"Euphony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poetry is aware of the large share which the mere sound of the words contributes to its beauty. This is true even when we abstract from rhythm, which we shall neglect for the time being, and think only of euphony, alliteration, assonance, and rime. There is a joy truly surprising in the mere repetition of vowels and consonants. For myself, I find a pleasure in the mere repetition of vowels and consonants all out of proportion to what, a priori, I should be led to expect from so ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... the latter has; and Columbus insists on a lake. He also went in one day with oars around the north end—a feat impossible in one case and easy in the other. Watling, for this and other reasons dwelt on by English surveyors, is on the new maps rebaptized San Salvador, in rectification of euphony not less than of historic truth. If now equally successful inquiry could be brought to bear on the identity of the Discoverer's bones, claimed alike by Hayti and Cuba, it would be an additional comfort to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Nevertheless it still shows evidence of superiority to other languages in its system of accents which shows the proper expression in reading, and in its wonderful system of vowel changes producing euphony in expression and variation ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... alligator, with a sprinkling of the snapping turtle." At every forking of the roads, whenever I inquired my way, in my ears rang those classic homonyms, till my soul was sick of sounds. "Swampville" was euphony, and "Mud Creek" soft music in comparison! Beyond Dresden, the titles became more appropriate and much more rare. There were long stretches having no names at all: for the simple reason, that there were no places to bear them. The numerous creeks, however, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... happened to strike upon Christian names. I attacked the cognomens in ordinary use, maintaining that their historic significance was lost, their religious sentiment forgotten, their euphony mostly questionable. Alfred, Henry and William no longer carried the thoughts back to the English kings—Joseph and Reuben were powerless to remind us of the mighty family ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the form which the Latin word numerus takes is number; in Spanish, nombre. The b makes no part of the original word, but has been inserted for the sake of euphony; or, to speak more properly, by a euphonic process. The word euphony is derived from [Greek: eu] (well), and [Greek: phone] (f[^o]nae, ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, All in time, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! O, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells, How it dwells On the future! how it tells Of rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— To the rhyming and the chiming ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of this people is just as strange as they are themselves. It is based on euphony, from which cause it is very complex, the more especially so as it requires one to be possessed of a negro's turn of mind to appreciate the system, and unravel the secret of its euphonic concord. A Kisuahili grammar, written by ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... laved by the waters of the Cantabrian Gulf or Bay of Biscay. This language is commonly known as the Basque or Biscayan, which words are mere modifications of the word Euscarra, the consonant B having been prefixed for the sake of euphony. Much that is vague, erroneous, and hypothetical, has been said and written concerning this tongue. The Basques assert that it was not only the original language of Spain, but also of the world, and that from it all other languages are derived; but the Basques ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... brighter, and their faces, I do believe, sweeter and sweeter; singing always with the same constancy for the slave, for the drunkard, for the snufftaker, for the suffragist,—"There'sa-good-time-com-ing-boys (nothing offensive is intended by "boys," it is put in for euphony, and sung pianissimo, not to offend the suffragists), it's-almost-here." And what a brightening up of their faces there is when they say, "it's-al-most-here," not doubting for a moment that "it's" coming tomorrow; and the accompanying melodeon ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sight nonsense, I have no hesitation in saying has a high antiquity, and refers to the Eddaic Hjuki and Bil. The names indicate as much. Hjuki, in Norse, would be pronounced Juki, which would readily become Jack; and Bil, for the sake of euphony and in order to give a female name to one of the children, would become Jill. The fall of Jack, and the subsequent fall of Jill, simply represent the vanishing of one moon spot after another, as the moon wanes. But the old Norse ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... of their tongue; the French the colloquial and courtly character of theirs; the Germans the inherent energy and philosophical adaptation of the German; the Spanish the wide territorial distribution and the pompous euphony of that idiom; and so ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... this general rule are found, where euphony would be violated by the additional s: as, Ulysses' ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... well as you do; and that its moving your sympathies does mean that I have done it pretty well. I cannot tell you the pains I expended on it! All those sentences about the Camp were written in scraps and corrected for sense and euphony, etc., etc., bit by bit, like "Jackanapes"!!! Did I tell you about "Tuck of Drum"? Several people who saw the proof, pitched into me, "Never heard of such an expression." I was convinced I knew it, and as I said, as a poetical ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... considered the true name impossible. My poor mother's name, for example, was really Nna Haras, and Mahaina's Enaj Ysteb, which he dared not face. He, therefore, gave these characters the first names that euphony suggested, without any attempt at translation. Rightly or wrongly, I have determined to keep consistently to translation for all names not used in my father's book; and throughout, whether as regards names or conversations, I shall translate with the ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... conscious of it. Those rare dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront everything with perfection, would have caught a glimpse in this little working-woman, through the transparency of her Parisian grace, of the ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred. She was beautiful in the two ways—style and rhythm. Style is the form of the ideal; rhythm ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... words appealing to my sense of euphony, I repeated it, again and again, each time with a more relishing gusto. "Avis dear! dear Avis! dear, dear Avis!" I experimented. "Why, each one is more hopelessly unforgettable than the other! Oh, Avis dear, why are you so absolutely and entirely unforgettable all around? Why do you ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... instance, in German, is almost equally as telling and forcible as Shakspeare in English; while, in French—Bah! you should just hear it as once I heard it, and you would laugh! Indeed, if we are strictly logical on the point of the euphony of language, the Italian dialect, which we deem so soft and liquid, sounds quite harsh, I'm told, in comparison with the labial syllables that the Polynesian islanders use ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in both cases where any ruggedness in the natural collocation of the words may present itself. For instance, change in the accent, the elision or the addition of a letter or syllable, the lengthening of a vowel, transposition, and a hundred other little artifices. The euphony itself, though sometimes a little imperfect, is also studied with the same kind of care in the older and purer proverbs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... starvation at the Cafe du Bel Avenir this evening—or perhaps we had better fast at the Lucullus Junior, instead; there is occasionally some ink in the bottle there. I shall put the address in the margin—my uncle will not know where it is, and on the grounds of euphony I have no fault to find with it. It would not surprise me if I received an affectionate letter and a bank-note in reply—the perversity of human nature delights in generosities to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the French names, on account of their measure and euphony. Joas and Joad I have, I believe, invariably versified as one syllable, and Baal also, with one exception, which occurs in the first page; these words, to my judgment, being scarcely of greater quantity than thought, wrought, ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... but Adelheid's eyes sought the paper with an expression of keen interest. A few verses, written in a careless, hasty hand, covered the white page. Egon began to read. They were indeed German verses, but in them was a pureness and euphony which told that they could only have been written by a master of that tongue, and the description which they gave was one well known to both listeners. Deep, sad, woodland loneliness, pervaded by the first breath ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... Mackenzie frankly hadn't any chin, Her hands were rough, her feet she turned invariably in; Her general form was German, By which I mean that you Her waist could not determine Within a foot or two. And not only did she stammer, But she used the kind of grammar That is called, for sake of euphony, askew. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... leafy canopies, with merry minstrelsy of birds." He laments over separation from friends and kin, weeps over the shortness of life and the rapid approach of hoary age—all in polished language, sometimes, however, lacking euphony. Even when he strikes his lyre in praise and honor of his people Israel, he fails to rise to the lofty heights attained by his ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... former, it is soft-sounding, and very rich and flexible. Sir Henry says that it sounds something like modern Greek, but of course it has no connection with it. It is easy to acquire, being simple in its construction, and a peculiar quality about it is its euphony, and the way in which the sound of the words adapts itself to the meaning to be expressed. Long before we mastered the language, we could frequently make out what was meant by the ring of the sentence. It is on this account that the language lends itself so well to poetical declamation, of which ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... girl she may be compelled to answer to "Little Slave," and if a boy to "Baldhead." But the names usually given indicate the place or time of birth, the hope of the parent for the child, or exhibit the parent's love of beauty or euphony. ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... retain their first vowel, but this is entirely a question of euphony. The methods of their employment with nouns will be ...
— The Arawack Language of Guiana in its Linguistic and Ethnological Relations • Daniel G. Brinton
... action, by which, in the general struggle for existence, some terms and dialects gain the victory over others. The slightest advantage attached to some new mode of pronouncing or spelling, from considerations of brevity or euphony, may turn the scale, or more powerful causes of selection may decide which of two or more rivals shall triumph and which succumb. Among these are fashion, or the influence of an aristocracy, whether of birth or education, popular ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... with a vowel, or with the letter "h," the final "e" was almost without exception mute; and in such cases, in the plural forms and infinitives of verbs, the terminal "n" is generally retained for the sake of euphony. No reader who is acquainted with the French language will find it hard to fall into Chaucer's accentuation; while, for such as are not, a simple perusal of the text according to the rules of modern verse, should remove ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that every letter or sound had its value,—if, in the analysis of a name, it becomes necessary to get rid of a troublesome consonant or vowel by assuming it to have been introduced 'for the sake of euphony,'—it is probable that the interpretation so arrived at is not the ...
— The Composition of Indian Geographical Names - Illustrated from the Algonkin Languages • J. Hammond Trumbull
... pointed out that such an expression as "cellar door," considered merely from the viewpoint of sound, is one of the most romantically suggestive words in the English language. A consideration of some of the names of biscuits and collars will show a similar exploitation of both the euphony and the ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... and then, as if exhausted by the leap, creeping sluggishly its little distance toward the broad Hudson. The white spray, churned out by the friction against the air, and flung perpetually upwards, suggested to our sires a name for this miniature Niagara; and, without any regard for romance or euphony, they called it Buttermilk Falls. It was a charming spot, notwithstanding its homely name, before the speculative spirit of progress—stern foe of Nature's beauties—had pushed the borders of the city close upon the tiny cataract, hewed ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... stanza of its most striking feature—and one, moreover, that is easily preserved in English—he does not make clear. The versions of Foster-Barham and of Horton and Bell show the same disfigurement, the latter omitting the extra accent of the fourth line, as they say, "for the sake of euphony"(!). It is just this lengthened close of each strophe that gives the Nibelungenlied its peculiar metrical character and contributes not a little to the avoidance of monotony in a poem of over two thousand strophes. In theory the form of the fourth line as it stands in the original is no more foreign ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... parentage I am not able to say much. I have heard it asserted that he is lineally descended from that eminent physician who assisted at the birth of Mr. T. Shandy, and that in early years he added an "e" to his name, for the sake of euphony, as other great men have done before him. If this be so, I presume he was christened Obadiah, for that is his name, in commemoration of the conflict in which his ancestor so distinguished himself. All my researches on the subject have, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... side on which their bread was buttered, "rallied" to the Republic. I rather fancy that some question connected with the return of the confiscated Orleans fortunes came into play here. The adherents of the Comte de Chambord always spoke of him as Henri V. For some reason (perhaps euphony) they were invariably known as "Henri Quinquists." In the same way, the French people speak of the Emperor Charles V. as "Charles Quint," never ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... this crucial hour of her poetic career, Mabel Ashbourne wanted something more than a patient listener. She wanted a critic with a fine ear for rhythm and euphony. She wanted a judge who could nicely weigh the music of a certain combination of syllables, and who could decide for her when she hesitated between two epithets of equal force, but varying depths ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... respects a remarkable man, and came near to being a great one. His name originally was Lorenzo Smith, to which in later years he added that of Desborough—partly for euphony, partly because the initials made to his mind a pleasing combination, partly also in pursuance of his theory of life, that he best succeeds who makes others work for him. By annexing the Desborough patronymic—which, however, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... yet seen. Mitchell, ever on the alert to bestow native names on geographical features — a most praiseworthy trait in his character, and through the absence of which in most other explorers, Australian nomenclature lacks distinction and often euphony — enquired of the name from the natives, and found it to be called the Karaula. Was this, or was this not the nebulous Kindur? The answer could be supplied only by tracing its course; but its general direction and the discovery and recognition ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc |
