"Modulate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indolence, a lethargy of mind, and a continual suspense from all exertion. The very children catch the contagion from their parents; they are instructed in every effeminate art—to dance in soft unmanly attitudes; to modulate their voices by musical instruments, and to adjust the floating drapery of their dress. These are the arts in which both sexes are instructed from their infancy; but no one is taught to wield the arms of men, to tame the noble steeds in which the country ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... but no music came. 'Those were surely no mortal sounds!' said she, recollecting their entrancing melody. 'No inhabitant of this castle could utter such; and, where is the feeling, that could modulate such exquisite expression? We all know, that it has been affirmed celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth. Father Pierre and Father Antoine declared, that they had sometimes heard them in the stillness of night, when they alone were waking to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... Hawkins gives pictures of a treble, a tenor, and a bass cornet, copied from Mersennus, who remarks that the sounds of the cornet are vehement, but that those who are skilful, such as Quiclet, the royal cornetist (i.e., of France, 1648) are able so to soften and modulate them, that nothing can be ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... the poor fellow remained an impenetrable mystery to me. The blows were given by a person of grisly aspect, with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in the gentler sex. There being no teeth to modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but stern, which absolutely made me quiver like calf's-foot jelly. Who could the phantom be? The most awful circumstance of the affair is yet to be told: for this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... artist has, therefore, always to ask himself,—first, "Is my whole right?" Secondly, "Can my details be added to? Is there a single space in the picture where I can crowd in another thought? Is there a curve in it which I can modulate—a line which I can graduate—a vacancy I can fill? Is there a single spot which the eye, by any peering or prying, can fathom or exhaust? If so, my picture is imperfect; and if, in modulating the line or filling the vacancy, I hurt ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... not, or pass them by, with a word or a smile of short surprise. How leaps the baby in its mother's arms, when the mysterious charm of music thrills through its little brain! And how learns it to modulate its feeble voice, unable yet to articulate, to the melodies that bring forth all round its eyes a delighted smile! Who knows what then may be the thoughts and feelings of the infant awakened to the sense ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... I could modulate my voice so as to be heard at quite a distance, and yet cause no jar to very sensitive nerves close at hand; and when I told my patient that I proposed to punish him now, while he was in my power, all heard and wondered; then every one was stimulated to learn that it was to ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm |
