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Vocal   Listen
adjective
Vocal  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to the voice or speech; having voice; endowed with utterance; full of voice, or voices. "To hill or valley, fountain, or fresh shade, Made vocal by my song."
2.
Uttered or modulated by the voice; oral; as, vocal melody; vocal prayer. "Vocal worship."
3.
Of or pertaining to a vowel or voice sound; also, spoken with tone, intonation, and resonance; sonant; sonorous; said of certain articulate sounds.
4.
(Phon.)
(a)
Consisting of, or characterized by, voice, or tone produced in the larynx, which may be modified, either by resonance, as in the case of the vowels, or by obstructive action, as in certain consonants, such as v, l, etc., or by both, as in the nasals m, n, ng; sonant; intonated; voiced. See Voice, and Vowel.
(b)
Of or pertaining to a vowel; having the character of a vowel; vowel.
Vocal cords or Vocal chords. n. pl. (Anat.) The two pairs of mucous membranes that project into the larynx, and which produce the sounds of speech by vibrating under the influence of air exhaled from the lungs. See Larynx, and the Note under Voice, n., 1.
Vocal fremitus (Med.), the perceptible vibration of the chest wall, produced by the transmission of the sonorous vibrations during the act of using the voice.
Vocal music, music made by the voice, in distinction from instrumental music; hence, music or tunes set to words, to be performed by the human voice.
Vocal tube (Anat.), the part of the air passages above the inferior ligaments of the larynx, including the passages through the nose and mouth.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vocal" Quotes from Famous Books



... donkey was inadvertently left outside the ark, but being a good swimmer, he nevertheless managed to preserve his life. After many desperate efforts he at last succeeded in calling out the patriarch's name, as nearly as the vocal organs of a jackass would allow. "No-ah, No-ah," cried the forlorn beast. Noah's attention was at last aroused, and on looking out of window to see who was calling, he perceived the poor jackass almost spent and faintly battling with the waves. Quickly opening ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... respectable education and to mingle in good society, can afford to dispense with this accomplishment. If a young man means to succeed in life and attain distinction and influence, he should spare no pains in the cultivation of the faculty of speech. The culture of his vocal organs should keep pace with the culture of his mental powers. While acquiring a knowledge of literature and science, he should also form the habit of speaking his vernacular with propriety, grace, ease, and elegance, sparing ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... opportunity of seeing the frescoes, but they are covered with dirt, the 'Last Judgment' neither distinguishable nor intelligible to me. The figures on the ceiling and walls are very grand even to my ignorance. The music (all vocal) beautiful, the service harmoniously chanted, and the responsive bursts of the chorus sublime. The cardinals appeared a wretched set of old twaddlers, all but about three in extreme decrepitude— Odescalchi, who is young and a good preacher, Gregorio, Capellari [afterwards ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... into the policy of repression. I say this to what I would call the idealist party. Then I would say something to those who talk nonsense about apathy and supineness. We will not be hurried into repression, any more than we will be hurried into the other direction. This party, which is very vocal in this country, say:—Oh! we are astonished, and India is astonished, and amazed at the licence that you extend to newspapers and to speakers; why don't you stop it? Orientals, they say, do not understand it. Yes, but just let us look at that. We are not ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... so cold during that season that it came to be known in the profession as the "Cave of the Winds," and this title was no reflection on the vocal qualities of ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs—they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways To mend the choirs above. Orpheus could lead the savage race, And trees uprooted left their place Sequacious of the lyre: But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher: When to her Organ vocal breath was given An angel heard, and straight appear'd— Mistaking ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... said curtly. His rich, musical voice, for all its deepness, held a faint hint of the tremulous, birdlike notes heard in the voice of a young child who has not used his vocal chords long enough for them to have lost their ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... Marcia's direction. There were piano solos that were not tedious,—full of melody and feeling, and with few of the pyrotechnical displays which are too common in modern virtuoso-playing; vocal duets and quartets from the Italian operas, and from Orfeo and other German masterpieces; and solos, if not equal to the efforts of professional singers, highly creditable to amateurs, to say the least. The auditors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... the elements of his experience, then verse, or version,—first the soul, then the body. His voice, as such, has little range, nor is it any marvel of organic perfection; on the contrary, there is many a voice with nothing at all in it which far surpasses his in mere vocal excellence; only in this you can hear the deep refrain of Nature, and of Nature chanting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... cadenzas, those endless bravura passages introduced at haphazard irrespective of the dramatic situation, that recurrent crescendo that Rossini brought into vogue, are now an integral part of every composition; those vocal fireworks result in a sort of babbling, chattering, vaporous mucic, of which the sole merit depends on the greater or less fluency of the singer and ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac

... large circle, standing, and sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Ordinarily, on such an open-air and out-of-school occasion, Ramsey would have joined the chorus uproariously with the utmost blatancy of which his vocal apparatus was capable; and most of the other boys expressed their humour by drowning out the serious efforts of the girls; but he sang feebly, not much more than humming through his teeth. Standing beside Milla, ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... the science of arms under Arjuna these and many other kings, O lord of the Earth, used to wait on Yudhishthira on that occasion. And that friend of Dhananjaya, Tumvuru, and the Gandharva Chittasena with his ministers, any many other Gandharvas and Apsaras, well-skilled in vocal and instrumental music and in cadence and Kinnaras also well-versed in (musical) measures and motions singing celestial tunes in proper and charming voices, waited upon and gladdened the sons of Pandu and the Rishis who sat in that Sabha. And seated in that Sabha, those ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... reply. The orchestra of the Flower Garden was of a calibre that discouraged vocal competition; and she was having, moreover, too much difficulty in adjusting her feet to Mr. Cracknell's erratic dance-steps to employ her attention elsewhere. They manoeuvred jerkily past the table where Miss Mabel ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... of the people were only concerned with the general idea. There was no well-defined opposition to that idea. At least it was not vocal. Even the defeat of the Democratic Party in the Congressional elections of November, 1918, could not be interpreted to be a repudiation of the formation of a world organization. That election, by which both Houses of Congress became Republican, ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... a foreign language we find it very difficult, and often impossible, to master some of the new sounds. Our ears do not catch them exactly, or we unconsciously substitute for the foreign sound some sound from our own language. Our vocal organs, too, do not adapt themselves readily to the reproduction of the strange sounds in another tongue, as we know from the difficulty which we have in pronouncing the French nasal or the German guttural. Similarly English differs somewhat as it is spoken by a Frenchman, a German, and an Italian. ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... and locoed by the electric lights and the noises of the phonographs and the second-story railroads that I forgot one of the crying needs of my Western system of natural requirements. I never was no hand to deny myself the pleasures of sociable vocal intercourse with friends and strangers. Out in the Territories when I meet a man I never saw before, inside of nine minutes I know his income, religion, size of collar, and his wife's temper, and how much he pays for clothes, alimony, ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... tumult subsided so that Baiting Will could make himself heard. He was evidently a well-known street wag, for his remarks were received with frequent laughter and vocal applause. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... could not talk because they were unable to hear the sounds of the voice. His father had worked out a plan for teaching the deaf, that the young man improved. It was based on observation of the position of the lips and other vocal organs, while uttering each sound. One by one the pupil learned the sounds by sight. Then he learned combinations of sounds and at last came to where he could "read the lips" and tell what a person was saying by looking at his ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... magnificent streets, shining palaces, and lofty monuments, burst upon my dazzled vision,—how I walked for half a mile along a spacious avenue, beneath an arcade of giant elms hung with wreaths of mist and vocal with singing, feathery fruit,—past marble tombs whose yards were filled with bright and fragrant flowers,— among waving grassy knolls spread with the silver nets of spiders and sparkling dew,—through vales of cool twilight and ravines of sombre dusk,—and so on for more than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... very limited in this respect in the powers which their structure furnishes, can only perform acts of imitation with their vocal organ; this organ, by their habitual efforts to render the sounds, and to vary them, becomes in them very perfect. Thus we know that several birds (the parrot, starling, raven, jay, magpie, canary bird, etc.) ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... Being a complete stranger, I should not have insisted. One of the best singers I ever knew was so morbidly shy that on the platform she was an absolute failure. Her vocal chords became so contracted that she sang quite out of tune, and yet among friends ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... know her; we think there's nobody like Mrs. Grubb; she has a wonderful following, and it's growing all the time; I took this house to be near her. Good afternoon. By the way, if you or any of your friends should require any vocal culture, you couldn't do better than take of Madame Goldmarker in No. 17. She can make anybody sing, they say. I'm taking of her right along, and my voice has about doubled in size. I ought to be leading the Kipling Brothers now, but ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... take very kindly, however, to suggestions thus brought to them. But a current had been started; the attention of the travelling public had been drawn for the first time to the wretched decoration of the cars; and public sentiment was beginning to be vocal. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... Will, which seemed to get his vocal cords in shape again. "We'll fix 'em if they try ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young

... no cessation of the fetes and games. A dance was executed to the sound of two drums, or rather of two hollow trunks, by a hundred and five performers, supported by a vocal choir. Cook reciprocated these demonstrations by putting his soldiers through their artillery exercises, and letting off fireworks, which produced indescribable astonishment in ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... was, you observe, that the Kettle began to spend the evening. Now it was, that the Kettle, growing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked in the bud, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind yet, to be good company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.

... Parties in the South China Sea" has eased tensions but falls short of a legally binding "code of conduct" desired by several of the disputants; Paracel Islands are occupied by China, but claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam; in 2003, China and Taiwan became more vocal in rejecting both Japan's claims to the uninhabited islands of the Senkaku-shoto (Diaoyu Tai) and Japan's unilaterally declared exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea where all parties engage in ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at her. "I dare say you don't know me," she said, with the modern laugh. "I am Mark Ambient's sister." Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting her very low. Her laugh was modern—by which I mean that it consisted of the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms, serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions; but her appearance was—what shall I call it?—mediaeval. She was pale and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and black hair intertwined with ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... rights, to pass so quickly from one point to another that the mind must lose a new one if it lingers to take in the old. Every vital point in a tale must be given a certain amount of time: by an anticipatory pause, by some form of vocal or repetitive emphasis, and by actual time. But even more than other tales does the funny story demand this. It cannot be ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant

... coherent at first. He certainly had trouble with his vocal chords, poor fellow. There was one of those African explorer men used to come to Geisenheimer's a lot when he was home from roaming the trackless desert, and he used to tell me about tribes he had met who didn't use real words at all, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... Respiration as Classified by the Yogis—The Yogi Complete Breath. Chapter VIII. How to Acquire the Yogi Complete Breath. Chapter IX. Physiological Effect of the Complete Breath. Chapter X. Yogi Lore—The Yogi Cleansing Breath—The Yogi Nerve Vitalizing Breath—The Yogi Vocal Breath. Chapter XI. Seven Yogi Developing Exercises. Chapter XII. Chapter XIII. Vibration and Yogi Rhythmic Breathing—How to Ascertain the Heart Beat Unit Used by the Yogis as the Basis of Rhythmic Breathing. Chapter XIV. Phenomena of Psychic Breathing—Directions for ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... visited; won the favour of the wrinkled old priests by their plentiful votives of bright philippi; heard a hundred time-honoured tales that they knew not whether to believe or laugh at; speculated among themselves as to the sources of the Nile, the cause of the vocal Memnon, and fifty more darkened wonders, and resolved to solve every mystery during a second and more ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... mused again, running over in his mind such gulls as he knew, and coming to the conclusion that unless it was some unusual specimen, of great vocal powers, it could not be the black-backed nor the lesser black-backed, nor the ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... nothing except watch, even his vocal diaphragm was locked by the magnetic field. He had more than a suspicion however that he was involved in something other than a "secret business deal." He cursed his own stupidity for walking blindly into ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison

... they are talked to less, what is said is more deeply impressed on their minds, and the chances are that they will remember. Boisterousness is not badness, but indicates a state of well-being, which results in bodily activity, including the use of the vocal cords. It is common to all young animals, and the human animal is the only one that is severely punished ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker

... Majesty's favour, formed a select circle. The conversation turned upon music, and the Queen who had been describing with national partiality the beauty of the hymns sung by the Portuguese mariners, suddenly addressing me, observed that since she left her native country she had heard no vocal music which had given her pleasure except from the lips of Miss Marchmont: 'I cannot' said she kindly smiling, 'as you may perceive, forget the name of one whose society I prized so highly; but if 'Lady Greville' will pardon my inadvertence, and oblige me by singing one of those airs ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore

... united to the first cartilaginous ring of the trachea. The anterior opening is closed by the epiglottis. Just within is a V-shaped opening that is limited laterally by the folds of the laryngeal mucous membrane, the vocal chords. ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... near, Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land, Attracting it body and soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love, Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits, Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him, Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him, Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes, Columbia, Niagara, Hudson, spending themselves lovingly in him, If the Atlantic coast stretch or the Pacific ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... Element or Factor of Oral Speech, the Absolute Reality or 'Affirmation' of Language, is Vocal Utterance, or, specifically, the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... a month old the necessity of giving him a name became apparent. He had generally been known as "The Kid," "Stumpy's Boy," "The Coyote" (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck's endearing diminutive of "The d—d little cuss." But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... large numbers of our fellow citizens born in other lands have not entertained with sufficient intensity and affection the American ideal. But the number of such is, I am sure, not large. Those who would seek to represent them are very vocal, but they are not very influential. Some of the best stuff of America has come out of foreign lands, and some of the best stuff in America is in the men who are naturalized citizens of the United States. I would not be afraid upon the test of "America first" to take a census of all the foreign-born ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... ceased, but lake and hill Were busy with their echoes still; And, when they slept, a vocal strain Bade their hoarse chorus wake again, While loud a hundred clansmen raise Their voices in their Chieftain's praise. Each boatman, bending to his oar, With measured sweep the burden bore, In such wild cadence as the breeze Makes through December's leafless trees. The chorus ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... vocal music is beginning to assert in this country the place it has long held abroad as a great moral educator; no longer regarded as a superfluity of the rich, it is now established as a branch of instruction in almost every school, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various

... our native ragtime. Or a balladist, man or woman, took the centre, and sang towards our compassionate windows. Or a musical husband and wife placed their portable melodeon on the opposite sidewalk, and trained their vocal and instrumental attack upon ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... very popular in those days, and that "several could be heard in different rooms when the windows were open on a summer evening." A quartette orchestra was organized by John S. Newberry, '47, while the first vocal music was started by Fletcher Marsh, of the first class to graduate, in 1844, which "rapidly developed into a good chorus." Dr. Nathaniel West, '46, tells of the fine singing in the chapel exercises of his time, with "excellent support from a University Band of nine pieces." With evident ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... has invented a new system of orchestration; as a matter of fact, we worked it out together, but that's neither here nor there. In some respects it is not unlike Wagner; the vocal music is mostly recitative, but now and then there is nearly an air, and yet it isn't new, for it is how it would have been written about 1500. You see," he said, turning over the pages of the full score, "each character is allotted a different set of instruments ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often assured by a curious observer of nature, who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive notes; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males: they use also a quick call and an horrible scream; and can snore and hiss when they ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... ghost, but; only a ghost, alas! Only that. In his first visit Soames was a creature of flesh and blood, whereas the creatures among whom he was projected were but ghosts, I take it—solid, palpable, vocal, but unconscious and automatic ghosts, in a building that was itself an illusion. Next time that building and those creatures will be real. It is of Soames that there will be but the semblance. I wish I could think ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... of the Southampton, though it stands on classic ground, and is connected by vocal tradition with the great names of the Elizabethan age. What a falling off is here I Our ancestors of that period seem not only to be older by two hundred years, and proportionably wiser and wittier than we, but hardly ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... eyes intensified the impression he gave of force and original power. He smiled humorously. "All the youth, beauty and intellect of Leipzig in one room. I leave you to apportion the qualities. Making much noise, too! And did I hear the strains of a vocal recital?" ...
— A Day with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy • George Sampson

... prestige, rather than for the sake of legal education. After the remarks already made with regard to musical lawyers in a previous section of this work, it is needless to say that Inns of Court men are not remarkable for their application to vocal harmony; but the younger members are still remarkable for the zeal with which they endeavor to master the accomplishments which distinguish men of fashion and tone. If the nominal (sometimes they are called 'ornamental') barristers of the fifteenth century liked ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... a drunken frolic; and at the King's Head, over against the Inner Temple Gate, Shaftesbury and his friends laid their plots, coming out afterwards on the double balcony in front, as North describes them, "with hats and no peruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces and dilated throats, for vocal encouragement of the ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... the stairs, heedless of the confusion of vocal sounds that arose from the lobby strollers, from the boys selling librettos, from the people returning from the vestibule in a thick stream, from the musicians afar in the orchestra, tuning their instruments, from the many sources that provide the delightful ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens

... a like experience in others. These poetical utterances of inarticulate poets are sometimes whimsical but oftener pathetic; sometimes they are like the prattle of little children who exercise their vocal organs before they have anything to say; but oftener they seem to me like the beseeching eyes of a dumb animal, full of affection and entreaty for which he has no vocal expression. It is just as essential ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... they do not themselves come under that head. The Greek lyric poetry was characterized by the expression of deeper and more impassioned feeling, and a more impetuous tone than the elegy and iambus, and at the same time the effect was heightened by appropriate vocal and instrumental music, and often by the figures of the dance. In this union of the sister arts, poetry was indeed predominant, yet music, in its turn, exercised a reciprocal influence on poetry, so that as it became more ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Quentin that he first lectured his servant on the superiority of mind over matter and then took him cheerfully by the throat and threw him into a far corner of the room. As the servant was not more than half the size of the master, his opposition was merely vocal, but it was nevertheless unmistakable. His early career had increased his vocabulary and his language was more picturesque than pretty. Yet of his loyalty and faithfulness, there could be no doubt. During the seven years of his ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... before sunrise to sing hymns of praise. Melody only was used, not harmony, and the tunes employed were, doubtless, of Jewish character. Originally all music of the Christian Church was almost entirely vocal. In the Third and Fourth Centuries the Christian Religion began to grow largely in the number of its followers, in wealth and position; magnificent churches were built under Constantine the Emperor, and then ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... Africans have become increasingly vocal on human rights. African leaders have spoken out on the issue of political prisoners, and the OAU is drafting its own Charter on Human Rights. Three countries in Africa— Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda—have returned to civilian rule during ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... a wide reputation among the Greeks and Romans, under the name of the "Vocal Memnon." When the rays of the rising sun fell upon the colossus, it emitted low musical tones, which the Egyptians believed to be the greeting of the statue to the mother-sun. [Footnote: It is probable that the musical notes were produced by the action of the sun upon the surface of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... of his style is very likely to mislead people into imagining for him a corresponding elaborateness of thought and sentiment. On the contrary, Macaulay's mind was really very simple, strait, and with as few notes in its register, to borrow a phrase from the language of vocal compass, as there are few notes, though they are very loud, in the register of his written prose. When we look more closely into it, what at first wore the air of dignity and elevation, in truth rather disagreeably resembles the narrow assurance of a man who knows that he has with him the great ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Volume I (of 3) - Essay 4: Macaulay • John Morley

... dramatic value to the hitherto primitive sign-language limitation of the Old Drift-men. At this age, the Neolithic, arithmetical questions arising in the course of life would necessarily assume a vocal value instead of a digital one. No longer would fifteen be counted by holding out ten fingers and five toes, but an idiomatic phrase, descriptive of the former sign-language, "of two hands and one foot's ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... perpetual sunshine and blue sky, and ever eager interest and delight,—wild roses blooming under the old stone wall, wild bees humming among the blackberry-bushes, tremulous sweet columbines skirting the vocal woods, wild geraniums startling their shadowy depths; and I hear now the rustle of dry leaves, bravely stirred by childish feet, just as they used to rustle in the October afternoons of long ago. Sweet Puritan Sabbaths! breathe upon a restless world your calm, still breath, and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... in the mustangers' camp, might have accepted the Kentuckian's story. Or he might at least have been uncertain enough not to arrest him, if only Trooper Stevens had not been one of the patrol. Once before Stevens had been most vocal about Rebs who were too free with their fists. Spath's trooper guard, reporting the escape of Running Fox and Anse, had condemned his captive fully as far as the lieutenant was concerned. The troopers had then searched their prisoner and to them ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... of Claire's dismissal from the office ranks of the Falcon Insurance Company Ned Stillman was the recipient of an early telephone message from Lily Condor. It appeared that Flora Menzies, the young woman who usually accompanied her in her vocal flights, had been laid low with pneumonia and she wanted Stillman to persuade Claire Robson to ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... her diseased mind required stronger stimulants, and sought them in gallantry, in basset, and in usquebaugh. [212] While Charles. flirted with his three sultanas, Hortensia's French page, a handsome boy, whose vocal performances were the delight of Whitehall, and were rewarded by numerous presents of rich clothes, ponies, and guineas, warbled some amorous verses. [213] A party of twenty courtiers was seated at cards round a large table on which gold was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to call it a mode of motion in ether; we must rely on the authorities. They tell us that sometime we are going to talk through wireless telephones across thousands of miles, so that no man need ever be out of vocal communication with his family and friends. Is that true? It seems to us an incredible miracle, but we suppose that it is so, as the authorities say. In a word, the idea that we do not use authority in science is absurd. Science is precisely the place where nine hundred and ninety-nine ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... proclaiming, February, March, and April, Spread the tidings far and wide; Thrice they questioned each new-comer, "Know ye, why the sweet-faced Summer, With her rich imperial dower, Golden fruit and diamond flower, And her pearly raindrop trinkets, Should not be the green Earth's Bride?" All things vocal spoke elated (Nor the voiceless Did rejoice less)— "Be the heavenly lovers mated!" All the many murmuring voices Of the music-breathing Spring, Young birds twittering, Streamlets glittering, Insects on transparent wing— ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... bark, but they consist of fragments or selections of songs which have been memorized, the selections relating to the subject upon which the preceptor has been discoursing, and which undoubtedly prompts a rythmic vocal equivalent. These songs are reproduced on Pl. IX, A, B, C. The initial mnemonic characters pertaining to each word or phrase of the original text are repeated below in regular order with translations in English, together with supplemental notes explanatory ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... father's. True the father had not spoken so kindly as he might, but had he known his son, he would often have spoken severely. From the habit of seeking clear and forcible expression in writing, he had got into a way of using stronger vocal utterances than was necessary, and what would have been but a blow from another, was a stab from him. But the feelings of Cornelius in no case deserved consideration—they were so selfish. And now he considered that mighty self of his insulted as well as wronged. What right ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... studied carefully the miracle of speech—how the sounds of the human voice were produced and carried to others—and as a result of this training Mr. Bell had become an expert teacher of the deaf. He was also professor of Vocal Physiology at Boston University where he had courses in lip reading, or a system of visible speech, which his father had evolved. This work kept him busy through the day so whatever experimenting he did with sounds and their vibrations had to be ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... struck Nepenthe on its morning ripple over the Tyrrhenian, setting things astir; it searched a passage through those mighty canes which sprouted in a dank hollow where the rains of winter commingled their waters. The leaves grew vocal with a sound like the splash of a rivulet. Often had he listened joyfully to that melody which compensated, to some small degree, for the lack of the old Duke's twenty-four fountains. Legendary music! Now it made him sad. What was its burden? MIDAS HAD ASSES' EARS. Midas, the fabled king, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... and ceremonials among those who are more simple than himself. He has already made proselytes of one-fifth of the camp; beginning by working on the women, the children, and the weak-minded. His followers are all dancing on the plain, to their own vocal music. The more knowing ones of the tribe look on and laugh; thinking it all too foolish to do harm; but they will soon find that women, children, and fools, form a large majority of every community, and they will have, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... old monastic fane, that none would have deemed its midnight rest had been broken by the impious rites of a foul troop. The choir, where the unearthly scream and the demon laughter had resounded, was now vocal with the melodies of the blackbird, the thrush, and other songsters of the grove. Bells of dew glittered upon the bushes rooted in the walls, and upon the ivy-grown pillars; and gemming the countless spiders' webs stretched from bough to bough, showed ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... you'll have, for tomorrow the idealizator of van Manderpootz goes into the Bacon head of Isaak there. I shall shift the oscillators so that the psychons, instead of becoming light quanta, emerge as an electron flow—a current which will actuate Isaak's vocal apparatus and come out as speech." He paused musingly. "Van Manderpootz will hear the voice of the ideal. Of course Isaak can return only what psychons he receives from the brain of the operator, but just as the image in the mirror, the thoughts will have lost their human ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... drink them without regard to their different properties; but we rather prefer the Congress spring, because it is such a pleasant place to listen to the Troy military band in the afternoon, and the more or less vocal concert in the evening. All the Saratoga world comes and goes before us, as we sit there by day and by night, and we find a perpetual interest in it. We go and look at the deer (a herd of two, I think) behind ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art of music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I mentioned before, is the owner of an accordion. Having myself a well-marked barytone voice of more than half an octave in compass, I sometimes add my vocal ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... in the classification of languages. Two periods in the development of the language may be clearly distinguished. In the older period the vocalization of the language was completely carried out, and the collision of two consonants was almost without exception avoided.(2) By throwing off the vocal and consonantal terminations, and by the weakening or rejection of the vowels, this soft and melodious language was gradually changed in character, and became intolerably harsh and rugged.(3) They changed for example -ramu*af- into -ram*a-, Tarquinius into -Tarchnaf-, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... parrots is advocated in Philadelphia, following on recent announcements from the battlefields of Europe that 'brayless' mules have been perfected for trench and other battle-front labours by a simple operation on the nostrils and the nerves affecting the vocal cords."—Daily Paper. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various

... German correctly, but pronounced the words as though they were English; and this made it not a little difficult to help him, when he read out a German sentence and asked for a translation. He certainly had a bad ear for vocal sounds, so that he found it impossible to perceive ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... wild skurrying of mounted figures almost at the coach wheels, hair streaming, feathers waving, lean, red arms thrown up, the air vocal with shrill outcries—then the dull bark of a Henry, the boom of a Winchester, the sharp spitting of a Colt. The smoke rolled out in a cloud, pungent, concealing, nervous fingers pressing the triggers again and again. They could see reeling horses, ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... like enchantment for Arthur Dillon. He knew the vested priest for his faithful friend; but on the altar, in his mystic robes, uplifted, holding the reverent gaze of these thousands, in an atmosphere clouded by incense and vocal with pathetic harmonies, the priest seemed as far away as heaven; he knew in his strength and his weakness the boy beside him, but this enwrapped attitude, this eloquent, still, unconscious face, which spoke of thoughts ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... E. F.; now upon G.'s amusing mishaps during a late tour in Switzerland, which had—"how unfortunately!"—got into the papers. Now it was concerning the admirable pulpit manners and easily pardoned vocal defects of a certain new rector. Now it turned upon Stephen A. Douglas's last speech; passed to the questionable merits of a new-fangled punch; and now, assuming a slightly explanatory form from the gentlemen to the ladies, showed why there was no need ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... a man of extraordinarily violent language. Consequent, no doubt, on the restraint of having to write always in printable language, his vocal discussion of the subjects on which he wrote was mainly in unprintable. He spoke of trade-unionists always as "those swine and dogs" and of the members of the Government as "those dogs and swine",—swine and dogs being refined and temperate euphuisms ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... Hebraic sages divine, Made vocal by him with new beauties did shine; His choice conversation with children and men, Was often enriched with a song from ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... of any size with the aid of glasses, but not well enough to read, and whatever she learns is taught by reading aloud to her. She has a remarkable memory, as most blind people have, I believe, and she is extremely fond of music, both vocal and instrumental. Do you sing, Miss Huntington?" Mr. Lawrence asked, suddenly breaking in upon his account of his ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... only blessed. So easily can God make a man happy! The past had dropped from him like a wild but weary and sordid dream. He was reborn, a new child, in a new bright world, with a glowing summer to revel in. One of God's lyric prophets, the larks, was within earshot, pouring down a vocal summer of jubilant melody. The lark thought nobody was listening but his wife; but God heard in heaven, and the young prodigal heard on the earth. He would be a good child henceforth, for one bunch of sunrays was enough to be happy upon. His mother ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... exist. Some of them, by acknowledged and competent authorities, have thrown valuable light on a most important element of musical art. Had I not believed that a similar need existed in connection with singing, this addition to vocal literature ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... breasts in paroxysmal woe; Some wore the driveling look of idiocy; Some lost their reason and serenely smiled; Some stalked with features imperturbable, Finding no tear nor vent for their distress; Some groaned, some shrieked, some wept in their despair, Relaxing all attempts at vocal speech; Some recognized the face but not the voice Of some familiar friend, and grasped the hand, Spoke with the eyes, when words ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King

... Egyptian antiquary. At Thebes are the magnificent and temple-like palaces of the greatest of the Pharaohs, the halls of their assemblies and their counsels, the records of their wars and conquests. At Thebes, too, is the Memnon, a mutilated statue of Amnoph, which never was vocal except by trick or in imagination, and the Obelisks, whose form is sufficiently explained, without obscenity or mystery, by the fancy for monolithic monuments and the possession of large blocks of granite. The remains of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... their homes, and the sweet security of their firesides. I see them now marshaled for the last time to receive an honorable discharge from a long campaign, the ensigns of victory everywhere above them, the air vocal with the benedictions of a grateful people. But on that great day of final discharge, at the last roll-call, the heroes were not all there to answer to their names; there were vacant places in the ranks. In the marching and counter-marching, in the assault ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... except as vocal sounds deadened by the impeding fog; but human voices they certainly were. Throwing off her robe she abruptly sat up, seeking, her features tensed with the strain. She beckoned to me. I scuttled over, as anxious as she. The voices ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... company which followed the vocal party, came hurrying along, helter-skelter, as if no drilling had ever been thought necessary in their military education; but, while we were remarking the "admired disorder" of their march, we heard ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... the ear; in the decorative and pictorial arts, through the eye. Generally, the meaning that we find in such productions, the appeal that they make to the understanding or feelings, is as great a source of interest to us as their intrinsic beauty. Poetry and vocal music are greatly dependent for their effect upon the meaning they convey in words; painting and sculpture, upon the ideas or sentiments they suggest. In all four, however, and most decidedly in music unaccompanied by words, the appeal is frequently ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various

... wide hoops; a clear, correct, but somewhat barren and meagre species, tight-laced and high-frizzled in mind and body. It is not a very fertile element for a young soul: not very much of silent piety in it; and perhaps of vocal piety more than enough in proportion. An element founding on what they call "enlightened Protestantism," "freedom of thought," and the like, which is apt to become loquacious, and too conscious of itself; terming, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... son of Mr. Jonathan Tyers, the founder of that excellent place of publick amusement, Vauxhall Gardens, which must ever be an estate to its proprietor, as it is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation; there being a mixture of curious show,—gay exhibition,—musick, vocal and instrumental, not too refined for the general ear;—for all which only a shilling is paid[906]; and, though last, not least, good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale[907]. Mr. Thomas Tyers was bred to the law; but having a handsome fortune, vivacity of temper, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell

... fast to the horizon, and he seemed to be listening for some sound that was wanting from that inland acreage, vocal as it was with the cheerful music of pasturage ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame

... the fields with warriors dragon-sown, And where Ismenus rolls his rapid waters. It saw thee, the smoke, On the horned height—[358] It saw thee, and broke With a leap into light; Where roam Corycian nymphs the glorious mountain, And all melodious flows the old Castalian fountain Vocal with echoes wildly glad, The Nysian steeps with ivy clad, And shores with vineyards greenly blooming, Proclaiming, steep to shore, That Bacchus evermore Is guardian of the race, Where he holds his dwelling-place With her [359], beneath ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... may as well try what our voices can do toward proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may, by the barest possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave him to try the experiment, having no strength to spare for vocal efforts of any sort. My companion shouts at the highest pitch of his voice. Silence follows his first attempt. He tries again; and, this time, an answering hail reaches us faintly through the white fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or stranger, is near us—help ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... hear you," whimpered Harper. "Your lungs and vocal cords are in the other dimension. Here, I'll have you completely returned." He reached a hand toward the cutout, the torso of which still bulged upward ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer

... tempted by avoiding to think of its tempting side and by thinking on such aspects of it as may lead in the right direction. Khantisa@mvara is that by which one can remain unperturbed in heat and cold. By the proper adherence to sila all our bodily, mental and vocal activities (kamma) are duly systematized, organized, stabilized (samadhanam, ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... lifelong friend of Christine Nilsson whom he considered the greatest vocal and dramatic genius of the age. He wrote: "Never did mortal woman sing as she sang that simple ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn

... had done too; and while, further, the author of the work yielded to the consciousness that whereas in general he had come at last scarce to be able to bear the iteration of those words, which affected him as a mere vain vocal convulsion, so not a breath of this association now attended them, so such a person as the Princess could make of ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James

... spring the red squirrels got under my house, two at a time, directly under my feet as I sat reading or writing, and kept up the queerest chuckling and chirruping and vocal pirouetting and gurgling sounds that ever were heard; and when I stamped they only chirruped the louder, as if past all fear and respect in their mad pranks, defying humanity to stop them. No, you don't—chickaree—chickaree. They were wholly deaf ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... and Jahn's Archaeology, together with a course of instruction in polite literature, for which Chambers's English Literature is employed as the text-book, each recitation being attended with selections and criticisms, from teacher or pupils, on the various authors brought into notice. Vocal Music, on the plan of the Boston Academy, is a part of the daily instructions. Linear drawing, and pencilling, are designed also to be a part of the course. Instrumental Music is taught, but not as a part of ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... or "false voices," added to my torture. Within my range of hearing, but beyond the reach of my understanding, there was a hellish vocal hum. Now and then I would recognize the subdued voice of a friend; now and then I would hear the voices of some I believed were not friends. All these referred to me and uttered what I could not clearly distinguish, but knew must be imprecations. Ghostly ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... charming features of this mode of travelling is the joyous, vocal life of the forest at early dawn, when all the feathered tribe come forth to pay their cheerful ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... are flutter'd by no tell-tale gales, Clear melts the azure in the rosy west, Scarce heard, the river winds along the vales, And Eve has lull'd the vocal ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... don't know me," she said with the modern laugh. "I'm Mark Ambient's sister." Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting her very low. Her laugh was modern—by which I mean that it consisted of the vocal agitation serving between people who meet in drawing-rooms as the solvent of social disparities, the medium of transitions; but her appearance was—what shall I call it?—medieval. She was pale and angular, her long thin face was inhabited by sad dark eyes and her ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James

... of the pack without getting shot, civil engineering, decorative art, kalsomining, bicycling, base ball, hydraulics, botany, poker, international law, high-low-jack, drawing and painting, faro, vocal music, driving, breaking team, fifteen ball pool, how to remove grease spots from last year's pantaloons, horsemanship, coupling freight cars, riding on a rail, riding on a pass, feeding threshing machines, how ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... opera has lately been given us by Mr. Anschuetz, with the best use of such means as were at his disposal. The orchestral, choral, and concerted vocal portions are grand and beautiful, highly characteristic and effective. The story is simple, pure, and deeply pathetic. The prison scene affords scope for the finest histrionic abilities. In the solos, however (with the exception of that of Pizarro, where dramatic ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... duality of flesh and spirit. It is the removal of the energizing mind that leaves the frame so empty and meaningless. Think of the undreaming sleep of a corpse which dissolution is winding in its chemical embrace. A moment ago that hand was uplifted to clasp yours, intelligent accents were vocal on those ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... say, ten thousand pounds. Or perhaps, I said to myself, he will beg me to accept a sum of money—I never thought of it as less than a thousand pounds—as a slight recognition of and tribute to my remarkable vocal ability. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... Fest; since the young king has come back from his summer castle on the Starnberg See to live in his dingy palace; since the opera has got into good working order, and the regular indoor concerts at the cafes have begun. There is no lack of amusements, with balls, theaters, and the cheap concerts, vocal and instrumental. I stepped into the West Ende Halle the other night, having first surrendered twelve kreuzers to the money-changer at the entrance,—double the usual fee, by the way. It was large and well lighted, with a gallery all round it and an orchestral ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... provinces. Physiology has studied the action of the vocal organs and the location of the brain centers concerned in speech, while psychology has studied the child's process of learning to speak and the relation of speech to thought, and is more apt to be interested in stuttering, slips of the tongue, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... expecting to be kissed; and he, partly out of pity for the expression that came when he hesitated, and partly out of pure embarrassment and inexpertness, had lightly touched her lips. That had sealed it, possibly. He saw her sitting in rapt fancy in her bedroom— if not more vocal in the rooms below. He saw her writing to an unseen mother in a tone of joyful complacency, and looking at her finger for a ring which he could not place there. He saw the distaste of his own home circle, to which this event ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... assistance in his arduous and often cheerless work. Miss Smith and her sister Louisa had recently taken the musical arrangements of the church in hand, and not before it was needed, were now busying themselves to select and train a rustic choir. The fame of Elsie's vocal abilities had been brought to Rossleigh Rectory by Hendrick, and so one day Mrs. McAravey was surprised by a visit from two bright, fresh young girls. In her reception of them you could not recognise the hard, rude woman who had ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... and written language, but not so filled with complexities as yours, for the reason that owing to the high development of the mental faculties thoughts are almost as audible as words. Hence, converse between individuals on our planet is not altogether a series of vocal ejaculations. On the contrary, among the older members of the race, communication between individuals is in some ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon

... things than the rest of them. Reed had told a truth as undeniable as it was unpalatable: that all of Brenton's adulation came, not from his priestly fervour, but from such personal details as eyes and hair and vibrant vocal cords. As for sincerity—Had he ever been sincere, in any of his preaching? Had any word of his, measured by the simple tenets of his creed, ever in reality rung true? Could he ever, knowing of a surety ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... pupils of the Conservatorium he wrote vocal pieces in from one to ten parts, and he composed also a number of canons in four and five parts, which fact seems to demonstrate that he had no ill-will against the scholastic forms. And now I shall quote a passage from an apparently well-informed writer [FOOTNOTE: ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... grand old poet who wrote the grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spens; nor do towns contend for the honour of having produced the sweet singer of Kirkconnel Lea, the blithe minstrel of Glenlogie, or the first of all the bards who made the Dowie Dens of Yarrow vocal with the song of ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... influenced that public opinion which, in the end, determines political events. "I still live," was Webster's declaration on his death-bed, when the friends gathered around it imagined he had breathed his last; and the same words might be uttered by the Speech of the 7th of March, could it possess the vocal organ which announces personal existence. Between the time it was originally delivered and the present year there runs a great and broad stream of blood, shed from the veins of Northern and Southern men alike; the whole political and moral constitution of the country ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... expression, and he was at his very best when writing in the pure lyric form. His efforts comprising Ops. 56, 58 and 60 are of a rare and expressive order. He also composed a number of fine part-songs for male-voice choruses. Most of his best vocal works are set to his own verses, as he could seldom satisfy himself that words ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... brush suspended for a minute. They called this singing! His mind flitted back to early carol music. Then again he heard the vocal violence outside. ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... as a patrol car turned onto the Avenue ahead. He opened his mouth to scream, but his vocal cords were frozen. The young man followed his eyes to the ...
— Pursuit • Lester del Rey

... the weather, in our summer and autumn woods. It is a note that much resembles that of our small marsh frog in spring,—the hyla; it is not quite so clear and assured, but otherwise much the same. Of a very warm October day I have heard the wood vocal with it; it seemed to proceed from every stump and tree about one. Ordinarily it is heard only at intervals throughout the woods. Approach never so cautiously the spot from which the sound proceeds, and ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... that it is barely appreciable to the human hand. To this unexpected stimulus even the male usually responds by a sudden squeak. There can be no doubt, then, of the possession of a voice by both males and females. The males may be either less sensitive or less given to vocal expression, but they are quite able to squeak when favorable conditions are presented. The possession of a voice by an animal is presumptive evidence in favor of a sense of hearing, but it would scarcely be safe to say that the mice must be able to hear their own voices. Cyon, however, thinks ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... as everyone knows, we mean the relative position of a vocal tone—as, high, medium, low, or any variation between. In public speech we apply it not only to a single utterance, as an exclamation or a monosyllable (Oh! or the) but to any group of syllables, words, and even sentences that may be spoken in a ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... fears of these maritime townships have been worthily made vocal by Dr. George Macdonald. He has done this with a grace and an artistic conception that raise his stories to a very high rank in pure literature. I am afraid Macdonald is not much read by the present generation: his stories are too long, too philosophical, perhaps too poetical, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... cor. "Thus le in lego, and le in legi, seem to be sounded equally long."—Adam and Gould cor. "A distinct and an accurate articulation form the groundwork of good delivery." Or: "A distinct and accurate articulation forms the groundwork of good delivery."—Kirkham cor. "How are vocal and written language understood?"—Sanders cor. "The good, the wise, and the learned man, are ornaments to human society." Or: "The good, wise, and learned man is an ornament to human society."—Bartlett cor. "In some points, the expression of song and that ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... transformations, I should like to see him do for us as many stunts as he can. I've heard from a mortal, named Shakespeare, that, in one performance, Puck could be a horse, a hound, a hog, a bear without any head, and even kindle himself into a fire; while his vocal powers, as we know, are endless. He can neigh, bark, grunt, roar, and even burn up things. Now, I should like to see the fairy that could beat him at tricks. It was Puck himself, who told the world that he was in the habit ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... river-shallows, one of which heaps will sometimes overfill a cart,—these heaps the huge nests of small fishes; the birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck, sheldrake, loon, osprey; the snake, musk-rat, otter, woodchuck, and fox, on the banks; the turtle, frog, hyla, and cricket, which make the banks vocal,—were all known to him, and, as it were, townsmen and fellow-creatures; so that he felt an absurdity or violence in any narrative of one of these by itself apart, and still more of its dimensions on an inch-rule, or in the exhibition of ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... fatal results. To preserve his full strength and activity, a good swordsman should have as much care for his person as a tenor has for his voice. The wrist is as delicate an organ as the throat—the articulations of the legs as sensitive as the vocal chords. The mechanism suffers from the smallest disturbance; the instrument gets out of gear and will not answer to the player. After a night of play or drink, Camillo Agrippa himself could not thrust straight, and his parries were neither sure nor rapid. An error of a hair's breadth ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... the list of musical institutions being the Clef Club (in Exchange Buildings), established March 21st, 1832, for the promotion of musical culture by "providing a central resort for the study and practice of vocal and instrumental music, with the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... substantiate his statement, the raucous voice, accompanied by resounding chords strummed on a banjo, sounded again. The vocal and instrumental chaos was frequently punctured by revolver reports, as the torturesome Caruso ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... gravity, which the reflection of less holy subjects could not produce. It was my delight to pray fervently and tacitly, and this I often did besides the usual time allotted for such devotion. (Vocal prayer is not admissible among the Shakers.) I loved to unite in the dance, and give myself up to the operations of spirits even, if it would not thwart my meditative communion with God and with God alone. ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... third, those which are both visible and tangible. To the first kind, which is much the most common, belong the invisible spirit hands which so frequently stroke the faces of the sitters or carry small objects about the room, and the vocal organs from which the "direct voice" proceeds. In this case, an order of matter is being used which can neither reflect nor obstruct light, but which is capable under certain conditions of setting up vibrations in the atmosphere which affect us as sound. ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater

... Matilda (1895) which slowly became an Australian symbol and national song. The poems he wrote for a Sydney newspaper led him into reporting, and he went to South Africa to cover the Boer War. Always a fair man, he had his doubts about the war and was a little too vocal about it for the tastes of some of his readers. During the First World War he served in Egypt as a Major in a Remount Unit, training horses for the war. This fit one of his main interests in life — horses —a preoccupation which is ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... unlooked-for contingency. Evelyn announced her intention of going, as soon as I should be able to spare her, with a party of young friends, to hear a celebrated singer perform in an oratorio in the cathedral of an adjacent city, her specialty being vocal music, and her mourning permitting only sacred concerts. Her own highly-cultivated voice, it is true, had ill repaid the care that had been lavished on it, sharp and thin as it was by nature. I urged her ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... playmates the ocean billows, that stooped their foamy crests, and ran rippling to kiss her feet. Ariel and his attendant sprites hovered over her head, ministered duteous to her every wish, and presented before her pageants of beauty and grandeur. The very air, made vocal by her father's art, floated in music around her. If we can presuppose such a situation with all its circumstances, do we not behold in the character of Miranda not only the credible, but the natural, the necessary ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... challenge! yet the charmed spell, which summons man to high discovery, is ever vocal in the outward world, though they alone may hear it, who have hearts responsive to its tone. The gale of spring, breathing sweet balm over the western waters, called forth that gifted old adventurer[10] to seek the perfumes of spice-laden winds, far in the Indian Isles. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... as darkness fell, and Siena grew vocal with that shrill diversity of sounds that breaks, on summer nights, from every cleft of the masonry in old Italian towns. Then the moon rose, unfolding depth by depth the lines of the antique land; and Ralph, leaning against ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... cat with a long red dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, and then she would catch on to the highest note she could reach and hang to it like a dog to a ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... Ignatuis La Trobe, "is both vocal and instrumental; the former is, however, confined to sacred compositions, congregational, choral, and orchestral, the great object being to turn this divine art to the best account for the service and edification of the Church." At that time (about 1768) the dormitory of Fulneck Boys' School ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... birth two realms contend; And each asserts her poet, patriot, friend: Her mitre jealous Britain may deny; That loss Ierne's laurel shall supply; Through life's low vale, she, grateful, gave him bread; Her vocal stones shall ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... to herself, Liane Delorme would do an injury to his eardrums as well as to her own vocal chords, Lanyard stepped across the dead bulk of the Apache and planted himself squarely in front of the woman. Seizing her forearms with his two hands, he used force to drag them down to the level of her waist, and purposely made his grasp so strong ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... he arose at eleven o'clock on the morning after the double murder, having slept like a top through all of the commotion. He boomed all over the place, vocal castigations falling right and left on the guilty and the innocent without distinction. He wouldn't have missed the excitement for anything in the world. He didn't mind missing the breakfast he was to have had with Barnes, but he did feel outraged ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... useful article of food in hot countries where the digestive functions become sluggish. Used in moderation it prevents dyspepsia and consequent diarrhoea. It is used as a gargle for hoarseness, decreasing the congestion of the larynx and vocal cords. ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... "Exercises for Elemental Vocal Expression" and "Exercises for Transition," with a few exceptions, are taken from "The Sixth Reader," by the late Lewis B. Monroe, and are here reprinted through the courtesy of the ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers

... style," cried the first speaker, bursting out with a very good imitation of Punch in one of his vocal efforts, and supplementing it with a touch of the terpsichorean, tripping along in step with a suggestion of ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn



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