"Unmelodious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the system. To a present-day reader the verse sounds crude, the more so because of the harshly consonantal character of the Anglo-Saxon language; and in comparison with modern poetry it is undoubtedly unmelodious. But it was worked out on conscious artistic principles, carefully followed; and when chanted, as it was meant to be, to the harp it possessed much power and even beauty of a vigorous sort, to which the ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... or had but just begun to turn and stretch itself; it was still plunged in heat and silence. So much the more vivid was the impression that we carried away of the house upon the islet, the Micronesian Saul wakeful amid his guards, and his unmelodious David, Mr. Williams, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crazy again," we said, when we heard that cry of hers, not unmelodious nor loud, ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... proportion to the interest it awakens among the local inhabitants, weak and ineffectual in its influence on the sentiments of the general world. The "Rans de Vaches," the most celebrated of all local airs, is tame and commonplace,—unmelodious, to all ears but those of the Swiss "forlorn ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... to one's self that also out of this unmelodious and joyless movement a peculiar dismal spirit breathes upon us, who keeps down with a strong hand that which would revolt, so that we obey, as if we were charmed, without murmuring, but also without praising, for that is no music. Thus ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... "They do not make us laugh so loud, but they make us smile more frequently." And he held the strongest opinion that music was always on virtue's side, for he says the only musical passions are the good ones, the bad and unsocial passions being, in his view, essentially unmelodious. But he thought scenery was much abused on the French operatic stage. "In the French operas not only thunder and lightning, storms and tempests, are commonly represented in the ridiculous manner above mentioned, but all the marvellous, all the supernatural of epic poetry, all the metamorphoses ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... extremity. The Pallas's fishing-eagles (Haliaetus leucoryphus) are likewise busy feeding their young. These fine birds are readily identified by the broad white band in the tail. Their loud resonant but unmelodious calls make it possible to recognise them when they are too far off for the white tail ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... skylark; but, loyal and patriotic an American as we are, honesty compels us to concede that our bird's voice is much feebler and less musical than that of his celebrated relative across the sea. It sounds like the unmelodious clicking of pebbles, while the song of the skylark is loud, clear, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... like him; his managers praise him and give him work as an acknowledgment of his ability to entertain. I have still a circumstance to relate which makes his singing the more marvelous and marks an "O.K." on my efforts to make a Chinese with a dull, unmelodious, unmusical voice succeed. Of course he never had the clear, ringing tone that is in the gift of the white race and he could not always get the vowel sounds to suit me and I attributed the fact to his being a Chinese, so I was obliged to be satisfied with the result obtained. He made ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... had but to take a pair of sculls from the rack and step into the boat, unmoor and away westward, with swiftly dipping oars, in the soft summer silence, broken now and then by sounds of singing—a tipsy, unmelodious strain, perhaps, were it heard too near, but musical in the distance—as the rise and fall of voices crept along ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... find them as gentle as lambs. Give them a 'heitige striozts,'[14] or All Saints Day, and you will secure your object. Such is Mr. Dintenklek." At this point Marton could not refrain from breaking out into an unmelodious "Gassenhauer"[15] the refrain of which ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... us say, rather, that concord of high, delicate, rare sounds—which melts us and enthralls us and liberates us, whatever the subject and whatever the manner or the method! Verse which is cramped and harsh and unmelodious may have its place in human history; it may have its place in human soothsaying and human interest; it has no place or lot in poetry. Individual phrases may have their magic; individual words may have their colour; individual ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... word might burn in living flame Upon the age's brow, and leave one name Engraven on the future! One desire Fills every nook and cranny of my heart; One hope—one sorrow—one beloved aim! She whose pure life was of my life a part, As light is of the day, could she inspire My unmelodious muse, or tune the lyre To diapasons worthy of the theme, How would her joy put on its robes of light, And nestle in my bosom once again, As when life, like an Oriental dream, Fanned by Arabian airs, glode down the stream To music whose remembrance ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... Solomon. She went marching up to her sister's room, announcing her approach with a more than ordinarily accurate rendering of "Oh, the men of merry, merry England!" so that a stranger might have fancied that he heard the very voice of Harry Trelyon, with all its unmelodious vigor, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... minutes (appr.). The plains were covered with flocks of small white cockatoos, (Cocatua sanguinea, GOULD.) which Mr. Gilbert had mentioned as having been found in Port Essington: their cry was rather plaintive, and less unmelodious than the scream of the large cockatoo; nor were they so shy and wary, particularly when approaching ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the rug. She burst into sudden laughter, loud but not unmelodious. "What rubbish we are talking! Seventeen to-morrow, and Addie is nearly twenty; and sometimes I think ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... 1658. Under the auspices of his successor, Daniel Papebroch, March appeared in 1668 and April in 1675, each in three volumes. So the great work crept on day by day and year by year, absorbing the whole lives of many devoted labourers, conspicuous among whom are the unmelodious names of Peter Bosch, John Stilting, Constantine Suyskhen, Urban Sticken, Cornelius Bye, James Bue, and Ignacius Hubens. In 1762, a hundred and four years after January, September was completed. It filled eight volumes, for the work accumulated like a snow-ball as it rolled, each ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... before I, the youngest of the three—christened by the unmelodious name of Griffith—found my way, in my turn, to the dreary old house, and the sheltering quiet of the Welsh hills. My career in life had led me away from my brothers; and even now, when we are all united, I have still ties and interests to connect me with ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... that uttered a pleasant note. All other sounds were such as the scream of the hawk and the gull, the quack of the duck, the yell of the wolf, the "Ooff! ooff!" of the walrus, or the bark of the seal—all harsh and unmelodious, save the tones of this sweet little singer. Nothing but starvation or scientific research could justify the slaughter of one of these innocents. I believe I shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger of my gun, and I know ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl, with bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tinkling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without interrupting his brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched away this unmelodious contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head, produced music of indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and striking the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the full red ray across the meadow. Alessandro sprang to his feet. In the next second Father Salvierderra flung up his south window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks streaming back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... their mode of dancing as well as I can:—They all get in a circle, while two sit down outside and play the tom-tom, a most unmelodious instrument, something like a tambourine, only not half so sweet; it is made in this way:—they take a hoop or the lid of a butter firkin, and cover one side with a very thin skin, while the other has strings fastened across from side to side, ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... "Delby who can play a banjo himself must have given Kosk one for a present, and, like a child, the king is amused by the latest novelty. So far he has scored one on us," he added, as once more they heard the unmelodious strains of the banjo slowly picked. "The king is evidently learning to play the instrument, and he'd rather have that than a phonograph, which only ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton |
