"Syllable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to try it. Pit him and his kind against our keen-witted, sharp, aggressive young business men—men with business heads, business experience"—Bonner's emphasis on the first syllable was reinforced by a bang of the fist on the arm of his chair—"and, and, by gad! they'd be skinned alive—skinned out of their ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... really understood," as Rafford Pyke well says, "to say what she likes, to utter her innermost thoughts in her own way, to cast aside the traditional conventions that gall her and repress her, to have someone near her with whom she can be quite frank, and yet to know that not a syllable of what she says will be misinterpreted or mistaken, but rather felt just as she feels it all—how wonderfully sweet is this to every woman, and how few men are there who can give ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... You must act as a class—on the alert to seize every advantage, to teach solidarity and stimulate class-consciousness! Jimmie would use these long words, which he had heard at meetings; but then, seeing that Lizzie did not understand them, he would go back and say it over again in words of one syllable. They had old man Granitch in a hole just now, and they must teach him a lesson, and at the same time teach the workers their power. Lizzie would sigh, and shake her head; for to her, old man Granitch was not a human being, but a natural phenomenon, like winter, or hunger. He, or some other ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... that goes on within. It contains three ladies—one likely to be "mamma," and two of seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her daughters. What lovely animation, what beautiful unpremeditated pantomime, explaining to us every syllable that passes, in these ingenuous girls! By the sudden start and raising of the hands on first discovering our laurelled equipage, by the sudden movement and appeal to the elder lady from both of them, and by the heightened colour on their animated countenances, we can almost ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... enterprize and go on, I wil grace the attempt for a worthy exploit: if you speede well in it, the Duke shall both speake of it, and extend to you what further becomes his greatnesse, euen to the vtmost syllable of your worthinesse ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... last night till half [an] hour past twelve. The majority of our side against the second reading of Burke's Bill,(153) and in fact, by a following question of rejecting it, was of 43, if I mistook not. I was not in the House to hear anybody speak a syllable, nor do I ever wish it. I believe there is no actor upon the stage of either theatre who, repeating what the author has wrote, does not, at the same time, recite his own private sentiments oftener, than ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... hung upon the movement of a limb or the utterance of a syllable, I could have neither stirred nor spoken. The beast, whatever it was, retained his position without attempting any immediate violence, while I lay in an utterly helpless, and, I fancied, a dying condition beneath him. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... drunk, much more drunk than Ledantec and I were, for we really could manage to say: "Oh! Pity the poor, poor old woman!" While she was incapable of articulating a single syllable, of making a gesture, or even of imparting a gleam of promise, a furtive flash of allurement to her eyes. With her hands crossed on her stomach, and resting against the front of the public-house, with her whole body as stiff as if she ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... eminent Irishmen now in the House of Commons—Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning—who will subscribe to the justness of every syllable we have said upon this subject, and who have it in their power, by making it the condition of their remaining in office, to liberate their native country, and raise it to its just rank among the nations ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... contemnes, as a novelty of this latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly; especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis betweene every syllable. ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... arrangement was over it; it was defaced by an intolerable propriety, ungraced by a scrap of uncertainty; its stages had been marked, numbered, and catalogued beforehand. Bederhof knew the wedding-day to within a fortnight, the settlement to within a shilling, the addresses of congratulation to a syllable. To this knowledge we were all privy. God save us, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... another. The interesting point was that this exercise of tact and tolerance seemed to proceed not from any pressure of expediency but from a sympathetic understanding of the point of view of this people of the border. I heard in Dannemarie not a syllable of lyrical patriotism or post-card sentimentality, but only a kindly and impartial estimate of facts as they were ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... syllable ticking from the clock of Time. 'Now' is the watchword of the wise. 'Now' is on the banner of the prudent. Whenever anything presents itself to us in the shape of work, whether mental or bodily, we should do it with all our might, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • 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 communication with an individual thus situated. I am her friend, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the last word is always a rising one. This is especially true on the last syllable of the last word, "tip." The counting out is not very different from that of white children. They all place two fingers of each hand in a circle; the one who repeats the doggerel, having one hand free, touches each finger in the circle saying, Hony, kee bee, l[a] [a]-weis, ag-les, huntip. ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes
... such a one take in being bound to get against breakfast, two or three hundred Rumblers out of HOMER, in commendation of ACHILLES's toes, or the Grecians' boots; or to have measured out to him, very early in the morning, fifteen or twenty well laid on lashes, for letting a syllable slip too soon, or hanging too long on it? Doubtless instant execution upon such grand miscarriages as these, will eternally engage him to a most ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... Desire. I am sorry the Grand Jury should conceive, as they said, that I publish'd this with a Design to debauch the Nation; without considering, in the first Place, that there is not a Sentence nor a Syllable, that can either offend the chastest Ear, or sully the Imagination of the most vicious; or, in the Second, that the Matter complain'd of, is manifestly address'd to Magistrates and Politicians, or at least the most serious and thinking Part of Mankind; whereas a general ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... lost not a syllable of the conversation, imperceptibly moved his hand to his breast, and grasped the pistol. The man and the girl, in the mean time, went to the door, and, in a minute or two, returned with a third party—an old man dressed like a gamekeeper, and carrying a short, stout fowling-piece ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... 'eavensenthinstinct." She got out the long word with a gasp or two; but it was a great success. She had not mixed up a single syllable. ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... wrong clothes, or none. My hands weighed two pounds each, and ought to have been at the butcher's. My mouth was the size of a negro minstrel's, and so full of large bones which once had been teeth that I could not utter a syllable. I clacked my jaws, and emitted a hacking cough which fortunately so much resembled that of a professional lecturer that I kept my senses. Not only did I keep them, but they seemed suddenly to become my servants. The thought of a certain ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... old Spanish ballad was extremely simple, consisting of eight-syllable lines, which are composed with great facility in other languages as well as the Castilian. Sometimes they were broken into stanzas of four lines each, thence called redondillas, or roundelays, but their prominent peculiarity is that of the asonante, an imperfect rhyme that echoes the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... garden with Ahasuerus and nine other attendants. The master of Nacumera did not speak a syllable while his retainers seized Callistion, gagged her, and tied her hands with cords. They silently removed her. One among them bore on his shoulders the slim corpse of Diophantus, which was interred the same afternoon (with every appropriate ceremony) in company with that of his father. ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... or nafal signifies to fall; from it is derived our word fall and fool (one who falls); the Chaldee word is nabal, to make foul, and the Arabic word nabala means to die, that is, to fall. From the last syllable of the Chaldee nasar, to saw, we can derive the Latin serra, the High German sagen, the Danish sauga, and our word to saw. The Arabic nafida, to fade, is the same as the Italian fado, the Latin fatuus (foolish, tasteless), the Dutch vadden, and our to fade. ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... thin end of the wedge—no more than that. If Estelle can win his confidence, then she may do great things; but she won't win it at one picnic. I know him too well. He's a mass of contradictions. Some days most communicative, other days not a syllable. Some days he seems to trust you with his secrets, other days he is suspicious if you ask him the simplest question. He's still a wild animal, who occasionally, for his own convenience, pretends to ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... his lip to keep down his anger. Why had he allowed her to do anything—why hadn't he written it all down in words of one syllable? ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... distended—making ineffectual efforts to speak—was the husband of Aunt Polly. When the lad recovered, all that he could tell of his mishap was, that on opening the street-door a man, wrapped in a large over-coat, with glassy eyes staring straight at him, opened and shut his mouth four times without uttering a syllable—when the candle fell from his hands, and he to the floor! Aunt Polly's spouse was the prince of stammerers! But if he could seldom begin a sentence, so Aunt Polly could seldom finish one: indeed the most noticeable point in her conversation was, that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... character upon his pupil, Benjamin Trumbull, the records of whose life give him a conspicuous place among the earnest preachers and careful historians of his day. The valuable influence of others of his early pupils will be felt in ever extending circles, down to "the last syllable of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... business in the state's metropolis, and from an humble one- horse start now operated two-score moving-vans and motor-trucks, and added substantially, each year, to his real-estate holdings. Mr. Denny let fall an Irish syllable from time to time, regularly took his little "nip o' spirits," and ate proverbially long and often. Year after year passed, with the hardy man a literal cheer-leader in the Denny household, till his ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... wrote, 'I will write no syllable of reproach. I have seen your order, and I go. What else is left me? I have wasted my love, and have no more. To say that I forgive you is not needful; at least, we are now separate for ever; by your own act, you free me from ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with such a load of contemptuous obloquy as to drive him forever from the high circles he had moved in. So great was his spleen, that, from that time forth, he would never suffer a dish upon his table or a syllable in his conversation that could in any way bring to mind the absurd ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... laughter by his words, Statius replied: "Each syllable of thine Is a dear pledge of love. Things oft appear That minister false matters to our doubts, When their true causes are remov'd from sight. Thy question doth assure me, thou believ'st I was on earth a covetous man, perhaps Because thou found'st me ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... (in words of one syllable) to the children of England embodying the virtues of penny saving and showing how these pennies could be made to work and earn more pennies, as shown in the concrete example of a War Savings Certificate, was read by thousands of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... this showed itself in the death of the lyric, as in the universal popularity of the rhetorical ode, in the loss of all delight in variety of poetic measure, and in the growing restriction of verse to the single form of the ten-syllable line. Prose too dropped everywhere its grandeur with its obscurity; and became the same quick, clear instrument of thought in the hands of Addison as ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... of youth Starts into power, and leads th' unconscious heart A chase where reason takes but little part; Nothing was more in nature, or more pure, And from their habits nothing was more sure. Whether the lady blush'd from pride or joy, I could but guess;—at length she said—"My boy Dropp'd not a syllable of this to me! What was I doing, that I could not see? Through all the anxious hours that I have known, His welfare still was dearer than my own; How have I mourn'd o'er his unhappy fate! Blind as he is! the heir to my ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... through the always fluttering leaves,) with some such phrase as, "No, indeed, not in the least, I assure you!" or "Not at all, really—don't mention it!" or even, "No, indeed," with a shy bow or a composed one, as the case might be. But this woman uttered merely the syllable, "No," with no modification nor variation, no inclination of the head, no movement forward or back. Her utterance was grave, moreover, and precise; her tone noticeably full and deep. Roger, pausing a moment in the shelter of the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... 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
... cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as I could. I found it a better method to prearrange a few points in my mind, and trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of Providence, for enabling ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Charming game! where the cure of all tedium lies; When we toss up the ball on the point of a stick Palamedus himself might have envied the trick; O Muse of the Loves and the Laughs and the Games, Come down and assist me, for, true to your aims, I have ruled off this paper in syllable squares. Come, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... for the authority on which this legend reposes, certainly Balcarres does not tell the tale in his own report, or memoirs, for James II. (Bannatyne Club, 1841). The doctor then grumbles that he does not know 'a syllable of the state of Lord Balcarres's health at the time'. The friend of Bayle and of Marlborough, an honourable politician, a man at once loyal and plain-spoken in dealings with his master, Lord Balcarres's word would go for much, if he gave ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... was far from being purely English. Delaware had been first settled by Swedes, New York by Dutchmen; and the latter colony had drawn its settlers from almost every part of western and central Europe. A man might travel from Penobscot bay to the Harlem river without hearing a syllable in any other tongue than English; but in crossing Manhattan island he could listen, if he chose, to more than a dozen languages. There was almost as much diversity in opinions about religious and political matters as there was in the languages in which they were expressed. ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... lines, the omission of the former "which," would remove all objection; and there are others where a final syllable appears clearly ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... song to "Saw ye my father?" and in English, as you will see. That there is a syllable too much for the expression of the air, is true; but, allow me to say, that the mere dividing of a dotted crotchet into a crotchet and a quaver, is not a great matter: however, in that I have no pretensions to cope in judgment with ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... confiding faith, but that could have little meaning to the reporting parties for many hundreds of years. Briefly, a great mysterious word is spelt as it were by the whole sum of the scriptural books—every separate book forming a letter or syllable in that secret and that unfinished word, as it was for so many ages. This cooperation of ages, not able to communicate or concert arrangements with each other, is neither more nor less an argument of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... of significance. The first, for aesthetic reasons, throws into relief certain tones of a musical phrase; the second brings into prominence the sentiment underlying the poem or text. Note, also, that in spoken declamation, accent applies to a syllable only; in singing, the verbal accent affects ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... Antietam, the greatest battle of the war thus far, where for four bloody hours we held our section of the brigade line as stanch as a rock. Here we earned our footing. Henceforth we belonged to them. There was never another syllable of guying, but in its place the fullest meed of such praise and comradeship as is born only of ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... be more strongly penned than the letters, both public and private, which I have received. If I had destroyed thirty sail of line-of-battle ships, they could not have been in a higher strain of praise and admiration. But is it not surprising they should cease there? Not a syllable is said of the first lieutenant, or anything intended for myself. Your letter seemed to make certain of it, and you fully expect that a peerage will be conferred on me at the meeting of Parliament, with the grant ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... Mr. John Morley in 1886. A word in it here or there is inapplicable to the details of the present Bill; but in principle every syllable cited by me from his Newcastle address forms part of the Unionist argument against summoning as much as a single Irish member to Westminster. His language is admirable, it cannot be improved. All that any one who ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... interruption are divided into— 1. Explosives.—At one of the situations mentioned the resonator is suddenly opened or closed during the expulsion of air—(a) without the aid of voice, p, t, k; (b) with the aid of voice, b, d, g. When one of these consonants begins a syllable, opening of the resonator is necessary, e.g. pa; when it ends a syllable, closure is necessary, e.g. ap. No sharp distinction is possible between p and b, t and d, and k and ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... afraid of the strikes, afraid of what the papers will say, of what the neighbors will say, of what the cook will say; and most of all, and worst of all, afraid to be different from the general pattern, afraid to take a step or speak a syllable that shall cause them to be thought unlike the monotonous millions of their fellow-citizens; the land of the free living in ceaseless fear! Well, I was already afraid of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael. As we walked and she talked, I made one or two attempts ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... have done if Lady Barbara had torn her with wild horses must remain uncertain. It is quite certain that the mere fixing of those great dark eyes was sufficient to cut off Pa—at its first syllable, and turn it into a faltering "my uncle;" and that, though Kate's heart was very sore and angry, she never, except once or twice when the word slipped out by chance, incurred the penalty, though she ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that might have been, natural, and must have been powerful, neither of the friends, in their frequent and confidential dialogues, had ever trusted herself to utter one syllable concerning the equivocal situation in which the young man who was now so intimately associated with them had been found. If judge Temple had deemed it prudent to make any inquiries on the subject, he had also thought it proper to keep the answers to him self; though it was so ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... resolute manhood against the shame and peril of the lynch demon. These people whose fiendish glee taunts their victim as his flesh crackles in the flames do not represent the South. I have not a syllable of apology for the sickening crime they meant to avenge. But it is high time we were learning that lawlessness is no remedy for crime. For one, I dare to believe that the people of my section are able to cope with crime, however treacherous ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... explosions, and, what is not more wonderful than well proven, invented a miner's safety-lamp, on the same principle as Sir Humphrey Davy's, and tested it at the risk of his life, a month or two before Sir Humphrey invented his, or published a syllable about it to the world! He engineered the Stockton and Darlington Railway. He was thereupon appointed engineer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Though the means of transportation between those cities, some thirty miles, were so inadequate that it took longer to get cotton conveyed from Liverpool ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... No syllable is left to tell us what Amasiah did to win this praise. Probably the words enshrine some now forgotten memory of his cheerful courage, some heroic feat on an unrecorded battlefield. Particulars are not given nor needed. Specific actions ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the shortened form of Rowland, or Roland. Cobb is an Anglo-Saxon name, as in the local Cobham, but it is also from the first syllable of Cobbold (for either Cuthbeald or Godbeald) and the second of Jacob. From Jacob come the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... am getting old,' he said, 'and getting stupid—but would you mind explaining to me what you want in words of one syllable?' ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... often sought but never found. Antibilious pills—whatever they may mean—Seidlitz powders, effervescing waters, and all that pharmacopoeia of aids to further indigestion, in which the afflicted who nurse their own diseases so liberally and innocently indulge, are tried in vain. I do not strain a syllable when I state that the worst forms of confirmed indigestion originate in the practice that is here explained. By this practice all the functions are vitiated, the skin at one moment is flushed and perspiring, and at the next moment it is pale, cold and clammy, while every other ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... Mary scorned to say anything, or to utter a syllable that she thought a daughter of Scotland needed a warning against a petty English sailor. Indeed, she had confidence that the youth's parents would view the attachment as quite as undesirable for him as for the young princess, and would guard against it for his sake ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may be," said his captor, "you are too open-minded a man to expect me to believe a syllable of what you say, merely ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Count Theodore: his spirit and prudence both seemed to forsake him. When the wolves began to scratch, he threw himself almost on his face in the corner, and kept moaning and praying in Russian, of which none of us understood a syllable but old Wenzel. Emerich and I would have spoken to him, but the woodman stopped us with a strange sign. Count Theodore had taken the relic of some saint from a pocket-book which he carried in his breast, and was, in Russian fashion as I think, confessing his sins over it; while his ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... to be admitted, let us consider whether it gives any support to the Calvinistic creed of election. It teaches that all those whom God elects shall be ultimately saved; but not one word or one syllable does it say with respect to the principle or ground of his election. It tells us that God, in his infinite wisdom, selects one portion of mankind as the objects of his saving mercy,—the heirs of eternal glory; but ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... the village far behind us. I was already quite tired out, and yet I did not utter a syllable to suggest our returning. I would rather have gone to the end of the ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... human desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which the infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... say that it had been already paid. Sosibius complained to the king, and the book of receipts was sent for, in which Philadelphus found the names of Soter, Sosigines, Bion, and Apollonius, and showing to the critic one syllable of his name in each of those words, said that putting them together, they must be taken as the receipt for his salary. Other authors wrote on lighter matters. Apollodorus Gelous, the physician, addressed to Philadelphus a volume of advice as to which ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... everybody vaguely felt that an inestimable boon lay in the suggestion, and even the master professionally intrusting the reading aloud of the editorial to Rupert Filgee with ulterior designs of practice in the pronunciation of five-syllable words, was somewhat affected by it. Johnny Filgee and Jimmy Snyder accepting it as a mysterious something that made Desert Islands accessible at a moment's notice and a trifling outlay, were round-eyed and attentive. ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... "Hum-m-m!" He spoke directly to Stephen O'Mara, who half turned his head at the first heavily facetious syllable. "So you did get my message, eh? I rather thought that it wouldn't reach you, up-river, until to-day." An ample smile embraced the tall figure in riverman's garb and his own daughter's crimson countenance—a most meaningful smile of roguery. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... from the general catastrophe. Certain it is that one morning, when the weather was bright and calm, they had embarked alone in the little boat, and been absent for seven or eight hours. Not even to Corporal Pim did they communicate the object of their excursion, nor say one syllable as to its result, and it could only be inferred from their manner that they were quite satisfied with what they had seen; and very shortly afterwards Major Oliphant was observed to draw up a lengthy document, which was no sooner finished ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... my boy; you're not right yet. Wet your lips with this water; it's cool and clear as crystal. I got it from a spring close at hand. There now, don't say a word, hold your tongue," he said, seeing me about to speak. "I'll tell you all about it, but you must not utter a syllable till ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... after they came to us, I find this passage: "I have only four girls who can read English and understand it. My two little Dyaks, Limo and Ambat, are very fond of learning English hymns, and say them in such a plaintive, touching voice, pronouncing each syllable so clearly, but they don't understand it until it has been explained to them in Malay. Limo's brother and uncle came this week from Sarebas—two fine, tall men, with only chawats[2] and earrings by way of clothes. Limo ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... with Louis Botha, or almost any other of our generals, De Wet presented but a sorry sight. His manners are uncouth, and his dress careless to a degree. His tactlessness, abrupt speech, and his habit of thrusting his tongue against his palate at every syllable, do not lessen his undeniable unattractiveness. But De Wet, if he lacks culture, certainly has an abundance of shrewdness, and is not without some dignity at times. And I must confess that it is chiefly ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... you are as virtuous as fair, Resolve your angry father, if my tongue Did e'er solicit, or my hand subscribe To any syllable that made love ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... against the young king, but against the persons surrounding him who had illegally usurped his name and the real functions of royalty. If persecution for religion's sake had long raged, the victims had never uttered a syllable smacking of disloyalty, and continued to hope, not without some apparent reason, that the truth might yet reach the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... syllable expresses Silence; there each thought a guess is; In whose rhetoric's cosmic runes Roll the worlds ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... a favourite expression with the old gentleman, which he pronounced in a peculiar manner, gasping it out syllable by syllable, and laying a strong emphasis upon the last. It was, indeed, a sort of protecting clause, by which he guarded himself against all inconveniences attendant on the rash habit of offering service or civility of any kind, the which, when hastily snapped at by those to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... ink-written music. I don't read music, but I know the dash and swing of the pen that rained it on the page. Here is a letter, with the selfsame impulse and abandon in every syllable; and its melody—however sweet the other —is far more sweet to me. And here are other letters like it—three—five—and seven, at least. Bob wrote them from the front, and Billy kept them for me when I went to join him. Dear ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... speak if I would, for I fancied Grace was about to make some communications concerning Rupert. Notwithstanding the strong affection that existed between my sister and myself, not a syllable had ever been uttered by either, that bore directly on our respective relations with Rupert and Lucy Hardinge. I had long been certain that Rupert, who was never backward in professions, had years before spoken explicitly ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... to remain where it was without making use of it. On all occasions his manners were rude and unsocial; and his words, in number, just sufficient to express his meaning as briefly as possible, and he shunned all communication that went a syllable beyond the matter in hand. When winter had passed away, and his garden began to afford him herbs and vegetables, he confined himself almost entirely to those articles of food. He accepted, notwithstanding, a pair of she-goats from Earnscliff, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... her piano playing from her first stumbling attempt at scales to the last simple waltz she had just learned. He attended many readings, beginning with words of one syllable, on up to such books as "The Leatherstocking Tales." He came in one day, however, as they were finishing a chapter in one of the Judge's favorite novels, and no sooner had Georgina skipped out of the room on an errand than ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... English shorthand. A consonant followed by a short vowel is called a "moved letter" (Muharrakah); a consonant without such vowel is called "resting" or "quiescent" (Sakinah), and can stand only at the end of a syllable or word. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... repeat one single word an interminable number of times, while it was remarked with shame by the Ministers of Religion that the morals of their literary friends permitted them only to use words of one syllable, and those of the shortest kind. And this they said was the only true ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... talents. His subjects were those of rustic life, and his pictures contain animals wonderfully well painted, but his pigs surpass all. His character was pitiful; he was simply, at his best, a mere machine to make pictures. As for goodness, truth, or nobleness of any sort, there is not a syllable recorded in his favor. Strange to say, the pictures of his best time are masterpieces in their way, and have been sold ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... half the players go outside the door, whilst those who stay in the room choose a word of one syllable, which should not be too difficult. For instance, suppose the word chosen be "Flat," those who are out of the room are informed that a word has been thought of that rhymes with "Cat," and they then have to act, without ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... until such time as a child should be born to me, and I shall be immediately delivered from the curse whenever this infant is baptized. But take care that you do not speak a word until the baptismal bells cease to sound, for if you utter a syllable, even to your mother, I shall disappear on the instant and you will never see ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... of the shower was over, a guessing contest was played, each answer being a word in which the syllable "cat" figured. This very jolly afternoon ended with a ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... the first syllable; as it is almost invariably in Shakespeare, except in Timon of Athens, where the modern accent prevails. Milton uses either accent, as suits the measure. We find both in P. L. viii. 358: "Above mankind, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... resolution on this point, Rotha rose up from the bed, and, brushing her tangled hair from her forehead, walked back into the kitchen. Standing where she had stood while the constables were there, she enacted every incident and heard every syllable afresh. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... the sound "ah" one must always attack it in the back part of the throat, taking care, however, before uttering the syllable, to have the throat well open; otherwise what is called "stroke of the glottis" occurs and the tone formed is hard and disagreeable. If you ever hear this stroke of glottis on the attack, you may know that the singer did not attack far enough back ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... is, however, reproduced once at least in each tale except in that of the "Death of the Sons of Usnach." The eight-lined metre that occurs in five of the verse passages in the "Combat at the Ford" has in one case been reproduced exactly, and in another case nearly exactly, but with one syllable added to each line; the two passages in this romance that are in five-syllabled lines have been reproduced exactly in the Irish metre, in one case with the rhyme-system of the original. With the rhetoric greater liberty has been ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... receive an enduring prosperity in reward of his virtue. Heaven knows what form he expected this to take; but when he found himself in the store, he lost all courage; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a syllable of the fine phrases he had made to himself. He laid the cap on the counter without a word; the storekeeper came up and took it in his hand. "What's this?" he said. "Why, this is ours," and he tossed the cap into a loose pile of hats by the showcase, and the boy slunk out, cut ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... woman at all, but to the child only, did the officer then speak. He spoke low, but so clearly that I could catch every syllable:— ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... themselves. Then they would obtain another morsel and apparently approach very near the nest, when their caution or prudence would come to their aid, and they would swallow the food and hasten away. I thought the young birds would cry out, but not a syllable from them. Yet this was, no doubt, what kept the parent birds away from the nest. The clamor the young would have set up on the approach of the old with food would ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... cutting him with ropes, when completely needless, and when he was quite at his mercy. It is my opinion that the other man does not deserve one bit of it; and whatever the law may be, papa, your duty is to strain it benevolently, and question every syllable upon ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... carriage-house, or in the barn that was not a scene of my crying and praying. It was piteous that I should be in such a state of mind, and that there should be nobody to help me and lead me out into the light. I do not recollect that to that day one word had been said to me, or one syllable had been uttered in the pulpit, that lead me to think there was any mercy in the heart of God for a sinner like me. For a sinner that had repented it was thought there was pardon; but how to repent was the very thing I did not know. A converted sinner might be saved, but for ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... and the letter had contained his father's last solemn blessing, of which not a single word remained whole; not even if one of those bits of floating paper that whirled and floated down the precipice had preserved a syllable of the message, was it in the power of human skill or strength to save it from reaching the bottom of the abyss and being swept away to the distant river ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... thieves and gipseys, called pedlars's French, St. Giles's Greek, and the Flash tongue: also the mystic language of Geber, used by chemists. Gibberish likewise means a sort of disguised language, formed by inserting any consonant between each syllable of an English word; in which case it is called the gibberish of the letter inserted; if f, it is the f gibberish; if g, the g gibberish; as in the sentence, How do you ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... practical and speculative investigations, grasped, if I may so express myself, firmly and inexcusably, in the hands of physiognomical empiricism." The Cambrian visitors listened with profound attention, not comprehending a single syllable he said, but concluding he would finish his speech by proposing the health of Squire Headlong. The gentlemen accordingly tossed off their heeltaps, and Mr Cranium proceeded: "Ardently desirous, to the extent of my feeble capacity, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... 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 ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... positions always at hand; my memory for an Alexandrine is not good, but I never forget a syllable of my reports on positions. I shall find them in my room this evening, and I shall not go to bed until I have ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... your pardon," said (with a prolonged emphasis on the first syllable) Mr. Butler, the deputy-schoolmaster of a parish near Edinburgh, who at that moment came up behind them as the false ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hesitates about the street and number and says that they can be found in the telephone directory, Dr. Conwell's deep voice breaks quietly in with, "Such a number [giving it], Dauphin Street"—quietly, and in a low tone, yet every one in the church hears distinctly every syllable of that ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... yet would weep and wake, He sings so wild and well! But when the day-blush bursts from high[hh] Expires that magic melody. And some have been who could believe,[hi] (So fondly youthful dreams deceive, 1190 Yet harsh be they that blame,) That note so piercing and profound Will shape and syllable[191] its sound Into Zuleika's name. 'Tis from her cypress summit heard, That melts in air the liquid word: 'Tis from her lowly virgin earth That white rose takes its tender birth. There late was laid a marble stone; Eve saw it placed—the Morrow ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... possibly pretend that there is not something inimitably unforced and diverting in his Manner of delivering all his Sentiments in Conversation, if he were able to conceal the strong Desire of Applause which he betrays in every Syllable he utters. But they who converse with him, see that all the Civilities they could do to him, or the kind Things they could say to him, would fall short of what he expects; and therefore instead of shewing him the Esteem they have for his Merit, their ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... line 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 $1.00 net. ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... physician and caster of nativities, who had prophesied to himself a long life, and a death in the bosom of his family. Cloridan cautiously put the sword's point in his throat, and there was an end of his dreams. Four other sleepers were despatched in like manner, without time given them to utter a syllable. After them went another, who had entrenched himself between two horses; then the luckless Grill, who had made himself a pillow of a barrel which he had emptied. He was dreaming of opening a second barrel, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... returned from church, to which the children love to go; it is the great excitement of the week. They sit very quietly, except Topsy, but how much they understand I cannot say. The people sing with deliberation, each syllable being made to do duty for three, to prolong the enjoyment—or the agony—according as your musical talent decides. Frequently there is no one to play the instrument, and the hymns are started several times, until something resembling ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... and prevent her doing a more foolish thing, even if it were to be ultimately broken off by unforeseen circumstances. Caroline was as much absorbed by her own thoughts as I was during the ride, and not a syllable was exchanged between us till we were roused by the rattling over ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat |
