"yes, imp, I have lost my bearings, and I'll give you a copper if you'll help me ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... father," said eagerly the young Pisistratus, who had swallowed with ravished ears every syllable and figure of this inviting calculation, "why, we should be as rich as Squire Rollick; and then, you know, sir, you could keep ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... she proceeded, "is Carmina; (put the accent, if you please, on the first syllable). The moment Mrs. Gallilee heard the name, it struck her like a blow. She enlightened the old woman, and asserted herself as Miss Carmina's aunt in an instant. 'I am Mrs. Gallilee:' that was all she said. The result"—Miss Minerva paused, and pointed ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... says, "The author of the story" ("History") "ascribed to John Knox in his whole discourse showeth a bitter and hateful spite against the Regent, forging dishonest things which were never so much as suspected by any, setting down his own conjectures as certain truths, yea, the least syllable that did escape her in passion, he maketh it an argument of her cruel and inhuman disposition . . . " {279b} In the MS. used by Bishop Keith, {279c} Spottiswoode added, after praising the Regent, "these ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... wanton wiles," Reft of your favouring "nods and wreathed smiles," As some tame landscape desolately bare Is charmed by sunshine into seeming fair; So, gentle friends, if you your smiles bestow, That which is tame in us will not seem so. Our play is a charade. We split the word, Each syllable an act, the whole a third; My first we show you by a comic play, Old, but not less the welcome, I dare say. My second will be brought upon the stage From lisping childhood down to palsied age. Last, but not ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... a child learning words of one syllable, and staring at the black object before which ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... with a start almost frantic. "Oh never, then, was truth so scandalously wronged!—I denied the whole charge!-I disbelieved every syllable!—I pledged my own honour to prove every ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... had been uttered with great coarseness and vulgarity of manner, raised her eyes, and looked him in the face. There was something so odious, so insolent, so repulsive in the look which met her, that, without the power to stammer forth a syllable, she rose and hurried from the room. She restrained her tears by a great effort until she was alone upstairs, and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... as employed to mark the elision in the past tense of verbs, I have followed the example of the most accurate poets; who use it where the verb in the present tense does not end in e, as furl'd, because the ed would add a syllable and destroy the measure. But where the present tense ends in e, it is retained in the past with the d, as robed, because it ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... trick of verse which Emerson occasionally, not very often, indulges in. This is the crowding of a redundant syllable into a line. It is a liberty which is not to be abused by the poet. Shakespeare, the supreme artist, and Milton, the "mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies," knew how to use it effectively. Shelley ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... he who shuts The gates of all his senses, locks desire Safe in his heart, centres the vital airs Upon his parting thought, steadfastly set; And, murmuring OM, the sacred syllable— Emblem of BRAHM—dies, ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... out a voice of the kind that in his childhood he used to call "creamy" a full, true contralto; and this is the song that he heard, every syllable ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... appears in several variant forms (brytenwalda, bretenanwealda, &c.), and means most probably "lord of the Britons" or "lord of Britain"; for although the derivation of the word is uncertain, its earlier syllable seems to be cognate with the words Briton and Britannia. In the Chronicle the title is given to Ecgbert, king of the English, "the eighth king that was Bretwalda," and retrospectively to seven kings who ruled ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... only one step in the course of reasoning to extend the selection theory to the descent of man, was seen by many as soon as Darwin's work on the origin of species was published and began to attract {42} attention; although not a syllable upon this question was presented in this work. Various persons manifested their presentiment or perception according to their point of view—partly by the most violent opposition to the new doctrine, partly by ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... that any translation of such a poem is only a little better than none. I think I have caught the shadow of this splendid lyric; but there is yet no photography that transfers the splendor itself, the life, the light, the color; I can give you the meaning, but not the feeling, that pervades every syllable as the blood warms every fiber of a man, not the words that flashed upon the poet as he wrote, nor the yet more precious and inspired words that came afterward to his patient waiting and pondering, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... Louis XVI, and was applied to all the popular or topical songs sung on the streets of Paris. Then the aristocrats took up these songs and gave entertainments at their country seats. To these entertainments they gave the name of "vaux-de-ville," the last syllable being changed to honor Bassel's native town [1] And gradually the x was dropped and the word has remained through the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... Baltasar, and the rankling irritation left by his recent altercation with his kinsman, showed themselves. Followed by the gipsy, he rode to the front of the lancers, who were drawn up in line, and, without addressing a syllable to the Count, or appearing to notice his presence, gave, in a sharp abrupt tone, the necessary words of command. The men moved off to the left. The Count, highly sensitive on matters of etiquette, and indignant at being ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... ran cold in his veins. Yet he felt for the moment unable to utter a syllable, or even to make a gesture of protest. So entirely detached from him did the worthy couple appear to be, so completely wrapped up in their own evidently well-considered and carefully-laid plans, that he had a sense of being in another sphere, not theirs, of hearing ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... or dictated by God. Even as late as 1861, the famous Dean Burgon, in a sermon preached at Oxford University, declared, "The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme." ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... in a low tone and it struck Ivan that for some strange reason he was listening to a conversation spoken in tones that ordinarily could not be heard three feet away from the speakers. He listened intently. Every syllable was clear and distinct. Owing to some peculiar formation of the vaulted ceiling, the sounds were brought to him, forty feet from the speakers, as accurately as though spoken into a telephone. ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... lullabies that would have been suitable, the teacher selected the Indian Lullaby by Longfellow. During the periods set apart for music, the pupils had been taught the desired melody with the syllable "loo". ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... may be a personal name. The ordinary interpretation is so simple that it seems hardly worth while—unphilosophical, in fact—to search for another. Lynn, pronounced Lunn, is a lake. Dun is a down or hill. London, as the first syllable may be taken adjectively, will mean the Lake Hill. Where, then, is the hill ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... obviously, nor for a period that promised to be indefinitely long. Nor was the baby called Bartholomew, after his maternal grandfather in the East: for who cared to inflict such an old-fashioned, four-syllable name on such a small morsel of flesh? He entered the battle under the neutral and not over-colorful pennon of Albert: his mother could thus call him "Bertie," and think, not too remotely, of her parent on the ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... was not satisfied to relax his intimate investigations. Her Grace of Schallberg appeared an interested listener and had lost not a syllable of what had been said. The remaining Counselors were patiently expectant of translation as English was a closed door to them. Josef on the other hand would have gladly welcomed a divertisement though clearly afraid to inaugurate one. For ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... pleased with last night's mirth, and away by water to St. James's, and there, with Mr. Wren, did correct his copy of my letter, which the Duke of York hath signed in my very words, without alteration of a syllable. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... There is no hope to 'scape us: If that against the odds we have upon you You dare come forth, and fight, receive the honour To dye like Romans, if ye faint, resolve To starve like Wretches; I disdain to change Another syllable with you. [Exeunt. ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a declaration, that you acknowledge that all I have taken belonged to me, and that you give it to me of your own free will. I propose that this shall be your view of the matter. Each of you will have a pen given you, and without uttering a syllable, without making the slightest movement, without quitting your present attitude" (belly on ground, and face in the mud) "you will put out your arms, and you will all sign this paper. If any one of you moves or speaks, here is the muzzle of my pistol. ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... shall be rendered incapable of making any disclosures at all. With this view, quantities of a very sticky sweetmeat are prepared and presented as it were in sacrifice, on eating which the unwary god finds his lips tightly glued together, and himself unable to utter a single syllable. Beans are also offered as fodder for the horse on which he is supposed to ride. On the last day of the old year he returns and is regaled to his heart's content on brown sugar and vegetables. This is the time par excellence for cracker-firing, though, as everybody knows, these abominations ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... Thenceforth knew every trickling argument That fell from tongues of persuading circumstance, As lures of evil ever threatening life, That Jonathan loved above all enterprise. He knew, or the rarer man within him knew, That once your yea in holy meditation Had shaped itself in the perfect syllable, Thenceforth no nay from any other tongue Or wise or passionate or masterful, Could be listened to without the shame of sin Corrupting all your constancy for ever. He knew the curse of good betraying good, Till both in bleak ...
— Preludes 1921-1922 • John Drinkwater
... There is no goodlier land than our land; everything therein is better than elsewhere and its folk are a pleasant people and bright of face." Now as he bespake her thus and strave to comfort her, what while she answered him not a syllable, lo! there came a knocking at the palace-gate. So Hasan went out to see who was at the door and found there the six Princesses, who had returned from hunting and birding, whereat he rejoiced and went to meet them and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... in great men, or they think in simple, big, broadly drawn events, or words of one syllable, ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... for you, Mr. Soldier," said little Osterman, stepping boldly forward, "if there aren't any very big words in it. I've only got as far as three-syllable words in Russian yet, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... clerk, Irons, having heard something of it, had conceived the plan of swearing to the same story, for the manifest purpose of securing thereby the favour of the young Lord Dunoran, with whom he had been in conference upon this very subject without ever once having hinted a syllable against Mr. Paul Dangerfield until after Doctor Sturk's dream had been divulged; and the idea of fixing the guilt of Beauclerc's murder upon that gentleman of wealth, family, and station, occurred to his intriguing and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... for prejudice in Miss Crickey's favor. She was the only person to whom I could talk freely regarding the depth of my passion for Miss Tucker. Not even to the object of that tremendous feeling could I utter a syllable which seemed in any way adequate. With an overpowering consciousness how ridiculous it was, and not only so, but how far from original, I could give her papers of lemon Jackson-balls, hinting simultaneously that, though plump as her cheeks, they were not half so sweet; and through ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was properly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical discourse—that delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one in Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or a word, in what manner a sentence strikes, springs, rushes, flows, and comes to a close; he alone had a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience: for reasons are not lacking why proficiency in oratory should be especially seldom attained by a ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... for Jonson's satire in his "Staple of News." His accusation has a familiar sound when he says that people had a "hunger and thirst after published pamphlets of news, set out every Saturday, but made all at home, and no syllable of truth ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... pudgy steamboat lay at the down-stream side of the Foundry wharf. Her name was so long and her paddle-box so short, that the painter, beginning with ambitious large letters, had been compelled to abbreviate the last syllable. Her title read thus:— ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... thought of anything but a victory.' The dauphin," continues Montluc, "went on more and more smiling, and making signs to me, which gave me still greater boldness in speaking. All the rest spoke and said that the king must not place any reliance upon my words. Admiral d'Annebaut said not a syllable, but smiled; I suppose he had seen the signs the dauphin was making to me. M. de St. Pol turns to speak to the king, and says, 'How, sir! You seem disposed to change your opinion, and listen to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... do double duty, as K is also T, and L is also R. The most northern island of the group, Kauai, is as often pronounced as if it began with a T, and Kalo is usually Taro. It is a very musical language. Each syllable and word ends with a vowel, and there are none of our rasping and sibilant consonants. In their soft phraseology our hard rough surnames undergo a metamorphosis, as Fisk into Filikina, Wilson into Wilikina. Each vowel ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... paint Japanese pictures, Japanese landscapes, and Japanese faces, finding himself unable to draw according to the canons of Western art, if on developing poetic tastes he should find special pleasure in seventeen syllable or thirty-one syllable exclamatory poems, finding little interest in Longfellow or Shakespeare, if, in short, he should develop a predilection for any distinctive Japanese custom, habit of thought, method of speech, emotion or volition, it would evidently ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... by changing the forms of words. It is of various kinds. Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... of music (2 voices) (S.A. or T.B,) and the complete text conveniently arranged so that every syllable appears under the proper note. (550 pages. bound in blue cloth)—smaller size than the complete edition. Price ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... through the roar of the gale. The women started from their seats in evident consternation, swept away the remnants of the supper, and conveyed me into an adjoining closet; where they begged of me to keep close, not to speak a syllable, let what would happen, and, as I valued my life and theirs, not to mention thereafter whatever I might see or hear. It was now plain that I was in the house of smugglers; and as those were notoriously people not to be trifled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... discovered that all the sounds of the human voice were really decomposable into a very few and that all human speech, consisting as it does of combinations of these sounds, could be represented by combinations of simple phonograms each of which should represent neither an idea nor a syllable but one of the primary sounds. The phonograms were then greatly reduced in number, simplified in form, and became what we know ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... flies on the Nile. To look at him was to stand in the presence of a composite picture of Agamemnon, Charles XII. and John L. Sullivan; but to hear him shout—ah! that voice was the megaphone of Boanerges! It held tones that put a revolving spur on every syllable and gave a dentist-drill feeling as they ploughed their way through space. It was alleged that when he struck his plantation and shouted at the depot as he leaped from the train that he had arrived, all the ranch hands fell down and crossed themselves, thinking ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... irony were perceptible in his voice. His wife did not utter a syllable. She remained so quiet that it might have been thought she did not even hear him, but for the convulsive movement of her lips, and of the fingers ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... but obliged to live abroad) to join the Church of England for the sake of 'religious fellowship.' He tells me that there is in Dean Stanley's 'Christian Institutions' an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, containing hardly a syllable to which Renan could ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... written about nine years ago, to persuade the people of Ireland to wear their own manufactures.[119] This treatise was allowed to have not one syllable in it of party or disaffection; but was wholly founded upon the growing poverty of the nation, occasioned by the utter want of trade in every branch, except that ruinous importation of all foreign extravagancies from other countries. This treatise was presented, by the grand jury of the city ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... It was not a prayer, but a stern demand, which would submit to no refusal or delay. The sound of his voice, as he spoke these memorable words, was like that of a Spartan paean on the field of Plataea; and, as each syllable of the word 'liberty' echoed through the building, his fetters were shivered; his arms were hurled apart; and the links of his chains were scattered to the winds. When he spoke the word 'liberty' with an emphasis never given it before, his hands were open, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... Mr. Smith explains that "Ai" in Rutherford's spelling represents "E," a vocative, in the accepted method of spelling, and "my" represents "mai." The two words, combined, would be "E Mai." In this way, "Mai's" attention would be called. But "Mai" may be the first, second, or third syllable of a man's name, according to euphony. The name supplied in the narrative, therefore, is no guide in a ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... tradition is not that it forgets but that it proceeds snowball fashion, adding with every generation new edifying matter. The text of the Vedic hymns was preserved with such jealous care that every verse and syllable was counted. But in works of lesser sanctity interpolations and additions were made according to the reciters' taste. We cannot assign to the Mahabharata one date or author, and the title of Upanishad is no guarantee for ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... he, when I had finished, just as if the astrologer were present; "we were mistaken. This young provincial has eyes in his head after all. M. de Lalande, not a word, not a syllable of this to any one. Should you babble, the Bastille is not so full but that it can accommodate another tenant. Now, let us go through the story again. As you rightly observe, it is most interesting, quite like a romance. These men were in the house; ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... scarcely help fancying that we were attacking a mere unsubstantial phantom. It was only from the large size she appeared to be, that one could judge of her nearness to us. For some minutes we ran on without a syllable being uttered, except the necessary words of command for loading ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... high-pitched voice that she regarded as the hall-mark of good breeding, and, in that silent rush downhill, Medenham could not avoid hearing each syllable. It was eminently pleasing to listen to Cynthia's praise of his car, and he was wroth with the other woman for wrenching the girl's thoughts away so promptly from a topic dear to his heart. Therein he erred, for the gods were being ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... see, our spiritual on-rest is due to the fact that Humpy Joe's get-away left us broke, and we banked on you to pull us even. That first experience strained our credulity to the bustin' point, and—well, in words of one syllable, we come from Joplin." ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... Jersey last night and had a long conversation with her about her squabbles. She declares solemnly (and I believe it) that she never said a syllable to the Queen against her quondam friends, owns she abused Sefton to other people, cried, and talked, and the end was that I am to try to put an end to these tracasseries. She was mighty glorious about her sortie upon Lambton, whom she dislikes, but she is vexed at the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... utmost confidence. He dressed himself in some of his finest clothes that morning: and came splendidly down to breakfast, patronising his mother and little Laura, who had been strumming her music lesson for hours before; and who after he had read the prayers (of which he did not heed one single syllable) wondered at his grand appearance, and asked him to tell her what the play ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stop, the front door of our coach was thrown open, and a brakeman with a strong Hibernian accent called out in thunder tones what sounded exactly like "My-candy!" as here written,—and with the accent on the first syllable. There were several soldiers in the coach who were not of our party, also going home on furlough, and one of these, a big fellow with a heavy black beard, reared up and yelled back at the brakeman,—"Well, who the hell said it wasn't your candy?" ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... he shrugged. How did he know what these people could pack into one syllable? He picked up the hand-phone and said, "Fwoonk," into it. The pattern, a little deeper in color and with longer lines, was recognizably like hers, and unlike any of ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... long disjointed rhapsodies, wild speculations, hopes, and misgivings; his mood changing from solemn to gay, and round through gusty passion to morbid gloom. But never did he address his words to Nurse so much as to himself or to some imaginary interlocutor; and she for her part never answered him a syllable, but sat in silence through it all. Yet was she ever alert to listen, and sometimes the subdued trembling would come on and the obstruction of breath. But when the talker, in mid-excitement of speech, snatched his violin ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Pogrom, with the accent on the last syllable, signifies ruin, devastation, and was originally applied to the ravages of an ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... The radioman broke off in mid-syllable and listened for a moment. "I hear you, doctor, go ahead." Then, a moment later "What's ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... is a slaveholder still—the every hour violator of the just and inalienable rights of man; and he is, therefore, every hour silently whetting the knife of vengeance for his own throat. He never lisps a syllable in commendation of the fathers of this republic, nor denounces any attempted oppression of himself, without inviting the knife to his own throat, and asserting the rights of ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... through the medium of his mind. What he utters, with many an anxious peep at the crumpled manuscript, is nonsense of the most ludicrous. For every word he substitutes another of distantly the same sound, but different meaning, betraying how he has not understood a syllable. The melody, if so were he had mastered it, has completely dropped from his mind, and what he sings to the eccentric words is his own serenade, but perverted by the interference of the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... retired without a syllable of remonstrance, and the incident soon passed from the mind of the afflicted priest. But on the following day, at the same hour, the aged woman again stood ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... soul in all this wide world, as he hopes to be saved, utter so much as one solitary syllable? Oh! what would not the lady and the gentleman of the house give even for a remark on the weather from the mouth of poet, philosopher, sage, or hero! Hermetically sealed! Lo! the author of the very five-guinea quarto, that lay open, in complimentary exposure, at a plate, up ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... the moment he saw her, "is it thou? Welcome, descendant of a line of kings. Would'st like some cider?" He spoke the word "cider" like the Indians, with a rising inflection on the last syllable. It was an offer no Indian could resist, and the squaw answered simply in the affirmative. From a pitcher of the grateful beverage, which shortly before had been brought into the room, and which, indeed, suggested the offer, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... had attained the upright attitude, another peal of laughter came ringing from her lips, as wild as that with which she had announced her approach; but there was also in its tones a certain modulation that betokened scorn! Neither of us uttered a syllable; but, observing a profound silence, stood waiting to hear what she had to say. Another scornful laugh, and her words ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... and answered him in a cold, quiet voice, every syllable of which fell upon him like the ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... was ended, Bonaparte said to me, "Bourrienne, let us go and take a walk." It was the middle of May, so that the evenings were long. We went into the park: he was very grave, and we walked for several minutes without his uttering a syllable. Wishing to break silence in a way that would be agreeable to him, I alluded to the facility with which he had nullified the last 'Senatus-consulte'. He scarcely seemed to hear me, so completely was his mind absorbed in the subject ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... prosodial word "anapoest," merely because here I have no space to show what the reviewer will admit I have distinctly shown in the essay referred to—viz: that the additional syllable introduced, does not make the foot an anapoest, or the equivalent of an anapoest, and that, if it did, it would spoil the line. On this topic, and on all topics connected with verse, there is not a prosody in existence which is not a mere ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... Willis, then rent the air. Half an hour after, the two young men leaped on shore; they did not stay to shake hands with their father and brothers, but ran on to where their mother stood. It was a long time before they could utter a syllable; the greeting of the mother and her children was too affectionate to be ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... as in carpenter the middle sillable being used short in speache, when it shall be read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling that draweth one legge after hir. And heaven being used shorte as one syllable, when it is in verse stretched with a Diastole is like a lame dogge, that holdes up one legge.'{6} His ear was far too fine and sensitive to endure the fearful sounds uttered by the poets of this Procrust{ae}an ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... now made her visit. She looked at me without uttering a syllable; but while she contemplated my infant's features, her innocent sleeping face, her little dimpled hands folded on her breast, she murmured, "Poor little wretch! Poor thing! It would be a mercy if it pleased God to take it!" My agony of mind ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... courtyards, under the pretense that they were clean enough. The governor, Baisemeaux, received D'Artagnan with more than ordinary politeness, but he behaved towards him with so marked a reserve of manner, that all D'Artagnan's tact and cleverness could not get a syllable out of him. The more he kept himself within bounds, the more D'Artagnan's suspicion increased. The latter even fancied he remarked that the governor was acting under the influence of a recent recommendation. Baisemeaux had ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... would dare. You see, I am one of the older girls of the school, and have been a Speciality for some little time, and it wouldn't be at all to your advantage if you did anything to annoy me. I should find out at once, for instance, if you whispered a syllable of this to Martha West, Margaret Grant, or any other member of the ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade |
