"Accent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... characters in these plays talk on the stage exactly as they would talk off it; they have neither aspirations nor aspirates; they are taken directly from life and reproduce its vulgarity down to the smallest detail; they present the gait, manner, costume and accent of real people; they would pass unnoticed in a third-class railway carriage. And yet how wearisome the plays are! They do not succeed in producing even that impression of reality at which they aim, and which is their only reason for existing. As ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... a wonder how Ailie Gordon came to take Walter Skirving. It may be that she felt in her heart the accent of a true man in the unbending, nonjuring elder of the Marrow kirk. Two great heart-breaks had crossed their lives: the shadow of the life story of Winsome's mother, that earlier Winsome whose name had not been heard for twenty years in the house of Craig Ronald; and the more recent death ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... these lines, the teacher spoke in a strong foreign accent. All the boys listened attentively while he spoke, though of course only Rollo and those of the boys who had studied English could ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott
... involved business, was shaped by his subordinates. The smaller faults and the mannerisms of the actor did not trouble him, provided the main thought and feeling were there. He would merely laugh at a suggestion to straighten out the legs and walk, to lengthen the drawl, or to heighten the cockney accent of a prominent ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... a spacious drawing-room, furnished in good European style, where Meftah-es-Sultaneh—a rotund and jovial gentleman—greeted me with effusion. Although he had never been out of Persia, he spoke French, with a most perfect accent, as fluently as ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... not quite himself yet, and he spoke clean colloquial English, without any trace of the Western accentuation he usually considered it advisable to adopt, though, as a matter of fact, the accent usually heard on the Pacific slope is not unduly marked. The other man naturally noticed it, and ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... this index the generic and specific names have been divided into syllables, and the place of the primary accent has been indicated, with the single object of securing a uniform pronunciation in accordance with the established rules ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... that he regretted having disturbed himself to come and look at bad paintings, she replied that in truth this gallery was not interesting. Already, under the terror of displeasing her, he felt reassured, and believed that, really indifferent, she had not perceived the accent nor the significance of what he had said. He said "No, nothing interesting." The Prince, who had invited the two visitors to breakfast, asked their friend to remain with them. Dechartre excused himself. He was about to depart when, in the large empty salon, he found himself alone with Madame Martin. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I—with whom I am destined to be, spiritually, 'very much married indeed;' or if the expression sound too polygamatical, let me simply say lie. [For Heaven's sake, accept that as French, warm with an accent, and not as English, cold without one.] Lie means 'bound'—anchored, so to speak, to an intimate in an amicable manner. And it is in their friendship—in their kind and tender words and courteous deeds, and winsome ways, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... uncommon eloquence and fervent zeal. His eloquence was indeed very great, and of the truest kind. He was utterly devoid of all affectation; the importance of his subject, and the regard due to his hearers, engrossed all his concern. Every accent of his voice spoke to the ear, every feature of his face, every motion of his hands, and every gesture, spoke to the eye; so that the most dissipated and thoughtless found their attention arrested, and the dullest and most ignorant could not but understand. He ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... according to our computation of time. When I recovered I was in a strange room, my host and all his family were gathered round me, and to my utter amaze my host's daughter accosted me in my own language with a slightly foreign accent. ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Gordon, we owe the name of chocolate to a misprint. He states that Joseph Acosta, who wrote as early as 1604 of chocolatl, was made by the printer to write chocolate, from which the English eliminated the accent, and the ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... than once in rather a high tone, though in general he patronised the successive occupants of the pulpit with much kindness. 'And this 'un, as cannot spike English nayther,' he added superciliously concerning the north-country accent ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... which we observed in works of the imagination is vividness. To achieve this, pay close attention to the details of your sensory experiences. Observe sharply the minute but characteristic items—the accent mark on apres; the coarse stubby beard of the typical alley tough. Stock your mind with a wealth of such detailed impressions. Keep them alive by the kind of practice recommended in the preceding paragraph. Then describe ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... accent of profound conviction. "Why, I'd go with him wherever he pleases! Who ever heard of such a thing? Leave him to go off alone, after we've been all over the world together! Who would help him, when he was tired? Who would give him a hand in climbing over the rocks? ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... rule, speak English with an excellent accent, having all the sounds that the English possess, taking the three kingdoms, England, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... gradually to be captain of the Regent. He was active, admirably skilled in his trade, and a man incapable of fear. Once, in London, he fell among a gang of confidence-men, naturally deceived by his rusticity and his prodigious accent. They plied him with drink—a hopeless enterprise, for Soutar could not be made drunk; they proposed cards, and Soutar would not play. At last, one of them, regarding him with a formidable countenance, inquired if he were not frightened? "I'm no' very easy fleyed," replied ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The host was very dignified, as invariably at the office, and his accent never lapsed from the absolute correctness of an educated Londoner. His deportment gave distinction and safety even to the precipitous and mean basement stairs, which were of stone worn as by the knees of pilgrims in a crypt. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... splendid—it got into every corner of every one of us," the Man from Outside responded, speaking his fluent French with a slight English accent, which had a pleasant piquancy—at least to the ears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man of about thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression of cleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. Fille had reflected upon with concern. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... observed the marks of grief upon my brow than an answering darkness gathered on his own. "Asenath," he said, "you owe me much already; with one finger I still hold you suspended over death; my life is full of labour and anxiety; and I choose," said he, with a remarkable accent of command, "that you shall greet me with a pleasant face." He never needed to repeat the recommendation: from that day forward I was always ready to receive him with apparent cheerfulness; and he rewarded me with a good deal of his company, and almost more than I could bear of his confidence. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... accents (as, for example, Dii philos may be turned into Diphilos), and we may make words into sentences and sentences into words. The name anthrotos is a case in point, for a letter has been omitted and the accent changed; the original meaning being o anathron a opopen—he who looks up at what he sees. Psuche may be thought to be the reviving, or refreshing, or animating principle—e anapsuchousa to soma; but I am afraid that Euthyphro and his disciples will scorn ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... crouching August passed unnoticed, screwed up into a ball like a hedgehog as he was. The gentleman shut to the door at length, without having seen anything strange inside it; and then he talked long and low with the tradesmen, and, as his accent was different from that which August was used to, the child could distinguish little that he said, except the name of the king and the word "gulden" again and again. After a while he went away, one of the ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... tallest of the trio, who for want of a better title we may call the Best Dressed Man, took out his watch, and having glanced at it, looked at his companions. "Gentlemen," he said, with a slight American accent, "it is three minutes to eight o'clock. My ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... glance, in his pleasant voice, in his wittily-told stories, and inexhaustible fund of anecdote and mimicry. Now he was in Ireland, now in France, now in Scotland, now in Yorkshire; and the bad English and the patois and accent of all were imitated to the life. With that face, that voice, that talent for imitation, Lieutenant Stanford, in another walk of life, might have made his fortune on the stage. His power of fascination was irresistible. Grace felt it, Eeny felt it, all felt it, except Sir Ronald ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... college-educated nurse, who liked his principles and disapproved of his professions just as frankly as if he came from her hometown. (Her name was Van-something-or-other, and you could lean against the Boston accent—just a little lonely-sounding, but a very rock of gentle independence, all that long ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... "Oh, accent, manner, tone, idiom, and a hundred other things. Why, of course, you know as well as I that an American lady is as different from an English as a French or a German lady is. They may be all equally ladies, but each nation ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... save for the multitude of servants; Government House, serene and spacious and patrician, is a replica of Kedlestone Hall in Derbyshire: the business buildings within and without are structurally English, and the familiar Scotch accent sounds everywhere; but the illusion is most complete in St. John's Church, that very charming, cool, white and comfortable sanctuary, in the manner of Wren, and in St. Andrew's too. Secluded here, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... that a wedding, at which an Episcopal bishop-militant, clad in general's uniform officiated, and the chief of an army and his corps commanders were guests, certainly ought not to soften a soldier's temper. On his way home that night he sang Moorish songs, with a French accent, to English airs, and was as mild and agreeable as if some one was going ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... dignity, of reserve which sat piquantly upon her youth. In one ungloved hand, that was brown from the sun, but very beautiful, she held an old parasol, the other played occasionally with a bit of purple heather. Presently she began to speak, using English just coloured by a foreign accent, that made ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... question of accent. From time to time we have players on our boards who speak English with a foreign accent in parts where such an accent is an absurdity. No doubt some have grappled with this difficulty very cleverly. Modjeska, for instance, Bandmann, Mlle. Beatrice, Marius, Juliette ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... the prince said with a strong Italian accent, "you will pardon me, I hope, for making the simple observation that my age authorizes: you play like ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... when Hester Bridgeman was preferred to the office, for which she was far less fitted, being no favourite with the babe, and being essentially vulgar in tastes and habits, and knowing no language save her own, and that ungrammatically and with an accent which no one could wish the Prince to acquire. Yet there she was, promoted to the higher grade of the establishment and at the christening, standing in the front ranks, while Miss Woodford was left far in ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of January, suspicion was aroused in the city. A man in a mask entered the main guard-house in the night, mysteriously gave warning that a great crime was in contemplation, and vanished before he could be arrested. His accent proved him to be a Frenchman. Strange rumors flew about the streets. A vague uneasiness pervaded the whole population as to the intention of their new master, but nothing was definitely known, for of course there was entire ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... hastened once to greet, When not a thought had he, save in her sweet And solacing society; to seek Her smiles his only life! Ah! happy prime Of cloudless purity, no stormy fame His unknown sprite then stirred, a golden time Worth all the restless splendour of a name; And one soft accent from those gentle lips Might all the ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... buy such wine for such a song. He took his oxen and his barrel to a very high shed that stood by, and there he told us all his pilgrimage and the many assaults his firmness suffered, and how he had resisted them all. There was much more anger than sorrow in his accent, and I could see that he was of the wood from which tyrants and martyrs are carved. Then suddenly he changed ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... time to get the accent," replied the other with a modesty which I could detect was assumed. More acutely than ever was I conscious of a psychic warning to separate these two, and I resolved to act upon it with the utmost diplomacy. The third whiskey and soda ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... troubled her for a year or two longer," added I; "strictly speaking, this accent, derived from the Italian, has nothing disagreeable in it; while the English, Polish, Russian, and German accent is inharmonious in itself, and is lost ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... informing him that sailors have long made use of a compound which actually goes by the name of geograffy, which is only a trifling corruption of the name of the science, arising from their laying the accent on the penultimate. I will now give his lordship the receipt, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was a thin, elderly American gentleman to whom Godfrey was introduced, named Colonel Josiah Smith, and a big, blond Dane, who talked English with a German accent, called Professor Petersen. All of these studied Godfrey with the most unusual interest as, overwhelmed with shyness, he was led by Miss Ogilvy to make their acquaintance. He felt that their demeanour portended he knew not what, more at any rate than hope of deriving pleasure ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... gave the answer she hoped for. "She is an American," he added, "and it sets one's teeth on edge to hear her trying to talk Italian. Her accent! She is a small dry ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... influenced by Newman and the Tractarian movement, but soon underwent the radical revolution of thought revealed by his first treatise, the "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1849, and created a sensation. Its tendency to skepticism cost him his fellowship, but its profound pathos, its accent of tenderness, and its fervour excited wide admiration. Permanent fame was secured by the appearance, in 1856, of the first two instalments of his magnificent work, "The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada," the last volume appearing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... back imperceptibly, amused, but asserting her dignity. "Yes?" she led him on, though in no accent ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... Madame de Jonquiere lean over her, seeing that her lips were again moving. There came but a faint breath, a voice from far away, which distantly murmured in an accent of intense grief: "She did ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... related, with an accent of great sincerity, a series of facts which I am quite willing to admit. Unfortunately, you have forgotten a point of the first importance: what became of Mathias de Gorne? You tied him up here, in this room. Well, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... door, and the glover went downstairs to open it himself. The night was dark. In these troublous times the masters of all households took minute precautions. Tourillon looked through the peep-holes cut in the door, and saw a stranger, whose accent indicated an Italian. The man, who was dressed in black, asked to speak with Lecamus on matters of business, and Tourillon admitted him. When the furrier caught sight of his visitor he shuddered violently; ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable. It is not a fault in company to talk much; but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the majority of those who are got together be naturally ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... and wormwood to my uncle Adam. His nails, in spite of anxious supervision, were often in conspicuous mourning; his clothes hung about him in bags and wrinkles, like a ploughman's Sunday coat; his accent was rude, broad, and dragging. Take him at his best, and even when he could be induced to hold his tongue, his mere presence in a corner of the drawing-room, with his open-air wrinkles, his scanty hair, his battered hands, and the cheerful craftiness of his expression, advertised the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... so?" replied I with a sanctified accent; "then prithee conduct me thither, for I have great need of such salutary waters, being troubled with strange fancies and imaginations, such as the evil one himself ought to ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Anna asked, in English, which the father much preferred to German from her lips and which she spoke with carefully exact construction, but with charming rolling of the r's and hissing of the s's. Her accent was much more pronounced than his, due, doubtless, to the fact that while he went daily to his little corner of the English world to earn their living, her seclusion was complete. She saw few English save ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... hours to consider, and he would take twenty-four himself to decide. They should have his definitive to-morrow, and he was sliding away, but Lady Castlefort, as he passed her, cried, "Going, Lord Beltravers, going are you?" in an accent of surprise and disappointment; and she whispered, "I am hard at work here, acting receiver general to these city worthies; and you do not pity me—cruel!" and she looked up with languishing eyes, that so begged for sympathy. He threw upon her one look of commiseration, reproachful. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... sang, under the direction of Mr. Duncan and Mr. Collison, a number of songs and hymns, both in their native tongue and in English. They pronounced the words of the pieces that were in the latter language with a remarkably good accent, although every effort to induce any of them to converse in it was futile. Lord Dufferin endeavoured to get some of them to talk with him about their studies, but was not successful in extracting from any of them, including a young Indian woman whom Mr. Duncan has placed in the position of an ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... but while I would prefer the former, I should judge, from your accent on the 'Bill,' your preference would be given ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... much intercourse with the purest idiom as most Englishmen, and have studied the language carefully, yet I can never utter an important statement without doing so very slowly, and repeating it too, lest the foreign accent, which is distinctly perceptible in all Europeans, should render the sense unintelligible. In this I follow the example of the Bechuana orators, who, on important matters, always speak slowly, deliberately, and with reiteration. The capabilities of this language may be inferred from the fact that ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... to Norway!" cried Stella, in an accent almost of relief. "Oh, is that all? I was afraid something dreadful had happened." She could not help the feeling, she had been so frightened by a nameless fear she could scarcely have put into words. But when the first relief was over the ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... very well, with an accent that was charming. She had had, she said, an English nurse, and ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... morrow. There were fewer women in the streets and the workmen carried rifles, but the shops were still attractive in their wares. The fear of spies occupied men's thoughts rather than {213} the fear of hunger—a foreign accent was suspicious enough to cause arrest! There were few Englishmen in the capital, but those few ran the risk of being mistaken for Prussians, since the lower classes ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada District—extending from Brockville to the Detroit River. [Footnote: The whole of Lower Canada formed another district, of which the celebrated Nathan Bangs was at that time Presiding Elder.] In a full rich voice, in which the least shade of an Irish accent could be discerned, he was addressing the little group of men before him. The ministers labouring in Canada had expected to meet their American brethren; but, on account of the outbreak of the war, the latter had remained on their own side of the river, and held their Conference near Rochester, ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... been said, has a sieve-like nature with regard to the passing away of wrath, but still her anger is easily roused. "It would be simpler to tell me what you have heard," she says in a very snappish accent. "When I want a lecture I can get it from ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... constitutional restraints. Both his person and his measures were unpopular in England. His secluded life and his cold manners disgusted a people accustomed to the graceful affability of Charles the Second. His foreign accent and his foreign attachments were offensive to the national prejudices. His reign had been a season of distress, following a season of rapidly increasing prosperity. The burdens of the late war and the expense of restoring the currency had been severely felt. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... on hearing the stranger, appeased By a something, an accent, a cadence, which pleased His ear with that pledge of good breeding which tells At once of the world in whose fellowship dwells The speaker that owns it, was glad to remark In the horseman a man one might meet after ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... is difficult to understand until you get the trick of it. And the trick of it is in the accent and intonation, and not so much in any peculiar form of words. They have a peculiar way of dropping their voices, too, which is sometimes disconcerting. But it is a clean wholesome language, undefined ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... setting down its owner as an Englishman of a kind that fortunately is not common. He was stout and flabby in face, with a smug, self-satisfied air I did not like. Leaning against a paddock rail, he looked me over while I told him what had brought me there. Then he said, with no trace of Western accent, which, it afterward appeared, ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... then broke into the common street ditty, "Shoe fly, don't bouder me," giving a quaint sound to the words by his Italian accent. ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the simplicity is the simplicity of light and every accent is as the touch of peace to troubled hearts; for ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... the end of the drive, he saw a party of boys going through what looked like a military exercise with sticks and a good deal of stamping; but, instead of mere words of command, they all spoke by turns, as in a play. In spite of their strong Yorkshire accent, Robin overheard a good deal, and it sounded very fine. Not being at all shy, he joined them, and asked so many questions that he soon got to know all about it. They were practising a Christmas mumming-play, ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... gives the Latin is so different from ours that sometymes we would not have understood some of them (for the most part I understood them weil enought), nor some of them us. Ether we or they most be right, but I dout not to affirm but that the accent they give it, straining it to the pronuntiation of their oune language, is not natural, but a vicious accent, and that we have the natural. My reason is, because if their be any wayes to know what was the Accent the ancient Romans prononced ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... the scorn excited by his concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even in his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently unkingly. Throughout the whole course of his reign, all the venerable associations by which the throng had long been fenced were gradually losing their strength. During two ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that,' said Mrs. Nesbit, with a contemptuous accent; 'but as it cannot be at once, you will soon have enough of that overbearing temper. At twenty, there is plenty of time to get over such an affair, and form a more ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... think she is a lady," replied the girl, her accent decisive. "And she's young, as far as I could see, but she had a thick veil over her face. Her hair is lovely, just like silken threads of pale gold," concluded Penelope as Mr. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... man, the Aryan languages possessed two other suffixes, van and an, which were added to verbal bases just like man. By the side of dman, the act of giving, we find in the Veda d-van, the act of giving, and a dative d-vne, with the accent on the suffix, meaning for the giving, i.e. to give. Now in Greek this v would necessarily disappear, though its former presence might be indicated by the digamma olicum. Thus, instead of Sanskrit dvne, we should have ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... fate was getting ready to beat the snobbery out of her. And hers was an unintentional, superficial snobbery, at worst. Some people said she was affected and that she aped the swagger dialect. But she had a habit of taking on the accent and color of her environments. She had not been in England a month before she spoke Piccadilly almost impeccably. She had caught French and German intonations with equal speed and had picked up music by ear with the same amazing ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... have examined it well," added the entomologist, with an accent of deep regret. "I have not been able to ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... own souls furnish tune, sweet or sorrowful, inspiriting or saddening, as we will. It is a curious experiment to try repeating or chanting lines in time and cadence following the patter of raindrops on windows. It will sometimes be startling in its effect: no metre, no accent fails of its response in the low, liquid stroke of the tender drops,—there seems an uncanny rapport ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Newman has been greatly interested in translating into Greek, English verses "to test the possibility of retaining any Greek accent such as the books mark in singing." He has tried translating "Flow on, thou shining river" in Greek, so that it might be sung to Moore's own tune. One does not come across in his letters much reference to music, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... trace of the hallowing marks of time; it suggests rather the very architecture he takes so savage a pleasure in denouncing—a kind of mock Gothic mind, an Early Doulton personality. He has a thin voice, rather husky, and a recent accent. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... ballads, those songs which you sing so exquisitely, or rather some you do not sing, and which will be fresher to you. My German is far from perfect, but I am told it is passable, and Fraeulein Mueller can throw her scissors at me when my accent is too dreadful.' ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... us sincere pleasure. You must not refuse us. Your looks, as well as your prowess, prove your blood; and we are quite sure no cloth-merchant's order will suffer by your not hurrying to your proposed point of destination. We are not wrong, we think, though your accent is good, in supposing that we are conversing with an English ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... lands: and then as one Reproaching deeds never to be undone With wondering self-compassion; then his speech 290 Was lost in grief, and then his words came each Unmodulated, cold, expressionless,— But that from one jarred accent you might guess It was despair made them so uniform: And all the while the loud and gusty storm 295 Hissed through the window, and we stood behind Stealing his accents from the envious wind Unseen. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... habitant, and settled down to forget his own country and his father's house. But every visible trace of this infusion of new blood had vanished long ago, except the name; and the name itself was transformed on the lips of the St. Geromians. If you had heard them speak it in their pleasant droning accent,—"Patrique Moullarque,"—you would have supposed that it was made in France. To have a guide with such a name as that was as good as ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... of the father of Genghis Khan is a word which can not be pronounced exactly in English. It sounded something like this, Yezonkai Behadr, with the accent on the last syllable, Behadr, and the a sounded like a in hark. This is as near as we can come to it; but the name, as it was really pronounced by the Mongul people, can not be written in English letters nor spoken with ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... and Mary, had likewise been highly educated, that is to say, they had remained so many years at an English seminary for young ladies, and had been given a final twelve months in France and Germany to enable them to obtain "the correct accent." ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... when Mrs. Vrain became excited she usually spoke plain English, without the U. S. A. accent, but on growing calmer, and, as it were, recollecting herself, she adopted the Yankee twang and their curious style of expression and ejaculation. This led him to suspect that the fair Lydia was not ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... length and height no way remarkable, but very well suited to his other features; his cheeks not very prominent; his mouth moderately large, and his chin rather a little inclining (when I knew him) to be peaked. He had a strong voice and lively accent, with an air very intrepid, yet attempered with much gentleness. There was something in his manner of address most perfectly easy and obliging, which was in great measure the result of the great candour and benevolence of his natural temper, and ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... with Sir Thomas Maitland, High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands—King Tom, as he was called—who frequently took passage in the Larne. King Tom knew every inch of the Mediterranean, and was a terror to the officers of the watch. He would come on deck at night; and with his broad Scots accent, "Well, sir," he would say, "what depth of water have ye? Well, now, sound; and ye'll just find so or so many fathoms," as the case might be; and the obnoxious passenger was generally right. On one occasion, as the ship was going into Corfu, Sir ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dining-room and sitting-room combined, and where on a couch lay a girl a year or two older than Ruth. The great dark eyes, looking out of the palest face Ruth had ever seen, lighted up with joy, and a flashing smile disclosed faultless teeth as the girl said with an accent even more marked than Mrs. Perrier's, "It ees my angel of mercy come again. I ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... Renovales could never tell how the quarrel began. The most insignificant word on his part, the expression of his face, silence even, was all that was needed to bring on the storm. Josephina began to speak with a taunting accent that made her words cut like cold steel. She found fault with the painter for what he did and what he did not do, for his most trifling habits, for what he painted, and presently, extending the radius ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... said Horace laughing, for indeed he spoke French with a fine English accent and idiom. "Let me hear you. Where ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... accent of Obrazetz fell upon Anastasia's heart like a drop of molten pitch. She seemed to be summoned before the dreadful judgment-seat of Christ, to hear her father's curse, and her own eternal doom. She could restrain herself no longer, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... that the "Madchen" bounced off with a face of scarlet, and a "Sir, you are no gentleman— that's what you arn't!" The German thrust his head out of the arbour, and followed her with a loud laugh; then drawing himself in again, he said in quite another accent, and in excellent English, "There, Master Philip, we have got rid of the girl for the rest of the morning, and that's exactly what I wanted to do—women's wits are confoundedly sharp. Well, did I not tell you right, we have baffled all ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... indomitable now. Suddenly she had one of those rare moments when the wall is so strengthened by a feeling of worthy purpose that it becomes tremendous, and everything opposed to it seems as good as vanquished. It was with an accent of ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... with the French language stood him in rare stead, and this undoubtedly represented an asset to the country during the period that he was War Minister. His actual phraseology and his accent might peradventure not have been accounted quite faultless on the boulevards; but he was wonderfully fluent, he never by any chance paused for a word, and he always appeared to be perfectly familiar with those happy little turns of speech to which the Gallic ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... looked at her for some time, Bernard Grandin replied with a jocular accent of sincere conviction: "You may well call her beautiful." "How old do you think she is?" "Wait a moment. I can tell you exactly, for I have known her since she was a child, and I saw her make her debut into ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... bearing of one who has commanded a regiment or perhaps a brigade. Altogether an attractive person, scholarly, refined has some accomplishments not so common as they might be in the class we call gentlemen, with an accent on ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... remarked weightily, but in a rather peculiar tone. He spoke English with the accent of our captain's "wonderful people," and proceeded to give me the history of the family's crossing the Atlantic in a White Star liner. They remained in England just the time necessary for a railway journey from Liverpool to Harwich. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... of the phrase, "broad" forms of utterance, are not dialects at all, having nothing dialectic in them; and all phrases developed in states of rude employment, and restricted intercourse, are injurious to the tone and narrowing to the power of the language they affect. Mere breadth of accent does not spoil a dialect as long as the speakers are men of varied idea and good intelligence; but the moment the life is contracted by mining, millwork, or any oppressive and monotonous labor, the accents and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... This was given her by Leigh Hunt, just before his death, who had the records proving it to be genuine. The hair was, he said, like mine. He invited me to visit him in Florence, where he would show me the first edition of Milton's poems, marked to indicate the peculiar accent which the poet sometimes adopted, a knowledge of which makes clear somewhat that otherwise seems discordant. Milton was so great a musician that there could have been no fault in sound in his compositions. He looked over my ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... Dick answered, with the most insulting accent,—"a gentleman! Come, Elsie, you 've got the Dudley blood in your veins, and it does n't do for you to call this poor, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... for imagination,—for the mysterious, for the supernatural, for all the things you are trying to do, and which, I hope, you will succeed in doing. I'm not OBJECTING to imagination; on the contrary, I'd advise you to cultivate it, to accent it. Write a really good ghost story and we'd take it at once. Or"—he suggested it as an alternative to imagination—"or you might get inside life. It's ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... has a great deal of talent, and when she is able she shall have some lessons, for music is a comfort and a pleasure, sick or well," answered Mrs. Minot, who had often admired the fresh voice, with its pretty accent. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Catherine wrote to her favorite at the time: "I am sorry that all the officers are raging about Paul Jones. I hope fervently that they will cease their mad complaints, for he is necessary to us." In 1792, long after the war in which Jones had played a part, Catherine said, with a different accent: "Ce Paul Jones etait une bien mauvaise tete." Certainly Jones's diplomacy, which was of a direct character, was not equal to his present situation, unfamiliar to him, and for success demanding conduct tortuous ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood
... surprising in Johnson's partaking a prejudice common enough from the days of his youth, when each people supposed itself to have been cheated by the Union, and Englishmen resented the advent of swarms of needy adventurers, talking with a strange accent and hanging together with honourable but vexatious persistence. Johnson was irritated by what was, after all, a natural defence against English prejudice. He declared that the Scotch were always ready ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... but with a decidedly foreign accent (which sounded very pleasant to me, more so as he had a very musical voice), and was a plain spoken man, one who called a spade a spade, and ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... accent of pain that made Jock cry, hugging him tighter. "There, never mind, Armie; I'll let you say all you like. I don't know what made me stop you, except that I'm a beast, and always have been one. I'd give anything not to have gone on playing the fool all my life, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... And converse such as rambling hazard finds; 340 Then he who many cities knew and many minds, And men once world-noised, now mere Ossian forms Of misty memory, bade them live anew As when they shared earth's manifold delight, In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture true, And, with an accent heightening as he warms, Would stop forgetful of the shortening night, Drop my confining arm, and pour profuse Much worldly wisdom kept for others' use, Not for his own, for he was rash and free, 350 His purse or knowledge all men's, like the sea. Still can I hear his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... French term the beau monde, there are little traits that reveal those who have entered it,—certain tricks of phrase, certain modes of expression,—even the pronunciation of familiar words, even the modulation of an accent. A man of the most refined bearing may not have these peculiarities; a man, otherwise coarse and brusque in his manner, may. The slang of the beau monde is quite apart from the code of high breeding. Now and then, something in Waife's talk seemed to show that he ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... until this hour have I truly enjoyed the prayers of any padre; I knew not what I missed. Still there is limit even to such pleasure, and it is time now to conclude; I have heard better Latin in my day, while your provincial accent ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... detect the rhythmical faults of the poem, even in these passages. But there is a vast difference between such blemishes of the unrhymed heroic measure as terminating a line with "and," "of," or "but," or inattention to the caesural pauses, and that mathematical precision of foot and accent, which, after all, can scarcely be distinguished from prose. Whatever may be his shortcomings, Mr. Heavysege speaks in the dialect of poetry. Only rarely he drops into bald prose, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... kept this music in a case, and carried the key to the case in his pocket. On rare occasions he had shown bits of this music to Sebastian, who read music like print when it is easy. The boy devoured all the music he could lay his hands on, and hummed it over to himself until every note and accent was fixed in his memory. He dearly wanted to examine that music in the locked-up case, but his brother declared his ambition nonsense—he was too young. But the boy contrived a way to pick the lock—for a music-lover laughs at locksmiths—and at night when all the household ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... think of him in his prime, as he stood on the Hoe of Plymouth twenty years before, a gallant figure of a man, bedizened with precious stones, velvets, and embroidered damasks, shouting his commands to his captains in a strong Devonshire accent. We think of him resolutely gazing westward always, with the light of the sea ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... joined Philippe at the terrace-door and they heard Captain Daspry repeating in a low voice, with an accent ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... all over again? He was not the kind of man, Ganz, to interest the Guy Matthews who had gone to Dizful. But it was the Guy Matthews who came back from Dizful who didn't like Ganz's name or Ganz's good enough accent. Nevertheless he yielded to Ganz's insistence, when they reached the office and the money-bag had been restored to its normal portliness, that the traveler should step into the house to rest and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he replied, respectfully applying the spade handle to his hair, which was combed down to his eyebrows. "Your ladyship does me proud to take refuge from the onclemency of the yallovrments beneath my 'umble rooftree." His accent was barbarous; and he, like a low comedian, seemed to relish its vulgarity. As he spoke he came in among them for shelter, and propped his spade against the wall of the chalet, kicking the soil from his hobnailed blucher boots, which ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... baskets full of maize. In this state, the ships lay at anchor, with their men loafing on deck with their tobacco, bidding the "yellow and red" parrots to say "Damn," or "Pretty Polly," or other ribaldry. But before any parrot could have lost his Spanish accent, the pirates were called from their lessons by the sight of seven Spanish warships, under all sail, coming up to the river-bar from La Vera Cruz. Their ports were up, and their guns were run out, and they were not a mile away when the pirates ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... we hear, so far as I remember, nowhere else in the French literature of the eighteenth century. There is a certain accent of Bossuet in it; it is still more like the note which a group of English poets were striking. It may really seem to us an extraordinary coincidence that the "Eloge" on Hippolyte de Seyres should belong to the very same ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... Joseph," and "Master Joseph" I remained until I embraced the old chap the last time I saw him before he died. It was from Tom Kennedy that I first learnt English, mixed with the broad Aberdeen-Scots, which when combined with my Spanish accent was practically a ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... not appreciably reassured. Then a dapper, youngish man with a carnation in his buttonhole stepped neatly into the room, and greeted Bishop in a marked American accent. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... black insects at the bottom of a pit. Suddenly a stumpy little man mounted the tribune. He looked as if he were carrying a sack of coals on his back. He threw out his arms and clenched his fists. By Jove, he was comical! He had a Southern accent, and his delivery was full of defects. He spoke of the workers, of the proletariat, of social justice. It was magnificent; his voice, his gestures gripped one's very bowels; the applause nearly brought the house down. I said to myself "What he is doing, I'll do on the stage, and I'll ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France |
