"Staccato" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her voice penetrating the staccato fragments all about her and gathering them into a whole. "Say, who's the heroine of this picture? I come in in the middle ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... before the slip, the plane turned and went away, making a complete circle, then coming to rest. To the surprise of every one, the rapid staccato bark of the Lewis gun broke the silence. Kennedy was evidently firing, but at what? There ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... absence of vibratory media the noises of the reef are isolated. furtive, echoless—staccato accidentals and dull dissonances out of tune with the soothing theme of the sea. Hence, when, as I wandered absorbed in an inspection of minor details, and a mellow whistle, constant but varying in volume, broke in upon my musings, it was vain ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... resonant medium; by the use—when the voice is employed—of conventional verbal symbols instead of the elements of significant speech; and—where actual verse has been spoken—by a treatment of the words in formal staccato scansion, or by the beating of time throughout the utterance. The last of these methods is a halting between two courses which casts doubt on the results as characteristic of either type of activity. There is no question that the rhythmic forms of ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... which separated the final words brought a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach, and the discomfort of a fencer, dueling in the dark—a swordsman who recognizes that his cleverness is outmatched. His question came with a staccato abruptness. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... I saw the company pass me gaily down the road, preceded by the hounds, trotting with a staccato step and their noses in ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... I see!" exclaimed Mr. Day in staccato fashion, and evidently very much relieved. "Mrs. Watkins is ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... memorandize. I almost fancy he knows me. Three days later.—My second kingfisher is here with his (or her) mate. I saw the two together flying and whirling around. I had heard, in the distance, what I thought was the clear rasping staccato of the birds several times already—but I couldn't be sure the notes came from both until I saw them together. To-day at noon they appear'd, but apparently either on business, or for a little limited exercise only. No wild frolic now, full of free fun and motion, up and down for an hour. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... And Sally, after an intricate movement with a safety-pin, an openwork lace cuff that has lost a button, and a white wrist, goes down three accelerandos of stair-lengths, with landing pauses, and ends with a dining-room door staccato. But she isn't long gone, for in two minutes the door reopens, and she comes upstairs as fast, nearly, as she went down. In her hand she ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... overtopping elevator went up alongside—from small buyers who found themselves being driven out of the market with the flat warehouses. But these voices were drowned in the swish of grain in the chutes and the staccato of the elevator engines—lost in the larger exigencies of the wheat. The railway company held to their promises and the tall grain boxes reared their castor tops against the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... of a smooth, brown head, and on the moment out flew the rope, whirled into space with a skilful jerk which sent the noose flying wide, and with an accuracy of aim which brought it right round the neck of the new-comer. She squealed indeed, but horror of horrors! she squealed in French, with such staccato "Oh's" and "Ah's" of astonishment as could only have come from one person in the house. It was Mademoiselle herself! and lifting her glance she beheld six horrified faces peering at her over the banisters, six pairs of startled eyes, six mouths agape with dismay. She looked, and ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... audience and all eyes turned towards the grand pavilion. When the trumpet blew the second time, just before the Emperor came in sight, the hush deepened and the spectators watched intently. When his head appeared as he mounted the stairs the audience burst into the short, sharply staccato song of welcome, something like a tuneful, sing-song college yell, with which Roman crowds greeted their master. This vocal salute, a mere tag of eight or nine syllables, each with its distinctive note, was repeated over and over until the Emperor ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... cried Robin in delighted staccato. "It's just made for what we want. Look—a fireplace!" To be sure, it was nothing more than a gap in the wall. "And these darling windows. We can put a seat way across, all comfy." She promptly saw, in her mind, Susy curled upon it with a beautiful picture book ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... Staccato! Staccato! Leggier agitato! In and out does the melody twist— Unique proposition Is this composition. (Alas! for the player who hasn't the wrist!) Now in the dominant Theme ringing prominent, Bass still repeating ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... talks very much as she writes, and those who have enjoyed her Summer Hours can imagine the bright staccato strain of her conversation. She seemed when in the White House to be always longing for what she used to call her "little old house on the Holland Patent, with the village on the one side and the hills on the other." She remarked one day to a lady visitor: "I wish that ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... magic zone the throb of the engine, the hiss of the carburettor, the swift brush of the tires upon the road—three rousing tones, yielding a thunderous chord, were curiously staccato. The velvet veil of silence we rent in twain; but as we tore it, the folds fell back to hang like mighty curtains about our path, stifling all echo, striking reverberation dumb. The strong, sweet smell of the woods enhanced ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... road floated the staccato note of a staff beating its surface, and the clanking tinkle of an iron ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... substances—which may be coins or keys—nervously and intermittently. Surveyor, a burly mass of broadcloth and big watch-chain, carries an intimidating note-book, and a menacing pencil, making mems. in a staccato and stabbing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... my misty meditation, at the second changin'-station, Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato, Played on either pony's saddle by the ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... together with his breakfast, lay the three newspapers he had bespoken. Polly Sparkes throughout her leisurely toilet was moved to irritation and curiosity by the sound of frequent laughter on the other side of the party wall—uproarious peals, long chucklings in a falsetto key, staccato ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... was abruptly upset by James Polder's familiar, staccato utterance. The precipitant young man! It stamped out all Howat Penny's humorous condescension; his sensitive ear was conscious of a note, almost, of desperation. He avoided looking at Mariana. Damn it, the thing unexpectedly cut at him like ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... asked, jerking out the two words in a high staccato. He hated to be questioned, particularly by his wife. His hands reached for the satchel he ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... The staccato cheers of Princeton rocketed along the other side of the field, and the eleven from Old Nassau ran briskly over the turf and wheeled into line for a last rehearsal of their machine- like tactics. Henry Seeley was finding it hard to breathe, just as it had happened in other ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... reading instruments and keying controls. So he was back on the job. Mannion sat, head bent, monitoring his recorder. The room was filled with the keening staccato of the alien transmission. ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... biplane hummed on and on in long rising and falling slants, like a swallow skimming the surface of a lake. The even staccato of the exhaust, echoless in that height and vacancy, rippled with cadences like a monster mowing-machine. And Stern was beginning to consider himself as good as in Boston already—was beginning to wonder where the best ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... relieve the strain on his eyeballs, which ached fiercely. His pony, having worked off its excess of spirit, settled down into a tireless pace that tested the picked mounts the planters had selected as their best, and the miles passed in silence save for staccato pounding of hoofs on hard packed earth and the swish of underbrush that lined the narrow ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... tales that go to make up the volume are wild, exotic glimpses of Latin-America. I doubt whether the color and spirit of that region have been better rendered than in Stephen Crane's curious, distorted, staccato sentences. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... pitiful eyes were on him perpetually, trying to make him out, to acquaint herself with this new personality, which spoke in these harsh staccato phrases—to reconcile it with the exciteable, sanguine, self-confident man whom she had deserted in ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... continued, the words leaving her lips with a sort of staccato incisiveness, crisp and emotional. "No! you are here, and you shall answer. Who are you who come here to mock us all; because it is a dead man who speaks with your voice, and looks with your eyes? You will not dare to say that you are ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as they made no sound, the brute wheeled suddenly, made a complete circle at a nervous trout, uttered a series of short, staccato sounds that, when he became older, would become deeper, more of an ominous roar than a ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... woman you meant?" said the General, turning to Boris. He spoke as if he were on the parade-ground, every word sharp, caustic, staccato. ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... trampled therefore. He was bearing down on them from the left, with his wicked little eye red, his great horn down and his tail like a jury-mast behind him. For a minute Ugh-lomi was minded to slip off and dodge, and then behold! the staccato of the hoofs grew swifter, and the rhinoceros and his stumpy hurrying little legs seemed to slide out at the back corner of Ugh-lomi's eye. In two minutes they were through the bushes of May, and out in the open, going fast. For a space he could hear the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... I," he said, in his usual swift, staccato manner, "because we've agreed that you are the best man in the Service to handle the mission we have ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... thinks and lives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the river Ganges: presto.] among those only who think and live otherwise—namely, kurmagati [Footnote: Like the tortoise: lento.], or at best "froglike," mandeikagati [Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to be "difficultly understood" myself!)—and one should be heartily grateful for the good will to some refinement of interpretation. As regards "the good friends," however, who are always too easy-going, and think that as ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... that P. Sybarite entertained any misapprehensions as to the nature of the institution into which he had stumbled. He had not needed the sound, sometimes in quieter moments audible from upstairs, of a prolonged whirr ending in several staccato clicks, to make him shrewdly ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... the distant speck on the water was fast assuming the proportions of a motor-launch. He noticed too that the approaching craft was coming at a high rate of speed and was swerving shoreward. Tugging harder at the nets, he worked doggedly on, listening to the staccato bark of the speed-craft as Mascola drew close. They were hauling at the last string when he came ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... come from the excellent violinist Slavik. With the exception of Paganini, I never heard a violin-player like him. Ninety-six staccato notes in one bow! It is almost incredible! When I heard him I felt inclined to return to my lodgings and sketch variations on an Adagio [which they had previously agreed to take for their ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... remove our shoes and put on sandals. Instead of sitting down on chairs we took any position we could on the floor mats that were placed at our disposal. At the first sound from the throat of a famous singer in a staccato "E-E-E-E," we all sprang to our feet thinking she was possibly going into some sort of a fit. With a twang on the strings of the flattened out little instrument, we subsided, concluding that the concert had ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... somewhere out on the frozen Severn, there came faint yells, followed by the staccato of revolver and rifle shots. Just as suddenly, all the life in the factory came to a dead stop, as everyone listened for more shots by which to make sure of the direction. Three minutes later, the additional ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... in the Place d'Armes, squads of conscripts are busily drilling, running hither and thither with unflagging energy, and the air resounds with the hoarse staccato cries of "Un! Deux! Trois!" wherewith they accompany their movements, cries that, heard from a short distance, exactly resemble the harsh barking of a ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... staccato sentences he told her of his lapse of memory. "It was not because I was a thief; because I was kicked from the turf; because ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... hangar calling to Burnside excitedly. It was only a moment later, that he began to issue orders in his sharp staccato. His men swarmed forward and took the torpedo from the spot where they had been examining it, adjusting it ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... save where a little spreading feather of black ripple showed the course of some water-rat. Bats wheeled and dipped like some company of nocturnal swallows, pursuing their minute prey, and uttering their little staccato cries so high in the scale that none but the acute ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... who had made his way in the world and perhaps exaggerated his achievement. He expected people to be interested also in meeting him. He expected from the great genius a reciprocal buoyancy. Madame von Marwitz bent her brows upon him. Irony grew in her smile, a staccato crispness in her utterance. Cool and competent as he was, Bertram presently looked disconcerted; he did not easily forgive those who disconcerted him, and, making no further effort to carry on the conversation, he sat silent, ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... noises had run across the shivering surface of the ice. Through the foggy nights, a muffled intermittent booming went on under the wild scurrying stars. Now and then a staccato crackling ran up the icy reaches of the river, like the sequent bickering of Krags down a firing line. Long seams opened in the disturbed surface, and from them came a harsh sibilance as of a line of cavalry ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... of the crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed through, ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... great building two sounds deafened an unfamiliar ear: a steady roar, deep and persistent, and through it, like a staccato pulse, a louder, more painful, more penetrating din. The bass to this harsh treble arose from humming belts and running wheels; the crash that punctuated their deep-mouthed riot broke from the drawing heads ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... any doctors," the woman said, in tones crisp and staccato with pain and irritation. "Go away. Good night. We ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... stationed with a rifle on a butte overlooking the desert maze, gave a sudden shout. The next instant his rifle was at his shoulder and he began shooting into the air as fast as he could. As the rapid staccato volley of sound rattled forth all ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... had come at last. Its glare was upon the sky at night, and all day long reiterated its persistent staccato menace: ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... its high, staccato note from the engine-house, they went up to the mess, and seated themselves at the head of the table. As a whole, the men were fairly satisfactory. Bill stared coldly down the table, and appeared ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... things I'll tell you." In quick, staccato sentences, his tired eyelids shut half the time, he sketched his adventure at Lar Tantril's ranch, explaining how, even though captured, he had destroyed the figures, telling of the location of Leithgow's laboratory; and a slight smile appeared on his ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... Speranski's little daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While still in the anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh—a laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone—it sounded like Speranski—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew had never before heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high pitched laughter ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... before seven, three staccato rings would come at the front-door bell. At her sewing or what not, Mrs. Becker would glance up ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... with his reedy staccato voice, that gave polish and relief to every syllable, tried to come to her aid by questioning her affably about her family and the friends she had made in New York. But the caryatid-parent, who ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... her words, a woman's voice ranging swiftly the staccato gamut of terror and cracking discordantly on its most ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... double-bass!" cried Andy; and the whole orchestra, except the first violin of the leader, burst into a boisterous rendering of a popular street song, in which Just sawed forth the leading part, while the others kept up a rattling staccato accompaniment. Evelyn and Lucy became breathless with laughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Birch, who had just slipped into the room, ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... padded seclusion of the president's inner office, while two blocks away swelled a storm, whose echoes only reached them in the sharp staccato of the ticker in the corner as it vomited a strip of white paper. Wimperley stood there, the strip slipping between his fingers, while selling orders began to pour in to Philadelphia, and the price of Consolidated crumbled like dust. He could ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... until, Near sunless noon, we heard the ship's bell beating A melancholy staccato on dead metal; Saw the bare-footed watch come running aft; Felt, far below, the sudden telegraph jangle Its harsh metallic challenge, thrice repeated: 'Stand to. Half-speed ahead. Slow. Stop her!' They stopped. The plunging pistons sank like a stopped heart: She held, she swayed, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... confusion, we called him from the first by the pretty Scotch equivalent of Evan's first name) is of a wholly masculine mould, and like his father in light hair, gray eyes, and determination. His very speech is quick and staccato, his tendency is to overcome, to fight rather than assuage, though he is the champion of everything he loves. From the time he could form distinct sounds he has called me Barbara, and no amount of reasoning will make him do ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... and chisels were executing a blithe staccato movement in the yard below, and making the sparks dance. No one walking among the diligent gangs, and observing the placid faces of the men as they bent over their tasks, would have suspected that they were awaiting the word that meant bread and ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Ottensen, "I'll ride a little way with you." He asked Senior-lieutenant Frommelt politely for permission, and sent his men back in charge of a sergeant. Then he joined the battery, chattering away gaily in his droll, staccato fashion, and making his horse leap the ditch from time to time. He sat his magnificent steed splendidly, and with his slender, neatly-made figure, looked the perfect model of ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... grievances. I think the shots must have stimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languid drawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment on life's happenings, and was dealing with the situation with a staccato briskness. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... balconies near at hand, though unseen, a gong, a pipe, and some kind of stringed instrument wailed and thundered in unison. There was a vast shuffling of padded soles and a continuous interchange of singsong monosyllables, high-pitched and staccato, while from every hand rose the strange aromas of the East—sandalwood, punk, incense, oil, and ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... in 1584, and Daniel in 1592 had preceded him; but he was the first to give the name popularity in England, and to lift the kind as Ronsard had lifted it in France; and till the time of Cowper no other English poet showed mastery of the short, staccato measure of the Anacreontic as distinct from the Pindaric Ode. In the Odes Drayton shows to the fullest extent his metrical versatility: he touches the Skeltonic metre, the long ten-syllabled line of the Sacrifice to Apollo; and ascends from the smooth and melodious rhythms of the New Year through ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... tall like his son, but here the resemblance ceased, for while Ballard the younger was round of visage and jovial, the banker was thin of face and repressive. He had a long, accipitrine nose which imbedded itself in his bristling white mustache, and he spoke in crisp staccato notes as though each intonation and breath were carefully measured by their monetary value. He paid out to me in cash a half an hour, during which he questioned and I replied while Jack grinned in the background. And at the end of that period ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... little game at once, you young monkey!" struck in the sharp staccato of a semi-excited voice. "Interfering with young ladies, eh? Let's have a look at you. Don't be afraid, Miss Lorne—nobody's ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... much. Cairn Street at nine o'clock levels all distinctions of rank as impartially as the grave. Again and again I loitered at the heels of a couple of resplendent beings, only to overhear, when I expected the level voice of culture, the staccato "Sez he," "Sez I" that is the mark of the white servant-girl all ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... moustaches—artificial affairs which he had contrived to become possessed of—and glared at his comrades through that pair of big-rimmed spectacles which so completely altered his appearance. Then he talked to them—cross-questioned his friends in the gruff, staccato accents one might have expected from such an individual as he represented ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... safely buckled to their seats, Joe ran his engine a bit, to satisfy himself that she was producing just the right music. The other five triplanes had been waiting. When Joe had satisfied himself that his machine was in perfect condition the word was given for the start. A series of staccato pops announced that the whole fleet was getting under way and they were soon circling the hangars and climbing off in the direction of the trenches. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... moaning, the deep-toned whistle poured forth its warning on the night, and before the long blast had died away, up from the depths of the dense fog bank ahead arose an echo, accentuated with sharp, staccato shrieks. Then came a sudden, startling cry at the bow; then deep down in the bowels of the ship the clang of the engine gong; then, shouts, and rushings to and fro at the hidden forecastle; and Loring started ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... epic of life. Valhalla itself could not be more glorious and sonorous. The classic marble on which we ate, the great, light-flooded, vitreous front, adorned with snow-white scrolls; the grand Wagnerian din of clanking cups and bowls, the flashing staccato of brandishing cutlery, the piercing recitative of the white-aproned grub-maidens at the morgue-like banquet tables; the recurrent lied-motif of the cash-register—it was a gigantic, triumphant welding of art and sound, a deafening, soul-uplifting pageant of heroic and ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... he heard the loud bang of Grizzie's closure of the great door, the wind rushed all at once against the house, with a tremendous bellow, that threatened to drive the windows into the room. An immediate lull followed, through which as instantly came strange sounds, as of a distant staccato thunder. The moment the laird heard the douf thuds, he started to his feet, and made for the door, and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... four the staccato notes of "Assembly" rang across the terrace as Polly sounded the call upon her bugle. The girls came hurrying from every direction and the ensuing hour and a half, usually free for recreation, was cheerfully given ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... came another sound. It was the deep staccato of the exhaust of an automobile, with opened muffler. It was tearing ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... chlorodyne gum, at about twenty to nine, when all the other men were at work. He was a thin, sallow man with a red nose, quick, staccato, and smartly but stiffly dressed. He was about thirty-six years old. There was something rather "doggy", rather smart, rather 'cute and shrewd, and something warm, and something slightly ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... modified form of singing: the principal difference being in the fact that in singing the vowel sounds are prolonged and the intervals are short, whereas in speech the words are uttered in what may be called "staccato" tones, the vowels not being specially prolonged and the intervals between the words being more distinct. The fact that in singing we have a larger range of tones does not properly distinguish it from ordinary speech. In speech we have likewise a variation ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... workers was putting up the steel frame-work for one of the new buildings. Nearby the brick-layers were busy with mortar and trowels. Carpenters were swarming over a roof, their hammers beating staccato. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... that the terms were misunderstood. 'Presto' signifies 'turn over,' 'Lento' 'with style.' 'Staccato' was said to mean 'stick on the notes,' or 'notes struck ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... his chair like a tiger. His hand dropped to his pocket, so swiftly that my eyes did not follow it. And as it dropped, a single staccato shot split the darkness of the room. The scientist slumped ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... With mingled feelings of admiration and childish envy he had watched them drill for many weeks, but they had never seemed such real, grand soldiers until now, as they came marching by with quick, firm steps, keeping time to the clear, staccato notes, marching off to real battle-fields. It was all so beautiful, splendid, and gay—the music, the soldiers, the people, the hurrahing! It stirred his sentient little body through and through with a kind ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... against the canon wall. Words came to him indistinctly, muffled by the thick air. The tones of the voices were unmistakable. Three voices there were, each with its own peculiarity, none of them Gratton's. First a big, booming voice; then a sharp, staccato-quick voice; thereafter a high-pitched, querulous utterance, nervous and irritable. Disagreement, if not out-and-out quarrel, had already come to camp. King moved a few paces nearer, pushed aside a low branch from which the snow dropped ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... the round-bodied, anxious mothers; loved the grade geldings and fillies and the registered stock that he kept close to home in fenced pastures; loved the broom-tail bronks that ranged far afield and came in a dust cloud moiling up from their staccato hoof beats, circled by hoarse, shouting riders seen ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Staccato, hurried, nervous, brisk, Cascading, intermittent, choppy, The brittle voice of Mrs. Fiske Shall serve me now as copy. Assist me, O my Muse, what time I pen ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... answered the visitor, in high staccato, oblivious of the fact that Claudius Tiberius had scooted in between his feet; "it will be my pleasure to claim your hospitality for ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... taken from vital centers where Nature meant it to go for the upbuilding of womanhood and forced into the brain at a period when Nature meant that brain to be the very paradise of joyous dreams and happy imaginings? While we may thus gain a staccato smartness, a jerky and inconsequent brilliancy, do we not lose something of the natural woman and the delicious heartiness, spontaneous wit and instinctive wisdom of her? I venture no opinion here—I merely suggest the query. ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... Court ladies of the old Russian school. Her knowledge of people and events was extremely limited; but she used to patronise every one who came in contact with her. There was a story that when she died and left the Millionaya for Heaven she addressed St. Peter in her formal staccato French: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor-i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie me presenter au Bon Dieu.' St. Peter made the desired introduction, and the Princess addressed le Bon Dieu: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor- i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire votre ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... of "'Ware fire!" he sprang back and laid his match to the touch-hole. There was a spurt of flame as the long nine roared above the staccato bark of the musketry. Then they saw a section of the pirate's upper rail leap clear of her deck and fall overside. "Too high," said Job shortly, though Ghent and Curtis had cheered at the shot, for the distance was a good half-mile. Job worked feverishly at his reloading, helped by others of ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... breathing heavily, O'Rourke's especially; the guns thundering along behind them and the advance-guard clattering in front, and their attention distracted every other minute by the noise of volleys on ahead and the occasional staccato rattle of independent firing. The whole sky was now alight with the reflection of the burning barracks and they could see the ragged outlines of the cracking walls silhouetted against the blazing red within. One mile or less from the burning buildings they could see, too, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... vibrant—yet giving so little away beyond his admiration. The song faded, silence fell, then a door opened and closed. Vassie's voice was raised, this time in welcome. He guessed the visitor to be Phoebe from the fluttered feminine quality of the sounds below—staccato sentences whose words he could not catch, but whose very rhythm, broken and eager, betrayed them. A moment later, and a knock ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... swept over Clee as it did so, and in the midst of it he felt a series of sharp, staccato thoughts—thoughts which did not seem to be composed of words, and ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... laughter, that it was pretty, that it was endearingly nooky, cornery, curvy, with the enchantment of trees and flowers everywhere mixed with its civic turmoil, and the song of birds heard through the staccato of cabs, and the muffled bellow of omnibuses. You may not like London, but you cannot help loving it. The monuments, if I may keep coming back to them, are plain things, often, with no attempt upon the beholder's emotions. In the process of time, I suspect that the Albert Memorial will ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... bronchial tubes may be opened widely or almost closed, and in this way, to quote from Mr. Thompson, "the bird is enabled to measure in the nicest manner the amount of air thrown from the lungs into the trachea." In producing a staccato, for example, the valves flop up and down, doling out the air at the proper intervals and in precisely the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... mountain of muslins and laces. The only thing visible was the shop-girl's mussed black hair and sly suburban expression. Mme. Derline backed away, wishing to place herself against the, wall; but a tryer-on was there, a large energetic brunette, who spoke authoritatively in a high staccato. "At once," she was saying—"bring me ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... manufactured worth-while screen dramas, when any subject longer than a reel had to be of rare excellence, such as the art films imported from France for the Licensed program. In those days, Stella rose rapidly to prominence. Her large wistful eyes had set the hearts of many of us to beating at staccato rate. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... The second boat gave the varsity some sharp brushes while the coxswains barked and the coach shouted staccato objurgation and comment through his megaphone, and the rival oarsmen swung backward and forward in the expenditure of ultimate power ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... complexion the color of old parchment, with sandy, stubby hair shot with gray, and a stubby gray beard shot with red. His lips were a wide straight line, as grim as judgment day. He walked with a slight stoop, but with a quick staccato step which betokened great nervous energy, a quality which the alert expression of his beady eyes ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... before the two dragging the stretcher could move in a last desperate rush for safety, before they could rise from their prone position, they heard the rattle of fire increase swiftly to a trembling staccato roar. But, miraculously, no bullets came near them, no whistling was about their ears, no ping and smack of impacting lead hailed about them—except, yes, just the fire of one rifle or two that sent aimed bullet after bullet hissing over ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... McGee sprang into the side car and barked a few crisp, sharp orders that brooked no hesitation. The responsive little motor roared its staccato eagerness as the machine lurched forward, leaving ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... the front door suggested to Peggy that it was not intended for daily use, and she made her way around to the side and knocked. A child not far from Dorothy's age, with straight black hair, and elfish eyes, opened the door, looked her over, and shrieked a staccato summons. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... tingle In staccato notes that mingle Musically with the jingle- Haunted winds that lightly fan Mellow twilights, crimson-tinted By the sun, and picture-printed Like a book that sweetly hinted Of the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... smouldering fire over which somebody had suspended a big blackened kettle. The crash of the last falling trunk had died away, and there was silence in the bluff; but a drumming of hoofs rose in a sharp staccato from ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... was barking in staccato volleys. There was another sound, a faint shout, unmistakably; human. The men looked at each ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... on the notes E, F sharp, G sharp, A sharp and B, and without change of position required the practice of exercises calculated to insure independence. The pupil was instructed to go through these exercises first staccato, effected by a free movement of the wrist, an admirable means of counteracting heaviness and clumsiness, then legato-staccato, then accented legato, then pure legato, modifying the power from pp to ff, and the movement from ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... Her staccato warning deflected his mind from the course toward which it might have turned. He held up his head, listening. The slap of footsteps on a board walk could be plainly heard. A voice lifted itself ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... shoulders, swelled out their breasts like doves, knelt and rose, pressed their hands to their bosom or voluptuously outspread their arms, which seemed to flutter as the wings of Iris or Nephthys, dragged their limbs, bent the knee, displayed their swift feet with little staccato movements, and followed every undulation of the music. The maids, standing against the wall to leave free space for the evolutions of the dancers, marked the rhythm by snapping their fingers or clapping their hands together. Some of these ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... would alight near him, scratched his ear with the manner of one who has neglected such matters overlong; reversed his position; slept again. The young corn, deep green in the bottomland, moved with a staccato flurry, and the dust ghost of a mad whirling dervish sped up the main road to vanish at the bridge in a climax of lunacy. The stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying like square coverlets upon the long ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... overboard, and as none among the natives had ever seen ice before, their amazement may well be imagined. The first boy to pick up a piece of the glittering whiteness let it drop with a howl, and when he caught his breath again warned the others in shrill staccato tones that he had been burned, that it was hot, muy caliente, wringing his hands as if, indeed, they had been scorched. Presently, finding that the burn left no mark and had stopped hurting, he shamefacedly ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life. The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the bottom-land, and empurpled the blue ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... Certain staccato epithets meant merely that Subrosa was objecting to the crupper. A sudden stamping testified that Belle had approached Rosa with the bridle. A high-keyed, musical voice chanting man-size words of an intimidating nature followed which proved that the harnessing was progressing as well as could ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... Emperor's presence that I forgot my part and remained staring in stupefaction at the apparition. The other was seemingly too busy with his thoughts to notice my forgetfulness, for he spoke at once, imperiously, in the harsh staccato ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... corners. The dancers stood in a circle, men and women alternately, and the circle sometimes became a square, as in a quadrille, and sometimes two parallel rows, as in Sir Roger de Coverley. One of the men dancers, shouting in dialect, gave short staccato directions which the others carried out. This brightened up the party, and some of the women began to look less gloomy, but a week of contraddanze would not have brought the best of them up to the standard of Brancaccia. I approached her ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... with perfect self-restraint, said a few things a trifle staccato, defining Man, his dual destiny, his hope of heaven, and all the great business in which he himself had fought hard. But from a fine military tradition, he said nothing of his actions, nor even of his shrine in Normandy, of which he is naturally ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... least before her figure showed there. Walking up! And that fellow's grin! The boy—! He turned abruptly from the window. He couldn't spy on her. If she wanted to keep things from him—she must; he could not spy on her. His heart felt empty, and bitterness mounted from it into his very mouth. The staccato shouts of Jack Cardigan pursuing the ball, the laugh of young Mont rose in the stillness and came in. He hoped they were making that chap Profond run. And the girl in "La Vendimia" stood with her arm akimbo and her dreamy eyes looking past him. 'I've done all I could for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... most facile of all orchestral wind instruments; and the device of double tonguing, the quick repetition of notes by taking a staccato T-stop in blowing, is well known. The flute generally goes with the violins in the orchestra, or sustains long notes with the other wood wind instruments, or is used in those conversational passages with other instruments that lend such a charm to orchestral ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... upon the girl with a curious exhilarating effect. She felt stirred and excited, expectant of new experiences, perhaps adventures. The wild barley brushed about the wheels with a silky rustle; the beat of hoofs rang in a sharp staccato through the deep silence; and the touch of the faint night wind ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... coquetted with the season as a young girl with her lover; smiling with the brightness of a western sun; frowning with the fierceness of a sudden snow-squall, strangely out of place in contrast to the greenery of the mountain "parks"; creeping slowly up the gullies from the prairie in staccato notes of bursting buds; at last lifting its many voices in the old swelling song of delight over the birth of new loves and new desires among ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... a drum. The air in springtime afternoons Is filled with sharp staccato notes Whose echoes clear reverberate From precipice and timbered hills. No fifer plays accompaniment; No pageant proud or marching throng Keeps step to this deep pulsing bass Whose ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... Dallam in her usual staccato, following Honora's gaze, "at the piano, in ashes of roses. She's stopped mourning for her husband. Trixy told her to-night she'd discarded the sackcloth and kept the ashes. He's awfully clever. I don't wonder that she's crazy about him, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for the stage. I was trying to get it into harmony with your magnificent shoulders and antique head. That's all." His intonation was caressing, the speech of a cultivated man, and his accent slightly Scandinavian; at times his voice seemed to her as sweetly staccato as a mandolin. He gazed with all his vibrating artistic soul into the girl's humid blue eyes; half frightened she looked down at her pretty, dimpled hands—the hands of a baby ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... shooting right and left. Glass fell like hail; dogs vamosed; chickens flew, squawking; feminine voices shrieked concernedly to youngsters at large. The din was perforated at intervals by the /staccato/ of the Terror's guns, and was drowned periodically by the brazen screech that Quicksand knew so well. The occasions of Calliope's low spirits were legal holidays in Quicksand. All along the main street in advance of his coming clerks were putting ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... while Blake vaulted to the forward saddle and began to work the pedals to start the motor. The cylinders were still hot from the recent run, and at the first revolution the staccato ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... pacing the red carpet in angry staccato strides. His napkin dropped from his waistcoat to the floor and he kicked it out ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... along the edge of the jungle rousing all the sleepy heads with sharp interrogative whistles before there is the least paling of the Eastern sky. He scents the sun as the ghost of Hamlet's father the morning air. His version of "Sleepers, wake," echoes in the silence in sharp, staccato notes. Seldom heard during the heat of the day, they are oft repeated at dusk and late in the evening. Of all the birds of the day his voice is the last as well as the first, and from that the natives ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... must have cost at this season—though of course it's the sentiment one cares about!" the lady was saying in a sighing staccato as Archer came in. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... pointed out little personal signs by which I was to know that each man was on edge. He might have spared himself. The House was ready to snap before a bone had been thrown. A sullen minister rose to reply to a staccato question. His supporters cheered defiantly. 'None o' that! None o' that!' came from the Back Benches. I saw the Speaker's face stiffen like the face of a helmsman as he humours a hard-mouthed yacht after a sudden following sea. The trouble was barely met in time. There came a fresh, apparently ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... for me to do nawthin', an' even if 'twas I'd do it!" He sang each word in an argumentative staccato, and in high passages you could see his wisdom teeth. Between stanzas he spoke stimulating exhortations: "Louder, brethren and sisters, louder; the fate of immortal souls may be a-hangin' on the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... do that, I don't say anything. I may make musical sounds, but I express nothing. I may even execute the notes with a good staccato or legato (again illustrating with his voice) and still, having no words to go by, I make ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... brokenhearted mourner. But Long's sheer, precipitous face and the lofty cliffs around me formed a vast amphitheater about which echoes raced, crossing and recrossing, intermingling. For a full minute the coyote howled, his sharp staccato notes rising higher and higher, the echoes returning from all directions, first sharply, then blurred, faint, fainter. The higher the sounds climbed the gorge the longer were the intervals between echoes, for the canyon walls sloped back and were wider apart ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... The thin, staccato voice broke off abruptly, and three out of the five other men present being the Master's pupils, remained silent, knowing he had not finished. But Mr. Toovey, a young don overflowing with mild intelligence, ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods |
