"Staccato" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ya on the first tone, because when sung freely it helps to place the tone well forward. Ya is pronounced as the German Ja. We use ha on all other tones of this study for the reason that it is the natural staccato of the voice. Think it and sing it "in glossic" or phonetically, thus: hA, very little h but full, inflated, expanded A. A full explanation for the use of Ya and ha may be found in "Position and Action in Singing," page 117. All the studies given in this little work for the ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed through, afraid to ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... into the valley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, with half-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath: "It's Beethoven—just the blessedness of Beethoven! The valley is a legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, staccato; and the mountains ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... manufactured worth-while screen dramas, when any subject longer than a reel had to be of rare excellence, such as the art films imported from France for the Licensed program. In those days, Stella rose rapidly to prominence. Her large wistful eyes had set the hearts of many of us to beating at staccato rate. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... of strong shapes—masculine trades, sights and sounds; Long varied train of an emblem, dabs of music; Fingers of the organist skipping staccato over the keys of ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... Staccato! Staccato! Leggier agitato! In and out does the melody twist— Unique proposition Is this composition. (Alas! for the player who hasn't the wrist!) Now in the dominant Theme ringing prominent, ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... platform of the Nadia and kick lustily at the locked door. The door was opened immediately by some one within, and the fugitive plunged to cover—but not before the Mexican's revolver had barked five times with the rapid staccato of a machine gun. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... A little staccato cry of pain; a cry which seemed to spring into life from a tortured heart, broke from her lips. Aynesworth heard it, and, at that moment, he hated his employer. Wingrave paused for a ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Steele leaned back, half closed his eyes; again pain, fatigue seemed creeping over him. Outside sounded the clicking and clinking of glasses, a staccato of guffaws, tones vivace. "The harm's been done so far as you are concerned; you, as a factor, ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... instrumentated, full of happy melodies, and where the principal part contained features of a character as ingenious as piquant. He possesses an extreme dexterity in the use of the bow, and makes the staccato with as much audacity as perfection. He has the tone agreeable, the style elegant, and the expression just, and not affected. Here he is, then, placed in the first rank in that glorious phalanx of violinists which Europe ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... fluctuating sentiment gains power with steady swiftness. The judges sit and retain all their old confidence; the magistrates sentence daily their batches of submissive culprits; the policeman rules supreme over the streets—he scares the flower-girl, and warns the pensive burglar with the staccato thunder of his monarchical foot. All seems very firm and orderly; and our largest crowds maintain their attitude of harmless good-humour when no inflammatory talkers are there. But the hand has written, and true discipline cannot survive very much longer unless ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... contest as to which could drown the other's instrument, and the snapping time grew faster, until the dancers gasped, and men with long boots encouraged them with cries and stamped a staccato accompaniment upon the benches or on the floor. It was savage, rasping music, but one player infused into it the ebullient verve of France, and the other was from the misty land where the fiddler learns the witchery of the clanging reel and the swing of the Strathspey. It ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition. The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... to stare at the dark cellar doorway, when we heard it yet again—a wild staccato ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... upright while Blake vaulted to the forward saddle and began to work the pedals to start the motor. The cylinders were still hot from the recent run, and at the first revolution the staccato explosions began. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... chinks certain metallic substances—which may be coins or keys—nervously and intermittently. Surveyor, a burly mass of broadcloth and big watch-chain, carries an intimidating note-book, and a menacing pencil, making mems. in a staccato and stabbing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... misty meditation, at the second changin'-station, Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato, Played on either pony's saddle ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... straightened up that the distant speck on the water was fast assuming the proportions of a motor-launch. He noticed too that the approaching craft was coming at a high rate of speed and was swerving shoreward. Tugging harder at the nets, he worked doggedly on, listening to the staccato bark of the speed-craft as Mascola drew close. They were hauling at the last string when he came ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... bench land through a pair of field glasses, saw a herd of cows and calves scattered and feeding contentedly upon the young grass a mile or so away. Two men on horseback loitered upon the outer fringe of the herd. From a distance hilltop came the staccato sound of hammers where an other shack was going up. Cloud shadows slid silently over the land, with bright sunlight chasing after. Of the other horsemen who had come up the bluff with the cattle, he saw not a sign. So the man yawned and went in to ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... spirits rose, and she began to talk in her high staccato voice, allowing each person who passed to ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... instant Purvy's voice rose out of its weakness to its old staccato tone of command, a tone which brought obedience. "If I get well, I have other plans. Never mind what they are. That's my business. If I don't die, leave him alone, until I give other orders." He lay back and fought for breath. The nurse came over with gentle insistence, ordering quiet, but the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... medium; by the use—when the voice is employed—of conventional verbal symbols instead of the elements of significant speech; and—where actual verse has been spoken—by a treatment of the words in formal staccato scansion, or by the beating of time throughout the utterance. The last of these methods is a halting between two courses which casts doubt on the results as characteristic of either type of activity. There is no question that the rhythmic ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... voluminousness of her; bubbling over with froth of nonsense which flew through the house, driven by her energy, like sea-foam on a spring gale; and the day, so discordantly begun for Miss Betty, grew musical with her own laughter, answering the husky staccato of the vivacious newcomer. Nelson waited upon them at table, radiant, his smile like the keyboard of an ebony piano, and his disappearances into the kitchen were accomplished by means of a surreptitious ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... of vibratory media the noises of the reef are isolated. furtive, echoless—staccato accidentals and dull dissonances out of tune with the soothing theme of the sea. Hence, when, as I wandered absorbed in an inspection of minor details, and a mellow whistle, constant but varying in volume, broke in upon my musings, it was vain to repress the thrill of excitement. A sound so foreign ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... gives the modern player incalculable advantages over those of an earlier age, enabling him to follow out the slightest gradations of tone from the fullest forte to the softest piano, to mark all kinds of strong and gentle accents, to execute staccato, legato, saltato, and arpeggio passages with the greatest ease and certainty. The French school of violin-playing did not at first avail itself of these advantages, and even Viotti and Spohr did not fully grasp ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... her head, and parting her lips gave voice to a long- drawn note of ecstasy, ending in a little staccato trill and the same upflinging ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully separated fingers; it was a staccato movement, and her body followed it after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, eyes inquiring, and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who was there. You would have been aware at once that she was an actress. ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... true. Charlotte could not wait. She began to wave—no short, staccato, pump-handle wave, but a sweep indicative of breadth, like the horizon line. Raven, while they were jingling up to the house, took one more look at it, recognizing, with a surprise that was almost poignant, how much it meant to him. He might not be glad to get back to it—in his present ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... staccato precision. There was no tremor of doubt in his tones. And there was no slightest hesitation in obeying the orders from the man who was again "boss." Ben shouted out his own commands to two men who stood close to him, and they ran for the horses. The Lark ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... imparting, in queer staccato sentences. "Shouldn't have much difficulty, though; responsibility lies between two men. Here all last night. Nobody else. Callahan and O'Brien holdin' 'em. One 's Page's private secretary; fellow named Burke—Alexander Stilwell Burke. Peach ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... is the most facile of all orchestral wind instruments; and the device of double tonguing, the quick repetition of notes by taking a staccato T-stop in blowing, is well known. The flute generally goes with the violins in the orchestra, or sustains long notes with the other wood wind instruments, or is used in those conversational passages with other instruments that lend such a charm to orchestral ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... the deep-toned whistle poured forth its warning on the night, and before the long blast had died away, up from the depths of the dense fog bank ahead arose an echo, accentuated with sharp, staccato shrieks. Then came a sudden, startling cry at the bow; then deep down in the bowels of the ship the clang of the engine gong; then, shouts, and rushings to and fro at the hidden forecastle; and Loring started to his feet only to be hurled headlong to the deck, for, with fearful shock, some mammoth ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... pipe organ which filled the space behind the staircase, and played a little, but she had never been very proficient, and her own awkwardness annoyed her. In the dining room she could hear the men talking, Howard quietly, his father in short staccato barks. She left the organ and wandered into her mother's morning room, behind the drawing room, where Grace sat with the ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... accelerated movement of "Hail to thee, blithe spirit!" so full of a quick joyousness. Or compare the light legato movement of "Bird of the wilderness, blithesome and cumberless," with the heavy staccato movement of "Waste endless and ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... cried Robin in delighted staccato. "It's just made for what we want. Look—a fireplace!" To be sure, it was nothing more than a gap in the wall. "And these darling windows. We can put a seat way across, all comfy." She promptly saw, in her mind, Susy curled upon it with ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... and "My Gawd!" reached my ears frequently. But they were less representative than were short, sharp bursts of laughter, harsh and staccato, like a dog's bark, and, it may be, half-hysterical. And, piercing these snaps of laughter, one heard the curious, contradictory yapping of such sentences as: "I sye; 'ow about them 'ot sossiges?" "'Taint true, Bill, is it?" "Disgraceful business; perfectly disgraceful!" "Wot price the ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... said, or the precise wording of it, Caleb could never remember. But the staccato sentence or two had the effect of instantly electrifying Mr. Dyckman. Certainly; whatever Mr. Thomas desired should be done. He—Dyckman—had had no notice of the change in the plans of the company, and ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Satan repeated, "and he who plays upon it dies at once. But," he added cheerfully, "that need not worry you. I noticed a marvelous facility in your arm work. Your staccato and spiccato are wonderful. Every form of bowing appears child's play to you. It will be easy for you to avoid ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... none among the natives had ever seen ice before, their amazement may well be imagined. The first boy to pick up a piece of the glittering whiteness let it drop with a howl, and when he caught his breath again warned the others in shrill staccato tones that he had been burned, that it was hot, muy caliente, wringing his hands as if, indeed, they had been scorched. Presently, finding that the burn left no mark and had stopped hurting, he shamefacedly picked up the ice again, shifting it from one hand to the other with the utmost ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... lines. Gradually he developed great strength and intense activity in the middle joints, which enabled him to play with a very close, often overlapping, touch, and to maintain extremely rapid tempi in legato or staccato with perfect ease and little fatigue. With this combination of velocity and close touch, it was a slight matter to produce those pianistic effects which ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... settled suddenly upon her—an agonizing sense of youth's futility. Rackingly above the crash and lilt of music, the quick, wild thud of dancing feet, the sharp, staccato notes of laughter—she heard the dull, heavy, unrhythmical tread of the oncoming years—gray years, limping eternally from to-morrow on, through unloved ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and had turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put down the ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... clearly. You think of him as some sort of a big bug. Then you hear the rapid tut-tut-tut of his machine-gun. The man that dived ahead of you becomes mixed up with the topmost German. He is so close it looks as if he had hit the enemy machine. You hear the staccato barking of his mitrailleuse and see him pass from under ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... uniforms, and helmets still without the green-gray canvas service covering, they clattered past the reviewing officers, each right leg coming down with the thumping goose-step salute, until halls and barracks echoed with the staccato tread of thousands of hob-nailed boots. The lusty military band blazoned out "Die Wacht am Rhein" and other martial airs, until the creepers began to run up and down your back and you felt a lump rising in your ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... dance a hornpipe, whistling his own music in sharp staccato notes, as from a piccolo. He could likewise "present arms" with a little straw musket which I had provided for him; besides feigning to be dead, and allowing you to take him up by the legs, his head hanging down, apparently lifeless, the while, without stirring—although he ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the bronchial tubes may be opened widely or almost closed, and in this way, to quote from Mr. Thompson, "the bird is enabled to measure in the nicest manner the amount of air thrown from the lungs into the trachea." In producing a staccato, for example, the valves flop up and down, doling out the air at the proper intervals and in precisely ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... trill or staccato tones the pressure of the breath must be felt even before the sound is heard. The beautiful, clear, bell-like tones that die away into a soft piano are tones struck on the apoggio and controlled by the steady soft pressure of the breath emitted through ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... used for bunting-up a sail, but more usually for 'sweating-up.' Although I have allowed the last note its full musical value, it was not prolonged in this manner aboard ship. As it coincided with the pull, it usually sounded more like a staccato grunt. ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... not trust herself to speak. In the silence she heard his breath come hard. When he said, in a crisp, queer staccato that was not his voice ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... From time to time staccato notes of delight added a distinct jubilant quality to this symphony, heralding the arrival of some group of Church dignitaries from one or other of the seven principal parishes of Venice, gorgeous in robes of high festival and displaying the choicest of treasures from sacristies munificently endowed, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... as to say he used to be a Boche pilot in that fuss across the big water," continued Perk, reflectively, as though certain memories of the long-ago had awakened in his brain—recollections that breathed of action, staccato machine-gun fire, exploding shells, and the terrible odor of gas that had poisoned so many ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... whirled into space with a skilful jerk which sent the noose flying wide, and with an accuracy of aim which brought it right round the neck of the new-comer. She squealed indeed, but horror of horrors! she squealed in French, with such staccato "Oh's" and "Ah's" of astonishment as could only have come from one person in the house. It was Mademoiselle herself! and lifting her glance she beheld six horrified faces peering at her over the banisters, six pairs of startled eyes, six mouths agape with dismay. She looked, and then, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... heavily weighted by great masses of wall, and with broadly contrasting masses of light and shade. It does not depend for its effect upon intellectual quality beyond a rigorous sense of simplicity, or upon refinement of conception or detail, but rather upon size, picturesque mass, and staccato light and shade. The proportion of capital to column in quantity of surface was very slight. The proportion of voussoirs to arches naturally depended upon the size of the arch,—large voussoirs to large arches, small voussoirs to small arches. Columns were ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 04, April 1895 - Byzantine-Romanesque Windows in Southern Italy • Various
... was in no gentle humor, and his cheeks reddened as he felt the calm scrutiny of the woman's searching glances. He was now determined to take the whip hand, and to keep it. His accents were staccato as he said, "Tell me now who you are, and what you wish of me!" A clock, hung high over them on the dreary, drab walls, ticked away brusquely, as the angered woman gazed steadily ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... the top of her music-book, she rested her chin upon them, and sat looking seaward, singing a difficult passage, in the midst of which her nimble voice tripped on an E flat, and, missing the staccato step, rolled helplessly down in a legato flood of melody; whereupon, with an impatient grimace she shut her eyes, weary of watching the wave-shimmer that almost dazzled her. After a few seconds, when she opened them, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... to endure it. As we entered the rooms we were obliged to remove our shoes and put on sandals. Instead of sitting down on chairs we took any position we could on the floor mats that were placed at our disposal. At the first sound from the throat of a famous singer in a staccato "E-E-E-E," we all sprang to our feet thinking she was possibly going into some sort of a fit. With a twang on the strings of the flattened out little instrument, we subsided, concluding that the concert had begun. Then when the others joined in, the mingled sounds were not unlike ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... I see!" exclaimed Mr. Day in staccato fashion, and evidently very much relieved. "Mrs. Watkins is ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... doctors," the woman said, in tones crisp and staccato with pain and irritation. "Go away. Good night. We ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... lay the three newspapers he had bespoken. Polly Sparkes throughout her leisurely toilet was moved to irritation and curiosity by the sound of frequent laughter on the other side of the party wall—uproarious peals, long chucklings in a falsetto key, staccato bursts ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... easy, smooth, natural, and winning is the diction and the rise and fall of the sentence, and yet how varied the rhythm and how nervous the phrases; and then turn to a page of Macaulay, and wince under its stamping emphasis, its over-coloured tropes, its exaggerated expressions, its unlovely staccato. Southey's History of the Peninsular War is now dead, but if any of my readers has a copy on his highest shelves, I would venture to ask him to take down the third volume, and read the concluding pages, of which Coleridge used to say that they were the finest specimen ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley
... more than an hour, though in fact it was but the ten minutes agreed on with Bohannan, off behind them toward the coast a sudden staccato popping of revolvers began to puncture the night. Up and down the Legionaries' ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... fitting and appropriate to the occasion; but Miss Patty thumped the words out of me, to the tune of the Umbrella Quickstep, in staccato. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... in C, from the Sonata in G, opus 14, are easy and pleasing. The theme itself affords a very pretty contrast between the staccato of the first period and the close legato of the second period. Then the sweetness of it is relieved by the strong syncopations which break it up, toward the end (measures 17 and 18). The first variation has the melody in the tenor, unchanged excepting to make it legato. The ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... mist from the coast had rolled inland; through it after dawn came miles of horsemen and wagons, guns, limbers, lorries, ambulances. Every human unit in that column was covered in white dust, and every horse was weary. And except for the staccato "click-click" of bits and an occasional deep hum from a passing motor the army moved in perfect silence ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... greatest readiness to converse. Chlorine says that he spoke in a quick staccato. He was certainly voluble, and this is ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... of it to imagine in detail the salient features of the art of Coquelin. It will be evident to them that the actor made love luringly and died effectively, that he was capable of lyric reading and staccato gasconade, that he had a burly humor and that touch of sentiment that trembles into tears. Similarly we know to-day, from the fact that Shakespeare played the Ghost in Hamlet, that he must have had a voice that was full ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... from the excellent violinist Slavik. With the exception of Paganini, I never heard a violin-player like him. Ninety-six staccato notes in one bow! It is almost incredible! When I heard him I felt inclined to return to my lodgings and sketch variations on an Adagio [which they had previously agreed to take for ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... which went from the Aurora miner to Orion are humanly documentary. They are likely to be staccato in their movement; they show nervous haste in their composition, eagerness, and suppressed excitement; they are not always coherent; they are seldom humorous, except in a savage way; they are often profane; they are likely to be violent. Even the handwriting ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... four the staccato notes of "Assembly" rang across the terrace as Polly sounded the call upon her bugle. The girls came hurrying from every direction and the ensuing hour and a half, usually free for recreation, was cheerfully given over to study. Dinner was served at six ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... swept over Clee as it did so, and in the midst of it he felt a series of sharp, staccato thoughts—thoughts which did not seem to be composed of words, and yet ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... confusion, we called him from the first by the pretty Scotch equivalent of Evan's first name) is of a wholly masculine mould, and like his father in light hair, gray eyes, and determination. His very speech is quick and staccato, his tendency is to overcome, to fight rather than assuage, though he is the champion of everything he loves. From the time he could form distinct sounds he has called me Barbara, and no amount ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... ROBERTS, with a staccato groan, which he tries to make pass for a laugh: 'And then I ran after the man—' He stops, and regards Mr. Bemis ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had learned from him in those few minutes. He had gone on remorselessly, in his staccato manner, as if addressing a parade, which I knew so well, putting before her the dry yet ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... crashed. And after a swimming interval they heard him moving. "Cuckoo!" he called; a level flame stabbed the dark; something fell, thudding through the staccato uproar of the explosion. At the same moment the outer door opened on the crack and ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... beauty of tone, and a delicacy and refinement of expression almost unequalled. His hands were of exceptional size and strength, and enabled him to execute the most difficult double stops and stretches with the greatest facility. Even in quick passages he preserved a broad, full tone, and his staccato was brilliant and effective. He disliked the use of the "springing bow," which came with the modern ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... away bands struck up. We thronged the windows, leaning out that we might miss nothing. Through the half mile of people that stretched between us and the music a shudder of excitement was running. Then came cheers—the deep-throated babel of men's voices and the shrill staccato of women's. "They're coming," some one cried; then I ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... a feeble yelp. With his boot the gambler threw Tintoretto six feet away, where he landed on his feet and turned about growling and barking in puppywise questioning of this sudden manoeuvre. With a few more staccato yelps, the shivering black-and-tan ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... river-brink the author of this breathless dismay, some lithe flesh-eater, would stride, shadow-like, through the high reeds to drink. Now and then the woman-like scream of the wildcat, or the harsh staccato laugh of the hyena would startle the marshes into silence. Sometimes retiring shapes would halt and gaze with emberous eyes at the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... swung to that side," Steinmetz admitted in his rather affected staccato. "At all events he's out of my beat." His beat was the respiratory tract and his treatment the last word in vaccines ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... place visited the night previous, on the opposite corner of the same block. There was quite an excitement here when we came in. Two men and two girls were playing on native instruments—one of the men on a sort of fiddle, and the other on a rude guitar; the girls, one striking, in sharp staccato fashion, a wooden perforated bowl inverted on a standard or post, and the other a kind of cymbal; they were singing in the same shrill, monotonous way we had heard before. We counted eight girls here. There was a piece of unpainted tin or zinc, about eight by twelve inches, ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... brokenhearted mourner. But Long's sheer, precipitous face and the lofty cliffs around me formed a vast amphitheater about which echoes raced, crossing and recrossing, intermingling. For a full minute the coyote howled, his sharp staccato notes rising higher and higher, the echoes returning from all directions, first sharply, then blurred, faint, fainter. The higher the sounds climbed the gorge the longer were the intervals between echoes, for the ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... but sweet and crisp in the white that Southern girls wear most. There was a constraint over us for the reckoning that we knew was coming. Each felt guilty toward the other and the result was a formal politeness. So it was a relief when, just at the last bit of toast, Anne burst in, all staccato ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... a modified form of singing: the principal difference being in the fact that in singing the vowel sounds are prolonged and the intervals are short, whereas in speech the words are uttered in what may be called "staccato" tones, the vowels not being specially prolonged and the intervals between the words being more distinct. The fact that in singing we have a larger range of tones does not properly distinguish it from ordinary speech. In speech we have likewise a variation of tones, and ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... as he directed her. She brought added volume into certain passages, she rendered the light staccato notes ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life. The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the bottom-land, and empurpled the blue ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... in quick, staccato jerks, "if I told you what I'd seen and heard in the last fortnight, I couldn't make you believe it. Proofs! Proofs! I've wasted thirty years. I might have had her—the best part of her—all this time. You think I'm crazy—" he stopped and peered into Bulger's face. "If anyone had talked this way ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... of music, there was a sudden pause. Patty stopped still, her smile faded, and the colours changed from autumn glows to a cold wintry blue. Her gown became white, with blue shadows, the music was sharp and frosty. Patty danced with staccato steps, with little shivers of cold. The ground now appeared to be covered with frost, and her feet recoiled as they touched it. The music whistled like winter blasts. A fine snow seemed to fall, the blue shadows faded, all was white, and Patty, ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... you this dance, Quentin," she said, pronouncing the name with a pretty staccato. "You must be lonely not dancing, so I will sit with you. What shall ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... fiercely. His pony, having worked off its excess of spirit, settled down into a tireless pace that tested the picked mounts the planters had selected as their best, and the miles passed in silence save for staccato pounding of hoofs on hard packed earth and the swish of underbrush that lined ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... construction of the above-named organ at Birkenhead, England, it had been the custom to obtain or regulate the pressure of wind supplied to the pipes by means of loading the bellows with weights. Owing to its inertia, no heavy bellows weight can be set into motion rapidly. When, therefore, a staccato chord was struck on one of these earlier organs, with all its stops drawn, little or no response was obtained from the pipes, because the wind-chest was instantly exhausted and no time was allowed for the inert bellows weights to fall ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... this last year, a tale of the ends of cigarettes left all over New York in little trays marked "Midnight Frolic" and "Justine Johnson's Little Club," he began nodding his head slowly, then faster and faster, until, as she finished on a staccato note, it was bobbing briskly up and down, absurdly like a doll's ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... doubt, though how far her method is conscious and deliberate it is difficult to say. But she has certain quite obvious qualities, of reticence, of moderation, of suspended emphasis, which can scarcely be other than conscious and deliberate. She uses but few gestures, and these brief, staccato, and for an immediate purpose; her hands, in their long black gloves, are almost motionless, the arms hang limply; and yet every line of the face and body seems alive, alive and repressed. Her voice can be harsh or sweet, as ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... she passed into a quick staccato and then descended to long-drawn tones, deep and full. "This is better, but I have never played it for you because that it is Polish, and to make it in English and so sing it is hard. You have heard of our great and good general Kosciuszko, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... with his staccato apologies, and the two returned to their hotel to dress. Two hours later they found Gribton warming his hands in the smoking-room of the Cercle, a fussy and garrulous gentleman, eager for his dinner. He pointed out such people as he knew, and was consumed with curiosity ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... shrieked its high, staccato note from the engine-house, they went up to the mess, and seated themselves at the head of the table. As a whole, the men were fairly satisfactory. Bill stared coldly down the table, and appeared to be mentally tabulating those who would draw but one pay-check, ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... of "'Ware fire!" he sprang back and laid his match to the touch-hole. There was a spurt of flame as the long nine roared above the staccato bark of the musketry. Then they saw a section of the pirate's upper rail leap clear of her deck and fall overside. "Too high," said Job shortly, though Ghent and Curtis had cheered at the shot, for the distance was a good half-mile. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... in her best hat and coat, feeling rather spry and pleased with herself, until presently, clinketty clank, round the bend of the road came the quick, staccato beat of horses' hoofs. Mr and Mrs Maplestone cantering past in hunting kit, which at one glimpse killed complacency and substituted disgust for the poor fripperies ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in his hand. This he set on the table in his own room, and sitting before it, began moving the balls in the adding machine. Upon the low voices in the kitchen, the dry click of the shifted balls broke in sharp staccato, followed by pauses when, with a hand as delicate as a woman's, he traced the Chinese characters on ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Tchekhov, and another said that it suggested the biting realism of Brieux, he never, in his most secret thoughts, questioned the acumen of either lady. Harold's speech, even if you heard it in the next room and could not see him, told you that he had no sense of the absurd,—a throaty staccato, with never a downward ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... warehouses who found their buildings useless, once the overtopping elevator went up alongside—from small buyers who found themselves being driven out of the market with the flat warehouses. But these voices were drowned in the swish of grain in the chutes and the staccato of the elevator engines—lost in the larger exigencies of the wheat. The railway company held to their promises and the tall grain boxes reared their castor tops against ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... The thin, staccato voice broke off abruptly, and three out of the five other men present being the Master's pupils, remained silent, knowing he had not finished. But Mr. Toovey, a young don overflowing with mild ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... morn hung heaviness, until, Near sunless noon, we heard the ship's bell beating A melancholy staccato on dead metal; Saw the bare-footed watch come running aft; Felt, far below, the sudden telegraph jangle Its harsh metallic challenge, thrice repeated: 'Stand to. Half-speed ahead. Slow. Stop her!' They stopped. The plunging pistons sank like ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... the police is the surest way to get caught when they've got you trapped," he answered in quick, staccato tones. "They've got every door watched—sure. Anyhow—Listen! Hear those steps? They haven't trusted you, Matilda; they've followed. Angelica, down with your face to the wall, and be sick! And while you're at it, ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... down the driveway and the door of the Howe homestead closed, a tragic babel of voices reached her ear, piping in shrill staccato ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... a philosopher himself, with a bitter wit and a trick of spitting out staccato epigrams. He clapped his hands. 'Bring me a high-ball,' he commanded; 'no, bring me two high-balls.' Then he turned on Ahuna. 'Go and let yourself die, old heathen, survival of darkness, blight of the Pit that you are. But don't die on ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... stories. In the other tales that go to make up the volume are wild, exotic glimpses of Latin-America. I doubt whether the color and spirit of that region have been better rendered than in Stephen Crane's curious, distorted, staccato sentences. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... a streak of fire from a rifle. Instantly there followed a fusillade. Flash after flash lit up the darkness. Staccato oaths, cries, a moan of pain, the trampling of frightened horses, filled the ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... in pleasant contrast to the shrill staccato accents I had heard in that gloomy underground room of the Foreign Office at Berlin.... I could see at a glance that his present attitude was not a pose,—his simplicity, like his courage and democracy, was GENUINE.... It explains the reason ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... indescribable effect upon the singers, whose excitable feelings it sometimes works up almost to the pitch of frenzy. The dancing tunes of the Kamchadals are of course entirely different in character, being generally very lively, and made up of energetic staccato passages, repeated many times in succession, without variation. Nearly all the natives accompany themselves upon a three-cornered guitar with two strings, called a ballalaika (bahl-lah-lai'-kah), and some of them play quite well upon rude home-made violins. ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... seclusion of the president's inner office, while two blocks away swelled a storm, whose echoes only reached them in the sharp staccato of the ticker in the corner as it vomited a strip of white paper. Wimperley stood there, the strip slipping between his fingers, while selling orders began to pour in to Philadelphia, and the price ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... the staccato note of a staff beating its surface, and the clanking tinkle of an iron ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... the man stepped forward to give the big blades a final turn that would start the motor. There was a muffled roar and then a steady staccato blending of explosions. Tom raced the motor while his men held the machine in place, and then, satisfied that all was well, the young inventor gave the word, and the craft raced over the ground, to ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... with his reedy staccato voice, that gave polish and relief to every syllable, tried to come to her aid by questioning her affably about her family and the friends she had made in New York. But the caryatid-parent, who exists simply as a filial prop, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... I saw the company pass me gaily down the road, preceded by the hounds, trotting with a staccato step and ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... machine gun opened fire with a deafening clatter at point-blank range from behind. In an instant the surrounding air became full of innumerable tiny, brilliant flames, passing me at an incredible speed like minute streaks of lightning, each one giving forth a curious staccato whistling crack as it plunged through or beside the tormented machine, leaving in its wake a thin curling line of blue smoke. I was in the middle of a relentless storm of burning tracer bullets, vying one with the other for the honour of passing through ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... was cauliflower. Now, I say cauliflower exactly as it is spelled but that isn't right. It is "Culliefleur," said staccato. And honey—one day I wanted honey and after I had sung "Hunnie, hunnie" in high C, and he didn't understand, I went around and picked out a jar of it. "Oh," he ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... and it points an excellent moral; but it is chiefly interesting as a whimsical freak of verse, an extravaganza in staccato. The rhyming is of its kind almost incomparable as a sustained effort in double and triple grotesque rhymes. Not even in Hudibras, not even in Don Juan, is there anything like them. I think all other experiments of the kind, however successful ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... I do that, I don't say anything. I may make musical sounds, but I express nothing. I may even execute the notes with a good staccato or legato (again illustrating with his voice) and still, having no words to go by, I make no effect on ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... When the staccato beats of the ponies' hoofs ceased, he shouted: "Come on, boys, make this your home. Everything goes, and the Sweetwater outfit is ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller |
