"Quaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... puts it in South Wind, "Enclosed within the soft imagination of the homo Mediterraneus lies a kernel of hard reason. The Northerner's hardness is on the surface; his core, his inner being, is apt to quaver in a state of fluid irresponsibility." The comparative method of approach to the institution of marriage among Latins and among Anglo-Saxons illustrates this truth. And it serves also, perhaps, for an example that, in the midst ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... plumbful of good cheer Till he struck that low-down year; Got so thin, so little to him, You could most see day-light through him. Never was his eye so bright, Never was his cheek so white. Seemed as if somethin' was wrong, Sort o' quaver in his song. Same old smile, same hearty voice: "Bless you, boys! let's all rejoice!" But old Doctor shook his head: "Half a lung," was all he said. Yet that half was surely right, For I heard him every night, Singin', singin' in his shack — ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... loudly—as loudly and confidently as I could, considering that there was a quaver at my heart as I looked on those savage faces, which met and yet avoided my eye. "Beware of what you do! We are Catholics one and all like yourselves, and good sons of the Church. Ay, and good subjects too! VIVE LE ROI, gentlemen! God save the King! I say." ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... going to talk like that, my boy," he began, with never a quaver in his voice, "it's best for us to understand each other straight off. Once and for all let me tell you that I'll have none of your bounce. Whether or not this business is destined to come to anything, you may rely upon one thing, ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... word in a long-drawn quaver which gave it a horrid sound—especially in the woods, after dark. And Turkey Proudfoot felt chills a-running up ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... would appear, for the company, which included Johnson and the Grevilles, was by no means composed of musical enthusiasts, and Mrs. Thrale, in particular, "knew not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver." However, he complied; and Mrs. Thrale, after sitting awhile in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... and we started off on the 200-mile trip together. We had the smoker of the Pullman all to ourselves, and after I had recited some furlongs of Burns to him, he began to sing "Jockey's Ta'en the Parting Kiss" in a sort of thin and whimpering quaver of a tenor that cut through the noise of the train like a violin note through silence. I thought I knew the poem, but it seemed to me I had never dreamed what was in it, with the wail of a Highland woman pouring plaintive melody through the flood gates of her heart. And he knew every one of ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... of her father's room and Grannie's she called, with a quaver in her voice, and a sleepy grunt came out to her. She reached one hand through the door, which was ajar, and took the burning candle. Then she blew out the light with a trembling puff, that had to be twice repeated, and made for her own ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... event a "fearful judgment of God," writes with fervor: "The like judgment almost did the Lord show unto them a little before, being assembled at their theatres to see their bawdy interludes and other trumperies practised, for He caused the earth mightily to shake and quaver, as though all would have fallen down; whereat the people, sore amazed, some leapt down from the top of the turrets, pinnacles, and towers where they stood, to the ground, whereof some had their legs broke, some their arms, some their backs, some hurt one where, some another, and many ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... vernacular, might take example from the conscientious creator, who would not put a particle of cant into the crooked marks and ruled bars which are such a mystery to the uninitiated, blot with one demi-semi-quaver of falsehood his papers, or leave aught but truth of the heavenly sphere at a single point on any line! Then our sternest utterance with each other would be concord, our common questions and answers more melodiously responsive than chants in great cathedrals, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... a faint quaver in Philon's voice but he went on. "However, I've brought you an idea that's worth more than fifty grand. It's ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland
... was always low and gentle, with a quaver and hesitancy in the utterance; now it was tender and comforting with the comprehension of one in suffering, the extraordinary tact, which the old of his race nearly all come to possess. "Li'l chicken-wing on ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... of them was sure bad enough. But I reckon Masten's got them both roped an' hog-tied for natural meanness." He turned to Owen. "I reckon I had to do it, old man," he said, a quaver in ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... movement to her breast, a quaver in her voice, of which she seemed slightly ashamed, for she turned suddenly and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... that," Maraton replied. "These are just the words which you yourself cannot fail to understand. Neither you nor I hold life so dearly that the thought of losing it need make us quaver. I am here only to say this one word—to tell you that the heavens have never opened more surely to let out the lightning, than will your death be a charge upon me if you should vary even a hair's-breadth from our contract. If Maxendorf, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flashed over Coleman as if it had come from an electric storage. He had known the professor long, but he had never before heard a quaver in his voice, and it was this little quaver that seemed to impel him to supreme disregard of the dangers which he looked upon as being the final dangers. His own voice ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... was without a quaver or a sign of huskiness. He had been speaking in the open air exactly as much as Douglas, but it was perfectly fresh, not a particle strained. It ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... doubtful, quivering voice. And the ambages should take time. He should approach the citadel to be taken with covered ways working his way slowly and painfully. But this young man, before he had been in the house three days, said all that he had to say without the slightest quaver in his voice, and evidently expected to get an answer about the squire's daughter as quickly as he had got it about the ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... morgue; to look up every case of reported suicide that by any chance might be Mrs. Marteen—here or in other cities." Gard felt the blood leave his heart as he said the words, though there was no quaver in his voice. "If they should find her, don't let her identity be known if there is any chance of concealing it, not until you reach me. Don't let Miss Marteen know. Put another man on the hotel arrivals. She left St. Augustine—Here—" He—jotted down ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... off, when he was stopped and brought back to the miserable error of his confession. The whole ground was then gone over again, and again pardon with warning was given. Even a glad good-night was exchanged, the wheelman's voice rising in a quaver of grateful affection. Then he seemed to try riding off again, and then he was stayed as before by the victim, whose sense of public duty flamed up at the prospect of his escape. I do not know how the affair ended; perhaps it never ended; but exhausted nature sank in sleep, and I at least was ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... answered, dryly, though with a slight quaver in his voice. "The thief found and departed with the drawings of a most important new device, originated by Benson and his friends and finished by myself. I'd rather lose a large sum ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... fright, looked on with affrighted eyes, but presently found voice to quaver out, "Please don't hurt her! ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... serve, in case of a bolt's striking the church, to drive its whole force into the building. As a loud crash burst over the village in the midst of his sermon, and showed how frightfully near the storm was, his voice broke into a shrill quaver, as he faltered out, "Yes, my brethren, let us be calm under all circumstances, and Death will have ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... already that you can be very brave and generous," she answered. "What I want to know is whether I can serve you—now or afterward," she added, with a quaver. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Over most of them he laughed with us himself—a great gusty laugh that made the cheap glass ornaments upon the mantelpiece to tremble; but now and then a recollection came to him that spread a sudden gravity across his jovial face, bringing a curious quaver into ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... plaintive. His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most of her neighbours. She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... back on the arm-rack deliberately,—the men were at the far end of the room,—and took out his rifle and packet of ammunition. "Don't go playing the goat, Sim!" said Losson. "Put it down," but there was a quaver in his voice. Another man stooped, slipped his boot and hurled it at Simmon's head. The prompt answer was a shot which, fired at random, found its billet in Losson's throat. Losson fell forward without a word, and ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... split the sky, but the song went on without a quaver. The girl was evidently in the field and the voice seemed to come vaguely from a haystack about twenty feet in front ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... windows of churches, While the balsamy breath of the hemlocks and pines by the river Stole on the winds through the woodland aisles like the breath of a censer. Loud the people sang old camp-meeting anthems that quaver Quaintly yet from lips forgetful of lips that have kissed them: Loud they sang the songs of the Sacrifice and Atonement, And of the end of the world, and the infinite terrors of Judgment; Songs of ineffable sorrow, and wailing compassionate warning For the generations that hardened their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... boughs as he pressed among them, the rise and fall of his own breathing, somewhat quicker than its wont, served to render appreciable to Persimmon Sneed the fact that he possessed nerves which were more susceptible to a quaver of doubt than that redoubtable ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... When Claude and Quasimodo went out together, which frequently happened, and when they were seen traversing in company, the valet behind the master, the cold, narrow, and gloomy streets of the block of Notre-Dame, more than one evil word, more than one ironical quaver, more than one insulting jest greeted them on their way, unless Claude Frollo, which was rarely the case, walked with head upright and raised, showing his severe and almost august brow ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... will," he assured her, with a little quaver in his speech that was decidedly effective. "And in any event, I am not sorry that I have loved you, beautiful child. You have always been a power for good in my life. You have gladdened me with the vision of a beauty that is more than human, you have heartened me for ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... had been going about the world with a bright red patch on either cheek; and it would seem that on the third day, namely, the Sunday, things came to a crisis in her disturbed mind. At morning service her fervour was something astonishing—the quaver in her voice was more noticeable in the hymns than ever, and the space devoted to silent prayer after the blessing was so abnormally long that Stark, the sexton, had to rattle the keys twice, with all due respect and for the sake ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... old parlor organ with the quaver in its tongue, Seemed to tremble in its fervor as the sacred songs were sung, As we sang the homely anthems, sang the glad revival hymns Of the glory of the story and the light no ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... there was a suggestion of the buzzing of drone-flies, or humble bees, in the tones of its sympathetic strings, which often numbered as many as twenty-four. These violas recall the Hardanger peasant fiddle of Norway, of unknown origin and antiquity, whose delicate metallic under strings quaver tremulously and mysteriously when the bow sets in ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Hans has come to life again," said Martin with a slight quaver in his voice, for Martin ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... Richard, with a quaver of comic regret. "Our civilization has so narrowed the times that murder is inexpressibly inconvenient. One thing I ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... he, "there was a subject you didn't wish to be referred to. I only want to do so indirectly. It wasn't"—he faltered—"it wasn't because you were dissatisfied with me?" he concluded, with a quaver. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... There was a faint quaver in old Brenn's voice. "I welcome you to our world, sir, ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... said Daphne, with a small quaver in her voice, "just this afternoon. I came over to say good-by to it, and to get some mint and lavender ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Sam with a perceptible quaver in his voice. "They were not. The wolf, the zebras, and the asses could swim, and so could the monkeys, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... monotonous piece, composed of three tones, quite dissimilar to that composed by Rousseau. My sisters were near despair; but I told them it was not more uninteresting than the heath. Sometimes I made a little flight, a quaver; that was the heath-larks which flew up into the air. The introduction to the gypsy-chorus in 'Preciosa' signified the German gypsy-flock. Then came the thema out of 'Jeannot and Collin'—'O, joyous ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... God bless you! For I love him, my dear Piney! Bless you, for I love him, my dear Piney!" he kept saying over and over, with an hysterical quaver in his voice, his lips pale and moving constantly. "Oh, may God bless you, for I love him, my dear Piney!" It was what Salome Madeira had said to him when he had left her, a white, angelic figure, swaying a little toward him, there in the garden back ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... weightiest things. I still recollect his "object" and "subject," terms of continual recurrence in the Kantean province; and how he sang and snuffled them into "om-m-mject" and "sum-m-mject," with a kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled along. No talk, in his century or in any other, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... fame," and "Death and the fair Lady," were his especial favourites; and he could repeat the "Gosport Tragedy," and the "Babes in the Wood," from beginning to end. Sometimes he stuttered in the notes, and then they lengthened on and on into a never-ending quaver that our first-rate singers might have envied. Sometimes there was a sudden break—Jock had been consulting the pocket in which he stored his bread; but no sooner was his mouth half-cleared than he began again. In middle-life, however, a great calamity overtook Jock. His ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... He resolved grimly on open fighting. He meant to have either decisive honors or a decisive repulse. For it was his tantalizing doubts of her that made her laugh at him. Yet, when he spoke, he could not help the quaver ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... for it. While the mob of Constables kept cowering in the bar-room down-stairs, crying out to us to surrender in the King's name,—I believe that one poor creature, the Justice of Peace, after getting himself well walled up in a corner with chairs and tables, began to quaver out the King's Proclamation against the Blacks,—the plaguy Soldiers came blundering up both pair of stairs, and fell upon us Billy Boys tooth and nail. 'Slid! my blood simmers when I think of it. Over went the tables and settles! Smash went ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... throne of oratory," continued Billy, with a rising quaver in his voice, "Mr. Harrison Blake, Westville's favourite son; the Reverend Doctor Sherman, president of the Voters' Union, and the Honourable Hiram Cogshell, Calloway County's able-bodiest orator, will pour forth prodigal and perfervid eloquence ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... unskilful Throat to chop and alter, to twist and change, according to their infinitely divers and no less Odd Humours and Fancies. I have myself paused twice in one note to take breath. No two Men in the Congregation quaver alike or together, it sounds in the Ears of a Good Judge like five hundred different Tunes roared out at the same Time, with perpetual ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... in part, for he fiercely combated the argument, only to quaver, at last, into a silence which permitted again that trickle of hesitating, pedantic speech, which was yet so ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... came on, the subject of employing Mr. Rhythm to teach a singing-school was discussed. Mr. Quaver, a tall, slim man, with a long, red nose, had led the choir for many years. He had a loud voice, and twisted his words so badly, that his singing was like the blare of a trumpet. On Sundays, after Rev. Mr. Surplice ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... fear clutched at his heart. In those first few notes was a weak quaver, a huskiness that ought not to have been there. His whole body grew tense with effort as mind and heart sent winging to her a silent message. "You must not fear! You must believe!" Another was sending her the same word. But ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... on the water, or the cloud-shadows on the hills, or the sunset sky, with the tall, black tree-boles and waving foliage relieved against it, or when I heard a mellow gush of music from the brown-breasted fife-bird in the summer woods, or the merry quaver of the bobolink in the corn land, the thought of an eternal loss of these familiar sights and sounds would sometimes thrill through me with a sharp and bitter pain. I have reason to thank God that this fear no longer troubles me. Nothing that is really valuable and necessary for us can ever be ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was quivering and her eyes were filling with gathering tears. With a little quaver in her voice she struggled hard to give a mirthful conclusion to the affair. "I accept the position, ma'am," she faltered, making a courtesy, then rushed into her friend's arms and sobbed: "Oh, Mara, Mara, you have lifted such a burden from my heart! I have had many troubles, but somehow ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... wished to profit by their meeting, and this confirmed precisely an interpretation of her manner, of her mystery. While she rose, as he would have called it, to the question of Victor Hugo, her voice itself, the light low quaver of her deference to the solemnity about them, seemed to make her words mean something that they didn't mean openly. Help, strength, peace, a sublime support—she hadn't found so much of these things as that the amount wouldn't be sensibly greater for any scrap his appearance of faith in her ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... hurriedly down into the street, where a few startled women and old men had rushed at the first roll of the cannon. As she stood among them, straining her eyes from end to end of the little village, her heart beat in her throat and she could only quaver out an appeal ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... inches in diameter at the larger, and one inch at the smaller end. The right hand is folded round the smaller end for a mouthpiece; into this the caller grunts and roars and bellows, at the same time swinging the trumpet's mouth in sweeping curves to imitate the peculiar quaver of the cow's call. If the bull is near and suspicious, the sound is deadened by holding the mouth of the trumpet close to the ground. This, to me, imitates the real sound more ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... into her face that transformed and transfigured her. "My boy was in Ann Arbor. He was killed on the train on his way home one day." She stopped, for fear of breaking into a quaver, and smiled brightly. "That's why I always like college boys. They all stop here with me." She rose hastily. "Well, you'll excuse me, won't you, and I'll go ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the strings, but both his ear and his voice were not of the best, so that it was well perhaps that there was so small and so unprejudiced an audience to the Norman-French chanson, which he sang in a high reedy voice with great earnestness of feeling, but with many a slip and quaver, waving his yellow head in cadence to ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... air. There, snuff and cigars and German pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. It is the region of song and smoke. Street bands are on their mettle in Golden Square, and itinerant glee singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... oh, Rose Mary, where are ye, child?" came a call in a high, sweet old quaver of a voice from down the garden path, and Miss Amanda hove in sight, hurrying along on eager but tottering little feet. Her short, skimpy, gray skirts fluttered in the spring breezes and her bright, old eyes peered ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... city-builders is most unusual; the males frequently utter the most varied and astonishing cries. They are jarring in the extreme, and are produced in the most leisurely manner, growing louder and louder and finally ending with a slow quaver. At other times, they grunt like small pigs. Hudson says that any quick noise, like the report of a gun, produces a most startling effect among these little animals. As soon as the report is broken on the stillness of the night a perfect furore of cries issues forth from every direction. In ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... thought, which is what one would hope for from a General, even a Postmaster General, is that one resents it in oneself, that in an important opening for a man like being called foolish, one stops all one's thinking-works, and slumps ingloriously, automatically and without a quaver ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... questioned him; and from the first words I discovered that his education had been frightfully neglected, that he was ignorant of the most vulgar notions of the divine art, and that he scarcely knew the difference between a sharp and a quaver. It was really the A, B, C, which he wished me to teach him. Laborious task, ungrateful labor! But he manifested so much shame at his ignorance, and so much desire to be instructed, that I felt moved in his favor. Then his countenance was most winning, his voice of a superior tone; and ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... rush-light in the other. Its glimmer fell across the bed upon Nick's tousled hair; and when the master-player saw the boy's head upon the pillow he started eagerly, with brightening eyes. "My soul!" he whispered to himself, a little quaver in his tone, "I would have sworn my own desire lied to me, and that he had not come at all! It cannot be—yet, verily, I am not blind. Ma foil it passeth understanding—a freed skylark come back to its cage! I thought we ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... the voice, still fainter, Sinking almost to a whisper, With a hesitating quaver, As the picture came before her Of her disappearing people. Then I rose and piled more branches Of the redwood on the campfire, And the flames and sparks leaped upward, Lighting up the mournful forest, Driving back ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... heart did throb a little, and sink for a day, when this playfellow was shipped off for life, as you thought, and you did remember his funeral tears over his owl, and"—a quaver of voice and betrayed earnestness revealed the jealous pang shooting across the heart of the speaker; but her own was too heavy and deeply anxious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... for, as crowds went, this was the time for them to catch their first breath and send up a roar of applause. But there was no hand-clapping, whistling, cheering—only silence. And instead, clear as a bell and distinct, without the slightest shake or quaver, came George's voice ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... to me!" said Mr. Brand, with a little quaver in his voice. "If you have the advantage of ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... what light there was, he would see Alan standing, like a dark shadow, on the steps; the three witnesses were hidden quite out of his view; so that there was nothing to alarm an honest man in his own house. For all that, he studied his visitor awhile in silence, and when he spoke his voice had a quaver of misgiving. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "weighed anchor" and I went on deck to take a last look at Dixie with the rest of the party. Every heart was full. Each left brothers, sisters, husband, children, or dear friends behind. We sang, "Farewell dear land," with a slight quaver in our voices, looked at the beautiful starlight shining on the last boundary of our glorious land, and, fervently and silently praying, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the aged voice held a quaver of emotion which men were not accustomed to hearing it carry, "I wants ter talk with ye with ther severe freedom of an' old man counsellin' a young 'un—an' hit hain't ergoin' ter be in ther manner of a Doane argyfyin' ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... silk must be cut exactly on the bias"; and Miss Prissy, hastily finishing her last quaver, caught the silk and the scissors out of Mrs. Scudder's hand, and fell down at once from the Millennium into a discourse on her own particular way ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... on your way to St. Paul now?" Griswold said to the newspaper man. Broffin, whose ears were skilfully attuned to all the tone variations in the voice of evasion, thought he detected a quaver of anxious impatience in ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... looked up at the doctor, full in his face, but with a curious quaver in her eyes. Nor was it any wonder she should look at him strangely, for she felt toward him very strangely: to her he was as it were the apostle of a kakangel, the prophet of a doctrine that was evil, yet perhaps was a truth. Terrible doubts ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal—and there was very little else to look at—he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... town, to which he had come, as driftwood from the storm of war, in '65. Some of the "boys" had heard him, in a great prayer-meeting in Washington—a city which he always spoke of as his "namesake"—at the time of the great review, say, in his strong voice, with that pathetic quaver in it: "Like as de parched an' weary traveller hangs his harp upon de winder, an' sighs for oysters in de desert, so I longs to res' my soul an' my foot in Mass'chusetts;" and they were so delighted with him ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... never failed to affect her. If she had been planning the destruction of an enemy, she would have wept bitterly at the sight of that enemy's dead body; nay, even at a vivid account of his death. Sophie's words brought tears to her eyes at once, and a quaver into her voice. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... and a smile in her eyes, even while the loveliest notes were flowing forth from her melodious throat. The listeners could hear the noble lord's "by Jove," in the midst of the music, and even detect the slight quaver of laughter which followed in Bice's ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... back in the chair, and the sudden quaver of his face, the deep breath that he drew, showed his ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... door this time. His grandmother did not seem to notice that he was in a forbidden place, but asked, with an anxious quaver in her voice, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... will be the death of me! Tartaglia in the flesh—how old Gozzi would have revelled in him! Those pathetic, oyster-eyes, that round, flabby face, that comic nose, and the bleating voice with the sentimental quaver in it, reeling off the live man's dying speech...." He wiped his brimming eyes. "Since the time when Boer spies hocussed him on guard—you remember that lovely affair?—he's registered a vow to impress me with his gallantry and devotion, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... woodenhead!" he said; "but I won't add another lie to that one. I did believe it, and I've been half sick about it all day. I won't say another word till you set down, except to ask your pardon again. I'm an old man, Calvin," he added, with a piteous quaver in his voice, "and I regard ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... bench, who ought to have known him. And the judge had taken the part of Lord Fawn, who had seemed to Phineas to be bent on swearing away his life. He had borne himself very gallantly during that week, having in all his intercourse with his attorney, spoken without a quaver in his voice, and without a flaw in the perspicuity of his intelligence. But now, when Mr. Low came to him, explaining to him that it was impossible that a verdict should be found against him, he was quite broken down. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... of any service to them. Your poets are entirely at the disposal of your famous musicians; one declares that he cannot sing without there is in his air the word felicita; the tenor must have tomba; while a third singer can only quaver upon the word catene. The poor bard must make these different whims agree with dramatic situation as well as he can. This is not all; there are actors who will not appear immediately treading the boards ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the same large drooping moustache—decidedly worn. He turned pale. This meeting was terrible after all those years, for nothing in the world was so terrible as a scene. They met and crossed hands without a word. Then, with a quaver in his voice, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... praise of Oriana and of Phyllis and the country life. What are called 'waits' are but a poor travesty of those well-sung Elizabethan carols. We turn in our beds half pitying, half angered by harsh voices that quaver senseless ditties in the fog, or by tuneless fiddles playing popular airs ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... acquaintance, which he later ceases to deserve; but in the case of Mime I think it is never wholly withdrawn, even when he is shown to be an unmitigated wretch; he is, to begin with, so little, and he has a funny, fetching twist or quaver in his voice, indicated by the notes themselves of his rather mean little sing-song melodies. Alberich's nominal reason for indulging his present passion for hurting—he is haling Mime by the ear—is that the latter is overslow with ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... in mid-quaver stops, Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Jessie, with a quaver in her voice; "but I should like to come and talk to you as often as I can." Then presently she added, in a conflicting tone, "I don't know what to call your mother. I don't like to say 'Mrs. Lang,' it seems so— so silly and—stuck-up, ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... I thank you for these words about my brother," she said very gently, and with a little pathetic quaver in her voice. "They have given me a comforting association with that awful day. Oh, I thank God for the thought. Remembering what Mrs. Yocomb said, it reconciles me to it all, as I never thought I could be reconciled. If Herbert believed that it was ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... black soldiers marched into that cold ocean water, dreading it with all their souls but soldiers to the core, without a quaver, eyes to the front, heads up, chests out, unflinchingly, up to their knees, up to their waists, up to their chins, when the captain shouted "As you were!" and such a hilarious, shouting, laughing, splashing, jumping, yelling, fun-filled hour as followed ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... every few minutes, but never losing a note. His favorite perch is the top spire of a pointed tree, low cedar or young pine, where he can bound into the air as already described, spread his wings, and float down, never omitting a quaver. It seems like pure ecstasy; and however critical one may be, he cannot help feeling deep sympathy with the joyous soul that thus expresses itself. With all the wonderful power and variety, the bewitching charm, there is not the "feeling," the heavenly melody, of the wood-thrush. ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... with an eager quaver in his voice. "Gifford, do you think—would you have any objection, Gifford, to permitting me to see your aunt? That is, if she would be so obliging and kind as to step in ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... quaver breathlessly, "I have the proof—the undeniable proof! They were intelligent beings. They did not die of disease. They were exterminated in war! They were ... but see for yourself!" There was a thud as he dropped something on the polished ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... didn't rush at him, we scuttled back into the chamber, and then down the worn stone steps cut out of the rock, which seemed to lead down and down into the bowels of the earth. As we hurried down, leaping lightly on the tips of our toes, the quaver of the tune came after us, so clearly that I even made a guess at ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... my 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 you. Of the poetry I speak with confidence; but the music is a business where I hint my ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... been looking for something to do, and, wandering to the other end of the studio, saw before him my breakfast-things neglected, unremoved. "I say, can't I be useful HERE?" he called out to me with an irrepressible quaver. I assented with a laugh that I fear was awkward, and for the next ten minutes, while I worked, I heard the light clatter of china and the tinkle of spoons and glass. Mrs. Monarch assisted her husband— they washed up my crockery, they put it away. They wandered ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... eked out with stammerings and throat-clearings. They possess the art (learned from the pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a single syllable—of striking a balance in a top-heavy period by lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal, they never cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have exhausted all their ideas, even after the would-be peroration has finally refused to perorate, they remain upon their feet with their mouths open, waiting for some further inspiration, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way, is the old formula to which my uncle has always been faithful. I heard Madeleine answer, with a quaver in ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... help every woman he loves to the exercise of all the rights which hold dignity and happiness for her. He would fight that she might have those rights, if necessary; but he would rather have her lose her voice entirely, than to hear her sound a bass note so long as a demi-semi-quaver. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... to quaver much earlier in the story than usual. He was always moved to tears, but as a rule he was able to suppress them until along toward the end of the story. But now he was in distress from the beginning. He choked up completely, in a most uncalled-for ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... much hurt and shaken and apologetic. "POOR Mr. Maltby! REALLY—!" the Duchess wailed for me in this latest of my mishaps. Some other lady chased my straw hat, which had bowled far ahead. Two others helped to brush me. They were all very kind, with a quaver of mirth in their concern for me. I looked furtively around for Braxton, but he was gone. The palms of my hands were abraded with gravel. The Duchess said I must on no account come to church NOW. I was utterly determined ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... deep silence which reigned throughout the hall when he was called to answer, evinced the doubt whether he would stand true to his self-impeachment. The doubt was soon solved. With a face on which no trace of fear could be perceived, with a voice in which there was no quaver, he swore that it was he who signed the draft and sent Effie for the money. The oscillation of sympathy, which had for a time been suspended, came round again to the thin pale girl, who sat there looking wistfully and wonderingly into the face of the witness, and the murmuring approbation that broke ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... a little quaver in her voice. "Do you know," she said, "that sometimes it seems to me that I am ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... not see, in the dimness of the carriage, that she had flushed quickly, and he did not know that she disliked to be reminded of certain things which, for her, were mitigations of the hard feminine lot. But the passionate quaver with which, a moment later, she answered him sufficiently assured him that he had touched her at ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... laughed. The old lady leaned toward him with a mist in her eyes and a quaver in her voice, and asked softly, "Got ary friend that could help ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Then they proceeded to business. There was one very important letter, which demanded some expenditure of time. The secretary was not altogether herself. Her hand trembled a little, and there was a slight quaver in her voice. Her employer noticed these signs of discomposure, and spoke of them in his ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... bravely, trying to clear the quaver in her voice, "and it's so hard for me to explain—and I want you to understand—about—mother, I mean. Mother is dreadfully rude to people at times—she is that way to nearly everyone whom she does not consider smart people." Her young ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... passed, and then other well-remembered spots where former bumps had been made, and still Miller made no sign; on the contrary, he looked gloomy and savage. The St. Ambrosian shouts from the shore too changed from the usual exultant peals into something like a quaver of consternation, while the air was rent with the name ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... silence! There are words that concentrate in themselves the glory of a lifetime; but there is a silence that is more precious than they. Speech ripples over the surface of life, but silence sinks into its depths. Airy pleasantnesses bubble up in airy, pleasant words. Weak sorrows quaver out their shallow being and are not. When the heart is cleft to its core, there is no speech ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the next in speculation. He went into some details to tell me of a strange thing he had witnessed there, and among other names mentioned, he chanced to speak of a Marshal Hastings, who, it seems, is much feared by the bad men of that community. Somehow, I thought I could detect a little quaver in Brother Lu's voice whenever he spoke of this party; and, Thad, do you know, the idea flashed through my brain that perhaps he'd had an unpleasant half hour with that same ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the end of the piece where Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and all the divine company of Olympians are seated, and quaver out her last song as a goddess: so when this portentous elevation was accomplished in the Esmond family, I am not sure that every one of us did not treat the divine Beatrix with special honours; at least, the saucy little beauty carried her head with a toss of supreme authority, and assumed ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... enough danced with rage, screamed all manner of unpleasant things about robbery and the like, cashiered the secretary, and was, we see no reason to doubt, really afraid of a pirated edition. This time his cry of wolf must have had a quaver of sincerity in it. Herr Stahr, who can never keep separate the Lessing as he then was and the Lessing as he afterwards became, takes fire at what he chooses to consider an unworthy suspicion of the ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... speechless with pain, the 148th psalm, which we had just chanced to hear sung, in Brady and Tate's version, to a new and somewhat peculiar tune. Oh, how those "dreadful whales" and "glittering scales" did quaver and quiver in our poor head! Lying like a log—for pain neither permitted us to stir nor groan—still rattled on, hard and quick, the rumbling bass and shrill tenor of that most inappropriately jubilant composition—"cherubim and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... said, "some deal I know it now, that fame; when we draw together before the foemen, and our men cry out, 'The Red Lad! the Red Lad!' in no faltering voice, and even therewith the foeman's ranks quaver, as the trees of the wood when the wind comes up from the ground amongst them; and then I ride forward with Boardcleaver in my fist, and the arrows fly away about me for fear, and the array opens before me, and we plunge in and find nought there, and the rout ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... my shoulder, Shy at first, then somewhat bolder, And up-eyed; Till she, with a timid quaver, Yielded to the kiss I gave ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... when Gordon closed the stable door and turned to his dwelling. A light streamed from a chink in the closed kitchen shutter like a gold arrow shot into the night. From within came the long-drawn quaver of William Vibard's performance of the Arkansas Traveller. He was sitting bowed over the accordion, his jaw dropped, his eyes glazed with the intoxication of his obsession. Rose was rigidly upright in a straight chair, her hands crossed at the ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... responded Theron, as they shook hands and walked on together. He added, with a quaver in his voice, "I am still far from strong. I really ought not to be out at all. But—but the longing for—for—well, I COULDN'T stay in any longer. Even if it kills me, I shall be ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... back—don't you see what I mean?—I don't quite see where I shall be landed. I only want to be quiet, after all," Miss Ambient continued as if she had long been baffled of this modest desire. "And one must be good, at any rate, must not one?" she pursued with a dubious quaver—an intimation apparently that what I might say one way or the other would settle it for her. It was difficult for me to be very original in reply, and I'm afraid I repaid her confidence with an unblushing platitude. I remember, moreover, attaching to it an inquiry, equally destitute of ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... an instant, and Henry was left alone. That instant all the old, primeval instincts, so powerful in him, were aroused. His sixth sense, the sense of danger, was speaking to him in a voice that he could not but hear. There, too, was the quaver of the wolf. All the signals of alarm were set, and he resolved that he should be the first to see danger when It ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... "don't be hasty." Jerkline Jo had seen many a fight between big men of the outdoor life. It was no new experience, and there was not a quaver in her tones. She had been brought up where men settled matters with fists or guns or pick handles. "Listen, Hiram," she continued, "Mr. Drummond is telling the truth, I think, up to a certain point. When you boys were way ahead of me yesterday I heard a rumble behind me. Evidently ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... this ghostly flageoleteer, and knows his Handel to a demi-semi-quaver," said Count ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... Rubens, in spite of all their worshippers. Go join your friend—see everything, enjoy everything, learn everything, and write me an excellent letter, brimming over with your impressions. I'm extremely fond of the Dutch painters," she added with the faintest quaver in the world, an impressible break of voice that Longmore had noticed once or twice before and had interpreted as the sudden weariness, the controlled convulsion, of a spirit self-condemned to play ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... Dodo, "I want to pick everything." She began to fill her hands with dandelions. "Only I wish that mother was here"—and a little quaver shook the ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... full of wonder and romance. I am writing, as usual, by my window, the moonlight brighter in its whiteness than my mean little yellow-shining lamp. From the mysterious greyness, the olive groves and lanes beneath my terrace, rises a confused quaver of frogs, and buzz and whirr of insects: something, in sound, like the vague trails of countless stars, the galaxies on galaxies blurred into mere blue shimmer by the moon, which rides slowly across the highest heaven. The olive twigs glisten in the rays: the flowers of the pomegranate ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... processions, it requires some familiarity with the customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The music to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either, though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of his own manufacture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are not disposed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... experiences of every feeling soul that manifest a sense, imperfect yet animated, of that marvelous sympathy that exists between all phases of life, whether in humanity or in external nature. His natural outbursts of feeling are rare, but delicious as caviare, with a certain quaver of piquancy. 'Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... trembling. Out in front a revengeful brave sent his bullet swirling just above the singer's head, the sharp fragments of rock dislodged falling in a shower upon his upturned face; but the fearless rascal sang serenely on to the end, without a quaver. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... village church. It became very important sometimes for me to see that steeple; and in the midst of my investigations the tin horn would blow a great blast from the farmhouse, which would send a cold chill down my back in the hottest days. I knew what it meant. It had a frightfully impatient quaver in it, not at all like the sweet note that called us to dinner from the hay-field. It said, "Why on earth does n't that boy come home? It is almost dark, and the cows ain't milked!" And that was the time the cows had to start into a brisk pace and make up for lost time. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... said he, with a sudden quaver in his voice, "who was it—what was it, Peter?" and he laid a beseeching hand upon mine. "Peter!" His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, and the hand plucked tremulously at my sleeve, while in the wrinkled old face was, a, look of pitiful ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... violet in April. There should be a flageolet, whence the Cigarette, with cunning touch, should draw melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying that aside, upraise his voice—somewhat thinner than of yore, and with here and there a quaver, or call it a natural grace-note—in rich ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... close to him and was peering at his face. Even in the darkness he could see her big, dark eyes. Her teeth no longer chattered, but there was a perilous quaver in her low, tense voice. She put out a hand to touch him. He ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... to describe the service in detail. There was a discouraging droop and quaver in the singing, and the mournful-looking deacon who passed the collection-plate seemed inured to disappointment. The prayer had in it a note of despairing appeal which fell like a cold hand upon one's living soul. It gave one the impression that ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... monsters that crawled, and crept, and frightened us ever so much," I told him, with a quaver in ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... the bobolink, Remembering duty, in mid-quaver stops Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's tremulous brink, And 'twixt the winrows most demurely drops, 130 A decorous bird of business, who provides For his brown mate and fledglings six besides, And looks from right to left, a farmer ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... muddy-brown corduroy so resembled the broken ground, on which he lay that he was not a very distinct object, even when looked at point-blank. Certainly Mr Sudberry thought him an extremely disagreeable object as he ended in an ineffective quaver and with a deep blush; for that man must be more than human, who, when caught in the act of attempting to perpetrate an amateur concert in all its parts, does not ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... well-tutored voice, though modulated and repressed even in her present emotion, nevertheless had a tendency to quaver. "It's true. Frank Dowling was going to see her one evening and he saw Arthur sitting on the stoop with her, and didn't go in. And Ella used to go to school with a girl who lives across the street from here. ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Porges!" he nodded, his voice all of a quaver. "It's all right, now,—I've found the fortune I've prayed for,—gold, you know, an' banknotes—in a sack. Everything will be all right again now." And, while he spoke, he rose to his feet, and lifting the sack with an ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... placed it upon a bier, and set out. I accompanied the cortege only to the end of the street. Here the driver broke into a trot, and the old man started to run behind the hearse—sobbing loudly, but with the motion of his running ever and anon causing the sobs to quaver and become broken off. Next he lost his hat, the poor old fellow, yet would not stop to pick it up, even though the rain was beating upon his head, and a wind was rising and the sleet kept stinging and lashing his ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... seldom, and by assisting one another, we could walk erect and more quickly. Bohren the younger, who was one of our porters and the youngest of the company, continued his merry song. In moments of peril his voice acquired a decided quaver, but he never paused in his march or in his cadences, and ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... closed eyes to the reading, the quiet rhythm of the sentences, and the calm, deep music of his voice, sounding ineffably soothing, when a quaver, then a break in his voice, just as he repeated the last words, made me look toward him. The calm, strong man was weeping silently; and just then he broke into a paroxysm of sobs that shook his strong frame as by a palsy. Dear Lord! what hidden grief there is in the world! Who would ever ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... quest of Annie. When she reached the door, she stood for a moment on the threshold, and, putting her hand over her eyes, shouted "Annie!" But, apparently startled at the sound of her own voice where the unhearing dead had so lately passed, she let the end of the call die away in a quaver, and, without repeating it, set off to find the missing child by the use of her eyes alone. First she went into the barn, and then through the barn into the stack-yard, and then round the ricks one after another, and then into the corn-loft; but all without ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... getting old—faster and faster. I cannot help my gray hairs, nor the wrinkles that gather so slowly yet ruthlessly; no, nor the quaver that will come in my voice, not the sense of being feeble in the knees, even when I walk only across the floor of my study. But I have not got used to age yet. I do not FEEL one atom older than I did ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... devices cultivated in the epyllion are the long apostrophe, and the sentence or wise saying. Also, these poems employ numerous compound epithets and far-fetched conceits. (Dom Diego goes hunting with a "beast-dismembring blade" [p. 64], and Cinyras incestuous bed in The Scourge "doth shake and quaver as they lie,/As if it groan'd to beare the weight of sinne." ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... calmly at me; the color came back into her face, and in spite of my remonstrance she walked to the window, closed the heavy outside shutters and the blinds. As she was fastening them I heard the whizzing quaver of another shell, the racket of its explosion, the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... piano arrangement (for two pianofortes) for convenience in looking it over. If the concluding figure (Letter M., Moderato pomposo) seems to make a better effect in the instrumentation by following the piano arrangement with the simple quaver figure [Liszt illustrates with a brief musical score excerpt] instead of the triplets, according to the score, I have not the slightest objection to it, and beg you altogether, dear friend, to feel quite free to do as you like in the matter. The flattering thing for me ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... demanded with a regrettable quaver. "Have you come after the Green Box? Because, ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... his wounds with her tears, and dry his damp brow with her glorious hair. Wide-eyed and silent, as the train came near, she moved along by the moat to meet the procession at the drawbridge, not understanding yet, but not letting one movement of the men, one flicker of the lights, one quaver of the deep chant, escape her reeling senses. Then all at once she was aware that Gilbert walked bareheaded before the bier, half wrapped in a long black cloak that swept the greensward behind him. As she turned the last bastion ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... to the house without further words, and Mrs. Forbes called to her son in a voice that had a wrathful quaver. ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... members of their company were paired off and sent about to the cafes to earn their keep by singing ragtime songs and dancing buck dances. These two were desperately, pathetically homesick. One of them blinked back the tears when he told us, with the plaintive African quaver in his voice, how long they had been away from their own country and how happy they would be to get back to ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... "deserves its name better than almost any one of the twenty-four; still I would rather call it improvisata. It seems unpremeditated, a heedless outpouring, when sitting at the piano in a lonely, dreary hour, perhaps in the twilight. The quaver figure rises aspiringly, and the sustained parts swell out proudly. The piquant cadenza forestalls in the progression of diminished chords favorite effects of some of our more modern composers. The modulation from C sharp minor to D major and back ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... you not think that on a day like this, miracles might happen? When the whole earth is vibrant with life, does it not seem to you, Octavie, that heaven might for once relent and give us back our dead?" He spoke very low, advisedly, and impressively. In his voice was an old quaver which was not habitual and there was agitation in every line of his visage. She gazed at him with eyes that were full of supplication and a ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... choristers song that late was so strong Grew a quaver of consternation, For the church did rock as an earthquake shock ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... Nymani; and over his sudden quaver, robbed of all the confidence which had been there only moments ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... proceeded to secrete them in the fallen leaves. Squatted upon the ground, he was too busily engaged to note the sound of approaching footsteps, and started violently when a rough voice accosted him. He mustered courage, however, to quaver:— ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... heart had begun to pound so violently, (not from emotion, he told himself,—from a mere ridiculous sort of nervous excitement: what was there in the woman that should excite a sane man like that?) he was afraid to trust his voice, lest it should quaver and betray him. But fortunately this pounding of the heart lasted only a few seconds. The short business of getting the gate open, and of closing it afterwards, gave it time to pass. So that now, as they set forwards towards the house, he was able to look her in the eye, and to observe, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... inner vision, broke out in a wail of distress, imperfectly smothered. "Whatever they've done I shall never know. Never, never—because I don't want to, and because nothing will induce me. So they may do as they like. But I've worked for them ALL" She uttered this last with another irrepressible quaver, and the next moment her tears had come, though she had, with the explosion, quitted her husband as if to hide it from him. She passed into the dusky drawing-room, where, during his own prowl, shortly previous, he had drawn up a blind, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... moving. The stillness was profound, save for the drizzle of the rain and the drip from the wet branches. He had been walking for a minute or two, trying to keep his path in the thickening twilight, when, far in the depths of the mist, a cannon thundered. Almost at once he heard the whistling quaver of a shell, high in the sky. Nearer and nearer it came, the woods hummed with the shrill vibration; then it passed, screeching; there came a swift glare in the sky, a sharp report, and the steel fragments ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... O Spartans, do I speak. Do you forget how your own countryman, Pericleidas, once came hither suppliant Before our altars, pale in his purple robes, Praying for an army when in Messenia Danger growled, and the Sea-god made earth quaver. Then with four thousand hoplites Cimon marched And saved all Sparta. Yet base ingrates now, You are ravaging the soil of ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... a piteous quaver in the treble voice, and, forgetting that he was no longer a school-boy, he brushed his eyes furtively with his coat-sleeve, as Jack pretended preoccupation ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... she,— And cried: "Now, brave Sir Gawayne,—O what fun! Succor us, save us, else we are undone; Show us the prowess of your arm this night; I never saw a tilt by candle-light!" Gaily she spoke, and seemed all unconcerned; And yet a curious watcher might have learned From a slight quaver in her laughter free To doubt the frankness of her flippancy. Gawayne, bewildered, looked the other way, And wondered what she meant; for in that day The ready wit of man was under muzzle, And woman's heart was ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... stood the trees, with the park behind them. And yet further behind lay the hollow with the awful house in its bosom, its dismal haunted lake and its ruined garden. But nothing moved her. She could have walked over every room in that house without a single quaver of the praecordia. Poldie was dead, but was it not well? Even if he had not been in trouble, what should his death matter? She would die soon herself and for ever: what did that or anything else matter? Might she but keep this dulness of spirit, and never more wake to weep foolish tears ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... Harvey, Young E. Allison, William Allen White, George Ade, Ex-Senator Beveridge and Senator Kern. That night Riley smiled his most wonderful smile, his dimpled boyish smile, and when he rose to speak it was with a perceptible quaver in his voice that he said: "Everywhere the faces of friends, a beautiful throng ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... gesture. girar to gyrate, turn round. gitano gypsy; gitanico (dim.). globo globe. gloria glory. glorioso glorious. gobierno government. golpe m. blow; golpecito (dim.) tap. golleria dainty, excess in eating. gordo fat, corpulent. gorjeo quaver, chirp. gorra bonnet, cap. gorro cap. gozar to enjoy. gozoso joyous. gracia grace, pardon; pl. thanks. grado degree. graduar to grade, estimate. granadero grenadier. granadino of Granada. grande (gran) great, big, grown-up. grandeza ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... birds quaver, Dugperler bade Pearls from night's weeping; Blomsterblade, The flowers are steeping Som Vindene gynge; In the winds which waver; Og med svaevende Fjed To the meadows, fleet En Mo hendandser A maiden boundeth; Til Marken afsted. Violet fillet neat Violer ...
— The Gold Horns • Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager
... of death," he answered, with a quaver of breakdown in his voice, for it had shaken him fearfully, that long, slow torture of being sucked into the green ooze ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant |
